The Raccoon Who Lost Their Shape

People have told millions of stories over the course of the millennia, but we’re nowhere close to running out anytime soon. Hence, there are always going to be new writers and new stories to be told, which is true for movies, books and video games alike. Granted, some of the general themes and ideas have already started to repeat themselves, but the journey is always different.

The Raccoon Who Lost Their Shape is a very interesting short game in which you play the role of a raccoon making a living in a strange world. The actual game is a combination of adventure and visual novel elements, because although there’s not a lot of interaction involved, you still get to move freely around the environment, which is also quite tight and featureless anyway.

However, nothing else should matter as much after you hear the premise of the story. Thus, you are a raccoon that can contact the spirit of dead shape people and transmit messages between them and the living world. Shape people are actually just shapes with faces, such as triangles, hexagons and even circles, so it’s a pretty weird situation. However, the weirdness gets much easier to accept along the way.

One of the best things about the game is the dialog and the way you interact with the other characters. The raccoon can either be a pleasant host and answer politely to every query, or he can just let his apathy show with every sentence he utters. It’s all up to you, although the story seems to stay the same regardless of how cranky you decide to be.

The rest of the game is pretty basic, especially when it comes to graphics and level design. While the visual style is quite good and expressive, the environments could have used a bit more detail, especially since they never really change. Thankfully, at least the character design is top-notch, even if the pixels are huge and make it difficult to include too much detail.

All things considered, The Raccoon Who Lost Their Shape is much better than it appears at first, especially thanks to the dialog and the overall story quality. It also features a few intriguing ideas, lore-wise.