Anodyne

- January 12, 2014

Mature 17+

Arcade

( 508)

Description

Explore and fight your way through nature, urban and abstract themed areas in the human Young's subconscious, evoked by a 16-bit-era visual style and a moody, dream-like soundtrack.

Anodyne is a full-length adventure created by Sean Hogan (programming, music) and Jonathan Kittaka (artwork, writing), and is now available on your Android device. Explore The Land on your way to work, on the school bus, at the DMV - anywhere!

* Explore the subconscious of Young , and adventure through over 20 diverse areas.

* Features an original, 60+ minute soundtrack, to accompany the world of Anodyne.

* Featuring over 6 hours of gameplay, and NO IAPs! Buy the game once, play it forever.

* Extensive use of a household item.

Anodyne was an honorable mention in the 2013 Student Independent Games Festival awards, and received a spot in ESA's 2013 Student Showcase at the E3 Expo.

"The game's sound design is the strongest facilitator of Anodyne's sense of dread and unease; the ambience and music give off an air of suspicion and danger, with ugly chords and disquieting, unnatural-sounding synthetic pings. It all adds up to a game where you're not sure who to trust, and you can't be sure of what's real."

Sophie Prell, Penny Arcade Report

"Yet saying that Anodyne is a simple Zelda knockoff would be a mistake for a number of reasons, the most glaring of which is the substitution of a save-the-princess story for bizarre psychopomps and solipsistic explorations of the human condition."

Jared Rosen, Indie Statik

"Sean Hogan and Jonathan Kittaka have made magic with this game, creating a world that I could be afraid to enter but never want to leave...The locations are vibrant and detailed, going to all manner of different places...[the music] can take the visual mood and shift it into territory that pixel art shouldn't be able to inhabit...this has Game of the Year written all over it."

Joel Couture, Mash Those Buttons

Reviews

4.1

508 total

5 235

4 157

3 59

2 34

1 23

Chris Dawson

Exceptional rpg with Zelda homage This game is breath of fresh air on Android. Well thought out action rpg with Zelda like game play but with different atmosphere and weapons/puzzles. The variety of music and art really gives it a creepy feel. Only problem is control could be more precise. Really wish I could give five stars besides that fact. A steal at a buck.

Andre Craigwell

Art. Expression. Nostalgia. Awesome. Erm...control fix? Or is this a if its not absolutely broken like using a broom, case? I get it. I get the story, I think. "A man is most himself when he is not in his own skin."? Anyway, incredible, incredible gem once you understand what's going on. Wow. I would be willing to pay full price for this despite the controls really needing to be more friendly to one's fingers, then again, the broom makes me question. Late to the party but awesome game guys! Can't wait to get this on Steam, etc. and see more of what's next!

Herkimer Jones

Beauty beat by boss battle bummer I love the aesthetic and enjoyed playing until I reached the first boss battle. That kind of reflex gaming is not my cup of tea in general, and on a touchscreen it's terrible. I don't think I have the patience to fight the boss a zillion times, and it bites that that means I won't get to play through all the other areas.

Carl Bugbee

Memories... It's like if "Earthbound" and "Zelda: A link to the past" had a freaky lovechild, they'd then name it Anodyne. It's absolutely amazing how spot on this game mimics the old SNES style. I'd have given it 5 stars if it weren't for the most frustrating controls known to man on my galaxy s4. There's been many a moment where I was tempted to hurl said phone across the living room after walking into the same hole in the floor about 8 times in a row. That being said, I'll let it slide since the game is so amazing.

Mark Lasmanis

Old school bliss with a hint of zelda! Love the play mechanics, chiptuneish music and 16bit look. It has interesting light quirky story. The difficulty was just right for me while playing on the nvidia shield. Played a bit on the nexus 7 Play control was as good as touch screens allows. A flaw of the tech as things do get annoying with the lack of physical buttons. I then started over on my new nvidia shield. Created a basic touch profile and was in gaming bliss. Bug on the shield, need to open close and or rotate to correct screen layout.

gild2192

Like 2D Zelda but wierder Fun game like 2D Zelda but with a strange and weird world. Has snes style graphics that look fine to me even on a high resolution tablet. Movement controls aren't as precise as they should be but not enough that I would nit recommend it. Check to make sure the buttons show up in landscape mode as on my phone an Atrix 2 it shows nothing only in portrait does it work it does work in landscape on my tablet so I can still enjoy It. Make sure to check it works on your device in landscape so you can get a refund if it doesn't as it sucks playing in in portrait mode awkward hand position for this type if game.

User reviews

Chris Dawson November 29, 2013

Andre Craigwell January 13, 2014

Herkimer Jones December 20, 2013

Carl Bugbee December 4, 2013

Mark Lasmanis December 30, 2013

gild2192 January 19, 2014

Séamus Bradd December 13, 2014

Another great game which doesn't support Shield very well. Let's get the bad out of the way first. If, like me, you're a Shield Portable owner, you may well encounter a spot of bother getting Anodyne to run past the initial setup screen. If so, simply press the small brown button at the bottom of the screen, then press Home, and then re-enter the game and your onscreen controls will magically appear! That little bug is the only thing keeping me from giving this game a 5-star rating though. It's a gorgeous, evocative and thoroughly creepy take on 16-bit adventure games, and well worth the £3 it's currently available for!

AnEasyBakeOven December 12, 2013

Absolutely love this game! I played it on pc couple of months ago and found out it was on android. The controls are kinda hard to use to be "accurate", which may make future boss fights rough and frustrating. But awesome artwork and I love the music. The atmosphere is great, and some of the dialog is pretty silly. Awesome game, keep making games! *update After beating Anodyne I'm really happy to say I played it and I'd really really love to see another game by you two!

Jim May January 9, 2014

terrible rendering The game doesn't render propertly on the shield. Feels like the display moves every so often. The shield game mapping can't stay in the same place because of the rendering glitch. The developer has a warning on the game load of the rendering issue. Maybe its time to go back and rewrite some code to make the display proper. While at it --- make the playable area of the screen larger (wide screen) and make the buttons transparent as an overlay.

Kyung Choo January 8, 2014

D-pad sucks Boss fights are a little more difficult when you try to move one direction and it starts moving you diagonal instead. Same goes for anything that requires you to do any jumping and dodging. Maybe if the size of the D-pad was resizable or even if it had an option to just turn off diagonal movement all together. Other than that big problem I can see this game being really promising and enjoyable

Carlos Rodriguez December 7, 2013

Amazing game! I adore this game a lot! I'm so amazed how some of the flaws of this game are so overweighed by the true charm of it, like the soundtrack for one and the nostalgia of Link's Awakening mixed into it. Now, if you can bear dealing with the controls (which are a pain at times, because of the tricky jumps you'll have to accomplish at certain times), you will find the game very enjoyable and one to immerse yourself with.

Stephen Ford January 3, 2015

Good nostalgia, bad play control The graphics and sound are nice, and it's great to see a game in the Zelda mode here on Android. But the play control here is really not good - hit detection is unforgiving and imprecise, and the virtual d-pad is difficult to use. Particularly after the jump mechanic is introduced, the game approaches unplayable. Really wish it supported external controllers.

Casey Gamble December 7, 2013

Good so far ! Only played 20 mins or so graphics good frame rate a tic slow glad I can move buttons but dpad a bit akward. Wish it had floting controlls and buttons somehow with full screen I know its a port but considering 2 guys made it very good work. Can tell time was put in despite some reviews looking forward to more games from devs . With some small work or updates would rerate 5 stars .

Seth Jones December 7, 2013

D-pad is terrible - ruining gameplay The terrible d-pad completely ruins this game. All its virtues get wiped out as the game becomes near unplayable once you start needing to coordinate movement and actions with any speed. It's a shame because up until then I enjoyed the game, but it's a serious flaw and I wouldn't recommend buying this game until the developers fix this problem.

Ryan Alafriz April 20, 2014

Very cool game, very terrible touchscreen controls Not finished the game yet, but I'm really enjoying the world. Unfortunately, using touchscreen controls in a game like this is so incredibly aggravating. Beware narrow bridges and time sensitive jumping tasks.

Patrick Malanoski October 17, 2014

good good good the gameplay and style, as already noted, are obviously reminiscent of the mother and zelda series. but that's not to say it's simply borrowing from either- it has an inexplicable understated, ambient feel to it. it provides a highly engrossing experience, though there are times when you might struggle to figure out what to do, or how to manage THAT ONE INSANE JUMP IN THE FINAL STAGE GAHHHHH so it might be less suited to people who would only get something out of it after finishing it entirely

Leebeloola L March 24, 2014

Love it! Especially the music! It's so addictive! The writing is really funny and the story gets really interesting about halfway through as different hints start making sense. I like that you don't have to kill every single baddie and in boss battles you need to figure out the pattern. The different areas have a lot of atmosphere.Only downside is jumping on the diagonal is hit and miss, but with some practice and a few YouTube let's play videos its ok. I would prefer arrow keys (with diagonals) to dpad. No more crashes since android 4.4

Matt Christianson August 4, 2014

Fun, frustrating and brilliant Having finished the game, this is one of the most inventive games i have ever played. the controls are a little wonky, but it works ok if you rearrange the buttons so the x is on the other side.

Ace Bieler December 13, 2013

Really fun dungeon explorer A good mix of exploration, puzzle and an amazing sound track. developer is good at supporting app, only thing I would like to suggest is that the developer makes it zeemote compatible. The remote would work really well with this

Andrew Bolton January 22, 2014

Great! Probably better on a computer but very fun, music is amazing and lots of variety to areas, good amount of time spent in each area. Unclear signposting at a couple points.

AJ Stewart November 29, 2013

Needs floating controls Retro game with solid game play. The controls are sometimes difficult. Floating controls would make this game prefect.

Brad Marceluk December 4, 2013

Controls buggy Hiking across the screen is fine, but any kind of careful maneuvering is impossible, falling off cliffs and in rivers and bumping into monsters or facing the wrong way to attack them. Maybe take out the diagonal movement so there are only 4 directions instead of 8. I want to see where the game goes but its infuriating

Aaron Dahlin August 21, 2016

Great game with poor controls The game is well made but seems to have had a poor port to the phone. The direction buttons struggle. This would be okay but when you have to fight badguys.... It can be frustrating.

James Kittredge January 30, 2014

Zelda + Eartbound = Love This game has everything I loved about 16 bit RPGs as a kid, plus a beautiful, haunting soundtrack and a great, dark sense of humor. It runs flawlessly on a Nexus 5 with my Moga Power Pro. I wish more developers would realize that people are more than happy to pay for a high-quality, thoughtfully designed game.

Christopher Night March 1, 2014

Met my expectations It took me 7 hours to beat. Well designed dungeons and good difficulty curve. Although the gameplay is satisfyingly nonlinear with good variety, there is very little in the way of optional side quests (you must get 36 of 37 available plot tokens to reach the final area). There are a few more you can get after completing the game, but honestly they're pretty skippable. The controls were clearly made for keyboard or gamepad, and while the translation to touchscreen is not *too* bad, some of the jumping puzzles toward the end get pretty frustrating because of the imprecise directional controls. The story is intriguing but it never got resolved to my satisfaction. I think it's best to just enjoy the weirdness and not worry about deeper meaning.

Xác Ướp December 2, 2013

Need improvement. Couldn't say much about story and gameplay cos' I just started playing it, but I could say it is interesting. And the flaws: in landscape mode, the d-pad is too small. And the way the dialoge texts scroll is laggy and is slow, I wish it scroll smoother and faster. Now there's that orientation issue too, it works so incorrectly.

Carissa Wong January 12, 2014

Awesome game but... I like this game so far but this game had killed me over 20 times because of the control pad and can this game be landscape view please???

Josh Barr August 9, 2014

Good Game.... Not the Best Controls Fun game! Reminds me a lot of Earthbound and Zelda! Music is great, but the controls can be super frustrating.

Annette Mejia November 28, 2013

Quite excellent. There's plenty to do and explore. I'm really enjoying the game so far. I think it's best played in the dark with headphones/earbuds as most the environments aren't too cheery and the music really sets the atmosphere. Can't wait to complete the game.

Charles Carter December 4, 2013

Can't get past first screen I press and hold the button and it won't reorient. It says press C to continue but there's no C to press. Please fix or refund! Edit: All good now, thanks dev!

Sean Hogan December 3, 2013

Press the button, let it flash red, then re-orient.

Pat Jurczewski November 29, 2013

Dpad sucks I bought this game before it went on steam and I love it so I bought it for my phone. The dpad makes the game unplayable though.

Ben Guerrette January 3, 2014

Fun throwback! If your only old school top down adventure game fan, this is right up your ally. Just got started and I'm really enjoying it.

Kevin Galligan January 19, 2014

Controls! Controls are horrible, but the game itself is fun once you get over that. You'll want to throw your phone at times, but don't.

Michael Perla December 3, 2013

Movement controls need work I am enjoying the game, but the dpad is way too sensitive. I die because of the control. The touch controls are odd because the actual game window is small.

Ross Olejniczak June 10, 2016

Turn off visual cues it's ruining the experience Will change to 5 again once fixed it's just pointless

Graham Losee February 3, 2014

Great game Controls are a little hard to use, but seriously great story and classic game play.

Nathan Cothran December 7, 2013

Unplayable Um.. as an emulator fan I disregarded the dpad woes thinking how bad could it be.. yea.. pretty bad. Also the GUI screen from start pops up ontop of everything when you choose 'no' after death. Guys.. the dpad has to be replaced. Asap please

Paul Olak October 16, 2015

Design choices make this game unfair The game is good however things need to be fixed; when you hit an enemy they do not react or bounce back they just damage you also, making slashing enemies risky. There's another part where the wind machine pushes you off the platform. You must use dust in order to stop it from doing it. However since the wind machine also blows you off a Square to both sides it is really hard to get close enough to place the dust so that the wind does not blow you off.