![]() ![]() Prison sirens and lights then begin to go amok as he speaks into the receiver, “The cow jumped over the moon.” ![]() Strawberry-alarming the warden-before changing his mind and punching a shitload of digits. ![]() ![]() Later, he gets his one phone call where he teases that he will call a Mr. That’s good,” Bad Coop reassures himself in the present. Though you’re burning your belongings and erasing your connection to both the superficial and the past, you’re also in a mode of permanent ascent – climbing higher and further than you ever have before, a revelation that refocuses your thoughts to the future rather than stalking the increasingly sprawling graveyard of past regret.īonfire Peaks imparts the sort of low-key, read-between-the-lines emotional storytelling that reminds me why I love indie games so much – unfettered as they are from the sort of cloying, indentikit focus group and shareholder driven development that all too often drains the colour, life and imagination from bigger budget fare that also seems to assume that everyone’s emotional intelligence is that of a crushed gnat.In prison, Bad Coop (Kyle MacLachlan), observing his reflection, flashes back a quarter of a century to The Great Northern Hotel where he had smashed his head into his bathroom mirror, and there was creepy BOB (Frank Silva) sneering back at him. Ultimately then, the tale that Bonfire Peaks wishes to impart is seemingly an optimistic one. Sure enough it isn’t the most technically accomplished title on PS5, but it’s style remains opulent and stuffed with charm all the same. Is it any wonder that like the other elements of Bonfire Peaks roundly impressive offering that it excels in entrancing the senses? Visually, Bonfire Peaks makes ample use of its voxel design – allowing it to affect a much more solid appearance that beautifully underscores its expressionist diorama realms in a way that it is both eye-opening and warmly charming. With each level taking between one and thirty minutes depending on your puzzle solving acumen, frequent saves after each level and an overall game length of about ten hours or so, Bonfire Peaks is that rare sort of engaging curio that absolutely enraptures you when you’re playing, but is also sufficiently respectful of your own time to let you hop in and out as you please. It also doesn’t hurt at all that Bonfire Peaks isn’t an especially long offering either – because quite simply it has no need to be. As such, Bonfire Peaks feels like it treats the player as a fully functioning, nuance seeking adult and in doing so, forces me to confront the somewhat joyless fact that so few other games actually seem inclined to do the same in comparison. For example, you soon realise that while you can turn on the spot easily enough, attempting to do so with a crate in hand causes your turning circle to extend by one tile (or more depending on the size of the item) – forcing you to factor that in when attempting to conquer not just that level, but also future levels that will interweave these newly discovered techniques into its confounding tapestry of puzzles.īonfire Peaks is superb at this – the streamlined puzzles are such that it never feels aimless or condescending but rather that you’re being taught new tricks, mechanics and methods without really knowing it. Movement is controlled in quite a regimented and precise fashion, as our melancholic protagonist can be directed to turn and move in a tile based fashion, with one step taking him across one tile on the map, while ascension to new platforms is permitted on the assumption that you’re attempting to do on steps that are no taller in one tile.Įach of the conundrums that are housed within these dioramas test those basic rules in a number of increasingly clever ways that always seem like a natural extension of things that you already know. The other main area of the game that you’ll spend the majority of the game scratching your head and whooping like a delirious elf when you finally solve that puzzle that has been troubling you for hours, are the individual levels themselves.Įssentially self-contained dioramas, the goal in these isolated stages is always the same ascend to the top with your crate of personal belongings and cast them into the waiting fire. You have the overworld map in which you must ascend those titular peaks, but to do so you must complete each of the levels along the way as the reward for doing so is often a special set of crates that allow you to reach previously inaccessible areas on the mountain. Bonfire Peaks effectively splits itself between two realms of agency. ![]()
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