Circadian Preview: Single Pixel-based MOTHER (PC Demo)

    (I know the horror movie references really good, huh?)

    As the conclusion for my arbitrary Steam-free month, I'm looking at a game I saw among my Twitter replies/likes. It's also another game in development, like Super Lesbian Animal RPG, but this one is probably one no one's heard of yet. Of course, I'm saying that when I was just showing people an RPG with furry characters and strong LGBT themes (which now has a stat on save files for how many times Melody and Alison have kissed that file.) Today's game is the MOTHER-'em-up Circadian, by Jeff Brooks! (demo) (main website)

DAAAAAAAA-DA-DA-DADA-DADAAAAA! ...What do you mean "wrong song"?

    The game starts you off with your character named Jeffo (who may or may not be a self-insert) finishing up one last day of internship converting code with his buddy Malachi. As Malachi heads home, you finish up your work by activating a weird machine upstairs, and all hell breaks loose. Now it's up to Jeffo, Malachi, Eevie, and Aaron, who looks like a very buff Angry Video Game Nerd, to solve the mystery and maybe save the world. It doesn't give much information on what's happening, but the website has a bit of a better description:

When the circadian sleep cycles of all creatures are interrupted, strange things start to happen in a small town. A group of young adults work together to solve a mystery while the whole world unravels around them. Unlock the secrets of the Unrest Rhythm, saving those you love, and possibly the entire world.

    Now, I have very little clue what a circadian sleep cycle is, even after looking at the Wikipedia page, but I do have a couple of questions. Would interrupting a sleep cycle require everyone to be asleep at the same time? Is interrupting the sleep of a ton of people really that devastating? Am I overthinking this?

Damn, James. You've really been hitting the weights since I last saw your videos.

    The gameplay will be imminently recognizable to anyone who's played EarthBound/MOTHER 2. You move around the map with the arrows or WASD and check the menu with escape. While walking around, you can see enemies also moving around. Bumping into them initiates a fight, although sprite facing doesn't affect combat initiative like it does in EarthBound or MOTHER 3. In combat, you beat up your foes and use Brain Power (BP) to use what I assume are either spells or psychic abilities. There's also a limit break thing, where taking damage fills up a bar that lets characters use Chemical Overload A to damage all foes. I assume it means ɑ, the symbol for alpha. I make that assumption for one very good reason.
    This game is extremely inspired by EarthBound. It's less a case of wearing one's influences on one's sleeve, and more a case of having EarthBound-themed tattoos all over your body. Normally I don't mind games that take inspiration from famous games like EarthBound (like the LISA RPGs, Undertale, and Toby Fox's Halloween Hack,) but here it doesn't sit as well. There are just so many similarities to EarthBound! The first town has a gang of animal-themed punks that use an arcade as their base. Battles start with the grey swirl effect and have rolling HP/BP meters. A remixed version of the MOTHER 'do-do-do-do' jingle plays when someone gets a status affliction. The list is pretty damn long. I obviously love EarthBound and the MOTHER series as a whole, but when it's used so much in this game, it feels a bit like a creative crutch.

Don't worry, buddy. You don't need to remind me of the EarthBound influences. I just have to look at Jeffo's striped shirt.

    One big thing that irked me a good deal is how little direction the demo gives. After a linear section where you go to your apartment building and wind up escaping through the sewers, you enter 'Olive Mountain Metro.'  It's a town that's pretty damn big, has lots of non-distinct buildings, and the only distinct buildings have little to no purpose. You also get very little direction as to where you're supposed to go, so you'll be checking every generic building hoping to find the one that'll progress the demo, all the while dealing with random encounters. To help you out, I give you the Unofficial Circadian Demo Guide! This should help you figure out where to go after escaping the sewers. To anyone else playing this demo, you're welcome.

• When you exit the sewers, you'll be just below Malachi and Eevie's homes. Chat them up and loot their houses.
• Go to about the lower-central point in town and check the brick building. If you see the Mini Barfs slime enemy sprites, you've gone too far and should go south-southwest.
• Check the whiteboard and the paper. Hear the remix of EarthBound's ominous-sounding 'do-do-do-do-do' tone.

That wasn't my question. My question is "Why do you look so blocky? Unfinished, even?"

• Go back to Malachi's pad in the NW and talk to him. He'll finally join you and suggest checking out the lab again.
• Go back to the lab. Check the leftmost drawers. They're now open and give you a key.
• Go a decent ways south from Malachi and Eevie's homes and enter the log house. It's the one right next to the police station with a couple Enraged Bees outside.
• Mess around inside a bit, and try to leave. Answer the phone, say yes to the caller. You're told to go to the mountains up north, but first...
• Go to Eevie's house and talk to her. She'll join you now. With her in your party, you can go to Olive Mountain.
• Head to Olive Mountain. The building that leads there is in the NE part of the map. There's a path there behind Eevie's house.
• Check around on Olive Mountain. You want to check out the manholes, the metal doors, and the grave. It's now worth mentioning that you can jump straight down from certain areas by pressing Enter.
• Go back to town. Enter the little blue shack east-southeast of the police station. It's now open. There is no indication of this now being where you need to go or that you need to go here.
• Recruit James Rolfe Aaron. The game doesn't tell you, but that's as far as you can get in the demo. You might be looking for a hard ending, but there is none. Don't waste time looking.

    There are a good deal of enemies in the demo. They generally looked pretty nice and had some catchy tunes (although the theme from the Living Sludge enemy sounded like something from the game 10,000,000.) However, most of them felt pretty samey. For example, there are about seven enemies that share the raccoon sprite when wandering around. These enemies are:

• A raccoon. The ones that represent this enemy have green sparkles on them while walking around, but only in the town and sewer area. I tweeted out why, and I'm told apparently it's to show they're smelly. Not the effect I'd use to show stench, but okay. 
• A crab pirate.
• An overly patriotic eagle.
• A boxing frog that reminds me a bit of Ribby or Croaks from Cuphead.
• A mole.
• A garden rat. So a different mole?
• A duck. It's unique in that it can somehow put a character to sleep with a shrieking noise. I thought it'd do the opposite.

Pictured: The most unique random encounter in the demo. Also note how the limit break bars are on the right of the status window. Jeffo's is currently being blocked right now.

    So that's seven different enemies, with only two kinds if you don't count mild stat changes: basic attacking, and one that can inflict sleep. Counting the other kinds of enemies, there's about 18 enemies you can find in the Olive Mountain Metro area! Seven types of enemies in one area is a lot, but 18? That's a real case of over-saturation right there, in my opinion.
    Speaking of being samey, the characters you get feel pretty similar. Everyone of the party members in the game uses not-PSI, and in the demo they all tend have the same two types: an attack ability that hits one foe (or both at B/β level) and a single-target heal. The skills have different names (Brain Pain, Knife Frenzy, and Mind Squeeze) and BP costs, but they're still the same skills. Malachi is the only one that feels slightly unique due to having a party heal. The characters all also share the same Limit Break-style ability (Chemical Overload A/ɑ.) I assumed Jeffo had that ability as a side effect from his tutorial battle with some malevolent chemical beakers, but since everyone has that ability, I can't really be certain
    Going with more inevitable comparisons, the MOTHER series has a variety of character types. Even the non-PSI-users are able to stand out with their own abilities, such as Duster's Thief Tools or Jeff's ability to utterly wreck most foes with bottle rockets. The PSI-users also stood out by having more varied PSI. EarthBound had Ness, who tended to act as healer/melee guy due to having access to every Lifeup PSI and somewhat lackluster offensive PSI, Paula, who was the Black Mage, and Poo, who acted as a middle-man between the two extremes with some unique PSI of his own.
    It's also worth pointing out that there's no dedicated status screen, a big sin in RPGs like this one. Because of this, there's no way to see your characters' levels or max HP/BP. It means you can often give your characters bacon cheeseburgers when all they needed was a bowl of fridge ramen. Thank goodness foes drop healing items so often that I ended the game with enough french fry bags to reenact the French Revolution, with my mouth playing the role of the guillotine.

The local hangout of the Sharks Jackrabbits. Ignore the rope. It doesn't lead anywhere. (Writer's tip: If you have multiple NPCs in the same area that share the same dialogue, consider removing a couple NPCs.)

    The Circadian demo didn't really manage to sell me on the final product. The demo doesn't really have much polish and it didn't help that there's no real 'ending' to the demo. The huge similarities to EarthBound also can be problematic since I can't help but compare and think about how certain features could be better. The key things I'd like to see in the game overall would be more polish, more uniqueness for the character and enemies, and maybe an attempt at finding its own identity. Next month I'll likely be going back to Steam, unless I find another game/demo that catches my eye.