You can’t help being immediately charmed by 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Harold Halibut’s stop-animation-style graphics. Develop𝔍er Slow Bros has created everything you see in the game in real life, constructing teeny tiny items in minute detail, and stitching, welding, and painting models, puppets, and scenery to create a whole new world. All of these were then 3D-scanned into a computer so they could be used as in-game assets to create a story-focused adventure game that stands out from the crowd.

While there would have undoubtedly been 𝔍some digital tweaks and touch-ups, I admire the team embracing such imperfections. There’s ♚character and personality to be found in the flaws, so when you notice a character’s hair paint isn’t impossibly perfect, you celebrate it. It all adds to that hand-made aesthetic.

I previewed the first two chapters, and utterly fell in love with this short snippet of the full game. You take control of Harold, a lab assistant on a spaceship that is stranded at the bottom 𒉰of an alien sea. As Harold, you find yourself not only dealing with day-to-day tasks but trying to solve the not-insignificant issue of relaunching the Fedora while also finding friendship in unlikely places. No biggie. It doesn’t seem like a spoiler to say that Harold meets an alien, as it’s plastered on the Steam page header, so let’s just say by the close of the second chapter, I was left anticipating what Harold would discover next.

But the real star here is the graphics. The stop-motion style made me feel incredibly nostalgic, reminding me of the weird and wonderful stop-motion productions I grew up with, such as The Clangers, The Trap Door, Pingu, and let’s not forget Shakespeare: The Animated Tales. Stop motion was so muc❀h more common back then because we just didn’t have the technical capabilitie𝓀s to make the amazing visual techniques we now take for granted.

Stop-motion felt particularly exciting as a kid be💯cause anyone could do it. You could grab your family camcorder and try your hand at stop-motion, usually with some garbled mess of plasticine characters you made, and then force your parents to watch your directorial debut of squashed models and janky scene changes. Harold Halibut made all those memories come flooding back.

It’s not just the visuals that speak to my childhood, it’s everything. The world of Harold Halibut feels peak ‘80s-’90s, and I don’t mean that in a bad way. I loved it. It’s a retro imagining of the future, where space suits look dorky, TVs are still big hunks of junk, and the technology is rather simple despite space travel capabilities and being set on a whole new planet. In particular, Slippie is the ‘80sꦑ personified with his gilet, stuck-up collar, and retro hairstyle, peddling his daft wares with cliché TV ads and cheesy lines.

I encountered a few bugs and glitches, normally where Harold would get a little stuck and I couldn&rsqu🍸o;t continue, but a quick reload—which never set you back far—never felt that painful. I imagine this will be addressed in a pre-launch or launch-day patౠch, and despite it happening a few times, it really didn’t sour my overall experience. It feels in keeping with the retro quirkiness, if anything.

Harold Halibut is both comforting and eerie, but in a good way. It manages to balance that fine line of wholesome charm with enough mystery to unsettle you just a little to keep you invested. I don’t want t𓂃o undersell the story or 🐬gameplay, because I am enjoying both, but the stop-motion style is what really elevates Harold Halibut to a whole new level.

It’s exciting to consider what else games could do in the future by adopting a similar approach, as I’d love to see more stop-motion in games. All too often we see big triple-A games chasing realistic graphics and trying to forever finetune them to be as natural and perfect as possible. It’s refreshing to play something that intentionally eschews the industry's trend towards realism, and in doing so, creates something unique and unforgettable.