Mandagon

Sometimes there’s nothing better than taking a walk in order to clear your mind and enjoy the world with its natural or man-made beauty. However, we now have the technology to take a walk in much more serene worlds, as well as leave our universe entirely in order to visit all sorts of fantasy realms. In the end, it’s all about giving our mind a rest and leaving trouble behind for a while.

Mandagon is a 2D platformer designed to help you reflect on life and explore a calming environment at the same time. Although you need to jump and make your way across the open map, the game is not as unforgiving as most platformers, which means that it should be fairly easy to enjoy the adventure and accomplish the mission at the same time.

The theme of the game is Tibetan philosophy, but you do not need to know anything about it, because it’s all about the journey. In essence, the main idea is sacrifice and how willing you are to make it when everything is at stake. Life and death are common themes as well, not to mention the fact that the whole action takes place in Bardo, which is the Tibetan word for limbo.

Besides having to jump from platform to platform, you also have to explore the buildings and collect the tablets that are hidden within. These tablets can then be used to activate various relics around the map, although the only implication of doing this is that you have to watch a short cutscene. Other than that, there’s no real story, only a lot of lore that can be found by examining totems and similar objects around the map.

Since the world is open to exploration, you have to learn how to orientate yourself. In fact, the map extends both horizontally and vertically, which means that you need to remember to go in every direction if you want to find a specific location. Speaking of which, the pixel art is simply stunning, because the landscapes are extremely beautiful and power, not to mention detailed.

In the end, Mandagon is quite short and unimpressive when it comes to story and the actual platforming, but the atmosphere, the soundtrack and the graphics make up for everything else. Hence, it’s a real pleasure to explore the map and just take in the view.