As a full-time software engineer and a lifelong video game hobbyist, an uncontrollable urge of curiosity washes over me when both aspects of my life collide. Not sure if it’s because I feel like these are products that are finely tuned for a person like me, or because there’s a subtle excitement to feel like I’m in some inner circle. The reason doesn’t actually matter; all you need to know is Backfirewall_ is a game catered towards nerds like me, so I played it. Overall, I thought the experience aged like fine wine the closer I got to the end, but ultimately, the game struggles to lock in a concrete identity outside of its main concept, and as a result, might have trouble landing with a general audience.
Backfirewall is a self-described “tragicomedy adventure” where you play as an Update Assistant (Elizabeth) on a smartphone who is helping the Operating Software (OS) escape being updated. In the process of helping this OS, you’ll solve puzzles and meet a wacky band of characters that own unique responsibilities that together keep the phone running. The premise was refreshing but oddly specific. Telling a comedic story from such a technical starting point is like opting to run a race barefoot because, in addition to selling the player on the general themes of your story, you also need to constantly worry about teaching them about computer and hardware concepts that serve as the core to so many jokes. So, given the enormous artificial challenge the team at Naraven gave themselves to conquer, how did they do?
All things considered, pretty well.
Given that I am what they probably see as the intended audience, I think the writing and delivery landed more often than not. Comedy is obviously subjective, so your mileage may vary, but for a game that was absolutely packed with jokes, I found myself smiling quite a bit. There was a lot of commentary around social media, aging hardware, corporate bureaucracy, and privacy that was all pretty amusing. I think much of that was aided by an extremely strong team of voice actors who killed their roles. It’s not often that smaller games like this can get such a large group of talent to voice the characters, and because they were able to do that, they went a long way in terms of selling the characters, their personalities, and their motivations.
That being said, I do think the story could be a bit overwhelming for someone a little more ignorant of software and hardware concepts. The game puts effort into teaching the player concepts by creating these visual metaphors within the game, but even I found it difficult to connect the dots sometimes. I definitely think the heavy technical jargon is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it is what makes this game stand apart and attracts a very specific audience, but on the other hand, it can bog down the story for those who are starting at technical ground zero.
As for the puzzles, I was a bit more lukewarm about them. The core concepts were cool, but I never felt like they reached that satisfying final form. I often found that the puzzles were too easy or a little too obtuse. I never really had that “aha!” moment. I either found a solution immediately, stumbled into it by accident, or took a while to find it and in the end said “Oh…that’s kinda weird”. While I do think this was the right genre to go with for the gameplay, I don’t think the game mechanics had enough time to marinate and develop like some of the best puzzle games allow. It was more of a hodgepodge of abilities that were used in ways that had no real obvious progression. I would have loved it if they cut maybe two of the total mechanics out, and instead found clever ways to evolve and use the remainder of the abilities together.
Another conflicting aspect of the game was the tone. I had no idea what age group Backfirewall_ was intended for. Early on, it seemed like this was a wholesome game that would make jokes while teaching you the inner workings of a smartphone. Later, towards the middle to end, things took a dark turn, and all of a sudden, there was a serious air around the story. Don’t get me wrong, I liked the tragic half of the “tragicomedy”, but going in blind, it almost seemed like two different writers worked on the first and second half of the game. Knowing how the game ended, I wish the beginning had gone for it a little more and had some darker or more mature jokes up front. By the end, when it all came together, I felt like it was a pretty satisfying story told, but it took pretty much the whole game to lock it in. After several hours with the O,S I had come to appreciate this character and the somewhat complicated sides to them, but I can’t say as much for most of the other characters. There were I few, like Health App, that I found pretty funny or interesting being in the moment, but most of them felt pretty forgettable.
The last aspect of the game I want to dive into is the accouterments, or essentially the set dressing. Some parts, as I mentioned with the voice acting, went a long way to take the game to the next level, while some I felt held the game back a little. I think the actual attention to detail at every level was fantastic. I loved the jokes hidden in the notes and environmental art found around the world. I love the recurring jokes that built up over time, like the ringing phone in each level. I haven’t mentioned it much in this review, but the music was also pretty great and enhanced some of the more exciting narrative moments of the game. What I wasn’t a big fan of were the general art style and character designs. There are a few exceptions to this, but overall, I felt like the abstract polygons didn’t really work for me. Felt more like a collection of general video game engine assets as opposed to a particular vision, which is unfortunate. I think a more unique or identifying visual element could have been the hook to get me invested early on.
I feel like I’ve been quite critical of Backfirewall_, but let me reiterate: I enjoyed it. I think the writing was strong enough overall to get a software engineer and computer science graduate like me giggling from time to time, and the ending had me unexpectedly scooting to the edge of my seat. I just think that the narrative and comedy do some extremely heavy lifting while the gameplay and visuals just kind of exist. That makes a game like this a pretty tough sell because I don’t think the broader audience, who wouldn’t immediately understand some of the technical inside jokes, would find much motivation to see the best moments of the game. For those like me, I think it’s worth checking out if you’re interested, but maybe not so much for an average Joe who accidentally discovered this game on Steam.
