I remember the existential dread of finishing high school. Even though those weren't exactly my golden years (I haven't even begun to peak) my little friend group of oddballs was very precious to me, and in my 17 short years I couldn't imagine what my life would be like without them. The adults in my life who dragged me to college visits and ACT prep classes seemed way more concerned about my future than I did. All I really wanted to do during my senior year is watch Jerry Springer reruns with my friends, play Left 4 Dead, and pretend my life wasn't about to change.
Goodbye Volcano High is all about the halcyon days of senior year - though at first blush you might not know what to expect. It looks like a mid-00s webtoon - which should be read as a compliment - and stars a cast of anthropomorphic dinosaur people. The lead and player character is Fang, a non-binary musician that cares a lot more about getting into the Battle of the Bands with their friends than planning for their future. I am neither a dinosaur nor non-binary, but I was in a ska band and never wanted to have a single conversation about college applications, so I idenꦏtified with Fang instantly.
The game is mostly just like watching a cartoon with frequent pauses to make dialogue choices, and though it isn't the most interactive game it still ended up being one of the most engaging I played at PAX last weekend. All of the people in Fang's life feel like someone I either knew or was at that age, and I found the whole experience evocative in a way that was both powerful and a little disturbing. As I watched Fang nerd out with their friends over music, deal with adults that don't understand what they're going through, and utterly fail to communicate their complicated feelings to the people that care about them, I just kept thinking that I don't want to think about all of this stuff right now, but maybe I need to.
Coming-of-age stuff tends to hit pretty shallow and contrived for me, but there's something special about the way Goodbye Volcano High approaches adolescent angst. It's tender and nostalgic, but it also treats its themes with the world-ending weight they deserve. I've only played about 20 minutes but it managed to throw me back into my teens in less than half that time. I'm kind of mad about it, if I'm being honest, but I want more.
Goodbye Volcano High has an original soundtrack written by Montreal-based artist Dabu, who also composed the score for Dwarf Fortress. I loved the one song I've heard so far, which has an ethereal, dream pop vibe that reminds me exactly of the kind of thing I would listen to so girls thought I was contemplative in high school. At the risk of sounding ancient I'll reference M83, The Cults, and Arcade Fire for similar sounds. The rhythm game mechanics are slightly obtuse. I expected them to line up with specific notes in the song, but other than some controller rumble I sometimes felt like I wasn't getting any kind of feedback from making correct inputs, to the point where I wasn't sure I was even doing it right.
The demo I played was a little rough around the edges, and I'm hoping to see a more polished version when it launches in June. Some of the audio editing made the dialogue feel poorly timed, with characters almost speaking over each other or leaving pauses that were too long between lines. Similarly, there was some weird jittering between cuts and stalls in the animation that made me think it was going out of sync on occasion. It's a little more Newgrounds than Cartoon Network at this point, but it is just a preview.
I try to keep an open-mind to most genres, but I've never been too impressed with any visual novels or rhythm games I've played in the past. Goodbye Volcano High demonstrates a level of honesty and sincerity that's rare in game writing, and I'm pleasantly surprised about the impact it's already made on me. I'm very concerned that all of the dinosaur people are going to get wiped out by a meteor at the end, which has the potential to utterly devastate me in a way I'm not sure I really need right now, but I've already decided I'm down for the ride no matter how it turns out. All I know is that if there's a ska kid at the Battle of the Bands with bad hair that doesn't know how to start or end conversations, I'm done for.