GLOOMY JUNCTURE

Finding hope in seedy alleys and dive bars

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Filipe Rodrigues is keen to parade his influences even before you've laid eyes on his game. The splash screen for his one-person outfit, Subtales Studio, reimagines the iconic poster made by Saul Bass for Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo. And, as in that 1958 classic (plus the host of other thrillers and films noirs that have inspired him), the developer puts a protagonist struggling with his inner demons and an increasingly shaky grip on reality at the centre of a disorienting narrative. As Gloomy Juncture's nameless, alcoholic janitor, we plunge into a world of perpetual darkness, swirling fog and neon signs pointing to establishments of dubious repute. We hobnob with mafia enforcers and bar-stool philosophers, before becoming embroiled in a crime we know nothing about. But first, in an opening chapter that introduces the game's stoically pessimistic mood and magical-realist sensibilities, we have to figure out how to clean up some vomit to placate an overbearing boss and end our shift.