Neru Game Hands-On Impressions: Nap If You Dare

Posted 13:58 EST on 21MAR2014 by: tim walker in hands-on » android, babarageo, bitsummit, flash, iOS, neru game, pc

Everybody needs a good night’s sleep, but what happens when your choice of venues is limited, and maybe even life-threatening? Would you forsake snoozing at a construction site to avoid possible death by wrecking ball? Would you feel all right catching a few Zs with a shady cat hanging around? These are some of the intriguing questions raised by Neru Game (literally, “Sleep Game”), a free-to-play flash game from Japanese indie developer Babarageo.

Neru Game starts you off in your bedroom, tells you your current Stamina (100) and Risk of Danger (0%), and gives you two options to choose from: Sleep or Don’t Sleep. Choose to sleep, and you’ll increase your Stamina (it maxes out at 150) and decrease your Drowsiness (an unseen stat that eventually forces you to sleep!); choose to pass on sleeping, and you’ll lose Stamina and gain Drowsiness. As long as you don’t run out of Stamina completely, you’ll be able to move on to the next day and the next locale.

The next location might not be your cozy, risk-free bedroom though (aside from your starting point, location advancement is somewhat randomized). You could find yourself in a meeting at work (moderate Risk), on board a train (low Risk), at a construction site (high Risk), or even behind the wheel of your car (very high Risk). Your challenge is to assess the risk involved in sleeping in each location while keeping a close eye on your Stamina as well.

     

The concept behind the game is simple, yet maddeningly addictive. Since one wrong move means instant death (even if your Stamina is full, the game will be over instantly if you sleep in the wrong place), you obviously don’t want to sleep in an area where the Risk of Danger is at 70% or 80%. But what about in the middle of a convenience store, where the risk of death (presumably by trampling) is at a mere 20%? You might choose to skip sleeping there now, only to find yourself thrust into 3 high-risk scenarios in a row afterwards, ultimately forcing you to sleep while underwater or in the middle of being robbed. On the other hand, you might choose to snooze during that low-risk board meeting and still find you’ve met your maker (stapled to death, perhaps?). These hard choices force you to weigh each click carefully, and will ultimately keep you coming back for more.

The variety of the situations you’re thrust into will also keep you playing. Though the game starts off with some relatively mundane areas and situations, survive long enough and you’ll find yourself in the middle of a battlefield, staring down a ghost, and out on a date (the latter carries a pretty high risk factor!). All of these stages are rendered in simple but charming black and white graphics that reminded me of early adventure titles, such as Roberta Williams’ Mystery House.

Although Neru Game is completely in Japanese, it’s pretty easy to pick up and play. Just remember that the percentage near the top-left part of the screen is your Risk of Danger for the current stage, the next number is your character’s Level (this may affect something behind the scenes, but I’ve yet to notice exactly what it does), and the last one is your current Stamina. The button on the left commands your character to Sleep, the one on the right commands him to Not Sleep, and the one that appears after a successful nap lets you move onto the next stage. Hints are sometimes given in white text on the left (“It would be best not to sleep here.”), along with critical warnings (“You need to sleep, or you’ll die.”). Hopefully this gem will be localized soon so that all of its humor is conveyed properly.

     

Neru Game is great for laughs, but is also surprisingly deep for a game that offers you only two choices. It can be played for free online by going here, and Babarageo announced at BitSummit that it is headed for iOS and Android as well.