by Pete Davison

Created on: January 09, 2009   Last Updated: January 12, 2009

BrainPipe represents the kind of experience you only ever get from independent games - creative, artistic and, above all, weird. Developer Shrapnel Games freely admit that they are no strangers to "weird" but BrainPipe crosses that boundary into full-on insanity.

This is entirely intentional, of course. The marketing page for BrainPipe suggests it may be an "otherworldly mind control device masquerading as a simple game", and the genre description for the game is listed simply as "Twisted". There's nothing like setting expectations before a game starts, and the expectation for BrainPipe is, paradoxically, to not have a clue what to expect.

Things don't become much clearer once you install and launch the game. Confronted with an abstract main menu screen presented almost entirely in iconography, it takes a moment or two to adjust to the bright neon glow of the game's aesthetic and, indeed, to work out what it is you're supposed to click on to get started. Once you do get the game up and running, you're thrown into the experience with little to no explanation of what it is you're supposed to do.

The game is presented from a first-person perspective - or, at least, the perspective of whatever it is you're controlling, which is never made clear, just like everything else. You find yourself hurtling down a tunnel represented as constantly shifting patterns of light, with glowing obstacles of various descriptions lining the tunnel. Moving the mouse around allows you to navigate around these obstacles, and it eventually becomes clear that some items throughout the tunnel are actually collectible rather than harmful.

The game mechanics are, frankly, irrelevant to the point of the experience, which is to deliver a multi-sensory experience which builds in intensity as the game progresses. Starting relatively sedately and quietly, the speed of travel through the tunnel gradually increases along with the frequency of obstacles and the complexity of the soundtrack until your eyes and ears are overloading with the bombardment of weirdness flying out of your monitor.

BrainPipe's soundtrack is particularly noteworthy for its creativity. It symbolises a journey through a confused mind, with audible snippets of various descriptions being heard as you travel deeper into the depths of the tunnel. At one moment you might hear voices. At another you might hear soft, gentle, flowing music. In another you might hear 8-bit chiptunes. Or you might hear a disturbing combination of all these things.

BrainPipe is less a game and more of an interactive work of art. It's certainly beautiful, immersive and very, very odd. I couldn't say in good conscience that it makes me want to spend the $14.95 on the full version, however, since the simplicity of the game makes it more of a curio than something you'd want to spend any protracted amount of time with., although this simplicity does lend it a certain addictive quality, admittedly. Do explore the trial - preferably with the lights off and headphones on - but consider carefully before purchasing.

3/5

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