Outside Parties is the most dangerous Playdate game to date, and I like to freak out
Never underestimate the cold power of a gray image and soothing sounds. Except for Parties he asks, “If I am a spybut in a strange hell?”, and it’s not incredibly scary despite the fact that nothing really happens at any point. It’s atmospheric, to great effect. This is the Playdate horror game I’ve been waiting for.
Adams Immersive Photography Except for Parties it’s a kind of scavenger hunt in a giant picture of a place called the Outside, which can only be visited by stargazers, according to history. Much is unknown about its exact whereabouts, although explorers have mapped it in detail on out-of-body journeys and encountered thousands of different entities there, including the spirits of the dead. As a player, you encountered the Hellscryer K5 – a communication device, a psychic camera and a recorder used for this journey – and now you assemble the logs of the machine, you discover the mystery of it all. Think of K5 as your Playdate, except powered by blood and runes.
In the middle of Except for Parties it’s a 1.44 gigapixel, 360-degree panoramic HDR image with dozens of terrifying scenes hidden within it: skeletons of human, animal and paranormal origin; scary images with arrows and magical symbols written around them; what appear to be fountains and rivers of blood; the Stonehenge of teeth. These are the targets you are meant to track down, and as you hone in and cross them out of your list, the voice signals attached to each one will reveal more of the story of the examiner’s spelling.
But this is not a straightforward “find the object” puzzle game by any means. When you first look at the zoomed-in image, it looks like a static TV line with large shaded areas throughout. You can zoom up to 64 times to get a better view of certain areas, but you also have to adjust the brightness of the image using the crank to improve the clarity of the objects. Lightening or darkening will bring out more in certain areas while simultaneously hiding others. There are 150 targets according to the developer, which should take players somewhere from 10-20 hours to complete. I’ve been at it for hours and still have a lot left to get. (If you’re stuck, you can turn to the helpful target search page, which provides strategies with varying levels of specificity.)
All the while you’re holding your Playdate, laser-focused on the screen to find a target buried in a sea of fuzz, fuzzy audio streaming in and out, distracting images flashing on the screen at random and the wind playing in your ear. The sound design of this game is outstanding — it’s worth playing for that alone, not to mention the other goodies. From the home page to menus where you’ll find bits of backstory, to scary clips of people crying and saying scary numbers, sounds Except for Parties for an immersive, immersive experience that I never thought was possible with Playdate. It’s a really special thing.
Except for Parties it also comes with a screensaver that makes me long for the Playdate Stereo Dock again. Step into the Void Monitor, stay curled up, and enjoy the horrors and sounds of the Outer Space.
