Mundaun (2021)

Mundaun is one of those games I don’t particularly love but am really glad it exists. It’s a visual breath of fresh air amongst so many samey-looking titles and it works around clear budget constraints to deliver something that seems, and often sounds, unique. Despite some problems with the graphical output, which sometimes makes it hard to discern through your surroundings, its hand-drawn art style is simply gorgeous, often feeling like a haunting, dry animated version of a David Lynch story. Equally haunting is its soundscape, making stellar use of music and sounds to create something that often comes across as truly unsettling, almost claustrophobic. This is further aided by things like the fantastic voice acting (which works remarkably well with the Romansh language spoken in the game) and smaller, yet original touches like every painting having a specific sound and feel associated to them.

This, I appreciate, is high praise for a game that, right off the bat, I said I didn’t love. And that’s just because I wanted to bring out the good first. The fact is, for its unique, almost hypnotic tone, there is a bit of jank at play here, most noticeably so in the movement and interactivity with the environment. It’s by no means a dealbreaker, but when you add to it things like unnecessary backtracking, a frustratingly draggy final act, a story whose heights are reached before its actual conclusion, and the fact that the game is sometimes so cryptic that it barely gives you anything to work with, the whole picture begins to change.

Mundaun was developed by an incredibly small team, so it’s hard to dwell on its flaws. I can’t deny that these did remove some of the enjoyment for me. But at the very least, the breath of audiovisual uniqueness at play here is awesome, and I’m sure the whole package will definitely resonate with someone in a way I had hoped would resonate with me, even if, ultimately, it didn’t. 7/10