Sakuba Metal Works has released the Steam store page for the adventure game “Garage” and announced that it will be released on July 8, 2022. The game was designed by Japanese surrealist Tomomi Yuki Sakuba.
The game is a remastered version of “Garage: Bad Dream Adventure,” originally released for PC in 1999. It has been called one of the “three most distorted games” and “three most bizarre games” because of its unique worldview in which the protagonist, who has been put on a mental treatment device, takes on a deformed form and explores his own mental world.
Note: Three most distorted games 3大歪みゲー is a general term that refers to the titles: ” Garage “, “Baroque” and “Kowloon’s Gate”. They are named this way because each of them has the characteristic of a distorted worldview.
The remastered version retouches and corrects almost all images, corrects videos by supplementing AI frame interpolation, improves the UI and game balance, adds new chapters and subquests, and provides multiple endings.
Garage Synposis (Steam)
Garage – This weird machine is said to create a bizarre dark world by working on the subject’s subconscious mind.
The player character is thrown into an enclosed world filled with sewage, with decaying wooden buildings and rusted metals.
And he discovers that his body has been changed into something in between a machine and a living creature.
He wanders around this structurally complex maze-like world in search of a way out.
One of the features of Garage is its detailed world building. Elements like energy circulation, ecosystem and how the world came about are intertwined tightly, and are reflected in the game system, bringing to life the feel of the deep another world. The unique feeling of strangeness and anxiety surrounding the whole game, even though it is not a horror or depressing game, is created by these settings and system.
Today, the author of the game wrote that, in writing the scenario for the complete version of Garage, the first thing he did was to make all the characters stand out. This was also the most inadequate aspect of the original version. Then, the scenario of the female machines was completely revamped. He said he could not make the complete edition without it.
The author reassures fans that they did not do anything to change the characters’ personalities from the original version. They have only brought to the surface the words they had but could not speak.
Another update on 18 June from the developer hints that the new edition is 4 times easier than the old game. He is aware that it’s not enough to please players compared to some of the recent games, but at the same time they do not intend to make players suffer through this difficulty, instead, he wants to leave them with a sense of accomplishment.
In recent action games, this sense of accomplishment is explicit and easy to understand, but Garage is mainly about solving puzzles and exploring, so they want the players to be focused first and foremost on these components, instead of getting stuck on the things they don’t understand. The developer makes clear distinction between “Understanding” and “Experiencing” a video game and in Garage, experience is what is important, not ease of understanding.
The developer wants it to be a game that can only be enjoyed by “Playing” it, rather than “Watching” it through a video or other player guides.