There are many ways that one can drum up hype for their game. Gajillions of dollars in marketing, a neat gimmick, or even pure mystery. The Dot seems to work with the latter two.
The Dot is an… adventure? Puzzle? Shooter? Walking simulator? It’s definitely a video game. I think? Look, honestly, I don’t have much to go off right now.
The Dot flew onto my game radar thanks to GamesRadar (this is the funniest and most clever thing I will ever say in my life), who noted the Big Fat Fuckin’ Birds present in the game’s trailer. It’s true folks, there are some rotund pigeons in this game.
The Dot is being made by indie devs Victor Dunets and Alex Tykh, who also worked on Server Is Down and Black Hole Incident together. While those two games seem to go for a darker tone, The Dot seems to be a lot sillier… maybe?
The game’s Steam page goes ahead and gives us so much, and yet also nothing. From the trailer, we see the fat pigeons, an even fatter raccoon, and some cute pixel art. However, the end of the trailer notes that what we see is only ‘Part of The Dot‘.
At least that’s how I interpreted it. Upon further inspection, the screenshots for The Dot completely leave the pixel art world and go into a wacky 3D territory, and the description is incredibly cryptic. The final screenshot even feeds into all of this, with black text on a white background saying “So, did you learn what the game’s about?”. This feels intentional.
In fact, the ‘thicc pigeon’ content actually comes from another one of Viktor Dunets’ games currently in the works, Dandelion.
Dandelion is a psychological horror game similar to titles like OMORI and OneShot. When I found this trailer, I started to get worried that The Dot was potentially an act of theft from this other game, but after diving into the Discord, it looks like Dunets’ is working on both Dandelion and The Dot. Dandelion has been in the works for a few years now, with its visuals and gameplay clearly garnering interest on TikTok.
What’s the deal, then? Well, it’s still all very confusing. Dandelion seems to be a bit more straightforward as a concept and, according to SteamDB, came before The Dot. But The Dot IS connected… somehow. Could The Dot be a meta game that plays on the psychological horror themes of Dandelion?
Or maybe, just maybe, The Dot is the path to Dandelion, playing on the interest of the original game but also speaking to hype culture and leading people down an endless rabbit hole to try to get to the game they’re actually looking for? I dunno, man. I’m just spitballing here. Maybe it’s a prank!
That being said, this is still so fascinating. As a fan of OMORI, I’m excited to see something in the same ilk that also has plump creatures. The addition of a game that seems to be connected while also being so elusive is definitely making me want to see where this goes. According to Steam, we’ll learn more in February!
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