There’s a whole lot more to learn about how Rain World works, but I’ve already said too much. Each life, or hibernation cycle, is timed: if you don’t get anywhere meaningful in the allotted time, such as another hibernation chamber (for which you’ll need to be well fed for), then you’re buggered.

As the name implies, there’s rain in this game, and like virtually every other damn thing in Rain World, it kills you. Oh, and the reason you can only hibernate in chambers is because they’re waterproof. This process is agonising, but I won’t spoil why. Seasons work like a ladder: hibernate without dying, and you’ll move up. These chambers are infrequent, with each rest cycling to a different season in-world.

Hibernating can only be done in hibernation chambers, and one must have at least four units of food in order to use them. As a slugcat you’re close to the bottom of the food chain, but not rock bottom: you’ll need to eat bats to survive, or more accurately, eat in order to hibernate. There’s little exposition: you’re the aforementioned slugcat, wrestled away from its family and plunged into a decayed urban dreamscape plagued with erratic, free-roaming monstrosities that want to eat you. There are traces of other games’ DNA, such as the original Dark Souls’ bonfire system and the roaming, improvisational foes of Alien: Isolation, but Rain World stands apart as one of the most alienating and difficult games in recent memory, previously mentioned company included. It’s a platformer and a survival game, but neither of those categories are a neat fit for Rain World’s peculiar brand of misery. You’re not punching trees to build abodes, you’re not meeting warring survivor factions and buddying up, you’re not grinding for a nice pair of trousers. Except in Rain World you’re a slugcat (a cat that is also a slug), and the apocalypse it must endure is among the bleakest and most punishing I’ve ever experienced. Wild vegetation grows from mysterious structures, the skeletons of skyscrapers scratch a leaden grey sky, and living is neither convenient nor fun. Rain World looks to be set in a fairly commonplace videogame post-apocalypse at first.

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