Inexistence

My first honest reaction when I finished Inexistence was to check the clock, then check it again. Under two hours to credits, five levels total, a final boss, done. For a Metroidvania that billing stings, because the bones here are genuinely affectionate toward the classics that inspired it. Jonathan Brassaud built this almost entirely alone, and the pixel work carries that care visibly. Environments shift across distinct zones, each with its own palette and enemy flavour, and the soundtrack by Fawzi Allouache gives the quieter corridors a haunting, slightly melancholic weight that I didn't expect from a game this small. You play as Hald, a young Keeper whose sister Hania is plunged into a magical coma by the antagonist Claos. The setup is pure fairy-tale shorthand, and the game doesn't pretend otherwise. Story beats are sparse: a few dialogue moments, a final confrontation, and that's your lore budget. In a genre where narrative is often optional decoration, that can work. Here it mostly does, though players chasing world-building or any real sense of place will feel the hollow centre. The writing exists to move you from zone to zone, not to make you care about the world. Combat gives Hald a short-range sword attack that chains into a basic combo when pressed repeatedly, plus a long-range magic ability you unlock early at a shop. A dodge roll handles the spacing work, and a double jump unlocks later to open up some of the hidden chest routing. There's a light RPG layer underneath: enemies drop experience, levels let you distribute points into stats, and shops offer gear and consumables. None of it is deep, but the loop feels clean enough moment-to-moment. The checkpoints are generous, refilling both health and energy, which keeps the pacing from feeling punishing. What it does feel is thin. Five levels is five levels, and the branching exploration that defines the genre's best examples barely has room to breathe here. Where Inexistence earns its defender status, at least for me, is in the context of what it is. One developer, built in Clickteam Fusion, released in 2016 as a first proper commercial game. The pixel art in the castle zones especially has a parallax-scrolled depth that punches above its weight class. The soundtrack sits at that particular frequency where you notice it was chosen with intent, not generated as background noise. Steam reviews landed in mixed territory, which feels accurate. Fans of the genre who want a compact, low-stakes session will find something functional and occasionally pretty. Players expecting the map-filling, ability-gated depth of a Hollow Knight or even a Cave Story will bounce off it inside the first hour. If you're the kind of player who enjoys seeing how a solo developer handles a genre love letter, Inexistence is an honest if flawed artifact of that effort. The rough edges aren't pretending to be polish. Just go in knowing the runtime is a short story, not a novel, and calibrate accordingly.

Kai · Scout Team

Indie & narrative

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