Canabalt from the blue
When I was a competitive long-distance runner at school, breath control was paramount.
We were never really taught this, mind.
All this, plus various daft psychological war gambits of my own devising.
Fail to do so, and you’ll perish within seconds.
Now, try doing all that while remembering to inhale and exhale.
It’s more of a painstakingly weird exploration of a historical moment than a statement.
Again, the cops don’t seem to respire.
In requiring you to do so manually, the game turns breathing into your disability.
Mask Quest really teaches you to hate cops.
Others stand there shooting monotonously in either direction.
Some hurl gas grenades that lock you spluttering in place if you take a stab at inhale.
Your only means of fighting back is the air in your lungs.
Puffing furiously at drones and statues looks very silly, of course.
In general, Mask Quest walks a razor-thin line with its humour.
The writing is ridiculous: protestors shout things like “no U”.
But the scruffy comedy never hides the ugliness.
It’s of a piece with the unfairness.
You are the butt of every joke.
The cleverness of the game’s level design is as double-edged as the humour.
Later levels are pleasingly abstract, all but discarding the city backdrop.
You’ll use those pachinko riot shields to soar over gas clouds and suck in a lungful of sky.
But I’m not sure the aim here is really to add another tool to the game design repertoire.
Again, Mask Quest is punitive: I have died hundreds of times while playing it.
