Rain World

***Rain World*** is a survival platform game made by Videocult and published by Adult Swim Games and Akupara Games. It originally released on March 2017. In the game, players control a "slugcat", an animal similar to a cat that must survive in a dangerous world with many predators that will try to eat the slugcat.

The enemies in *Rain World* act alone to that of the player. As a slugcat, the player must use weapons to fight predators, find food, and sleep in safe rooms before a heavy and deadly rain comes. ''Rain World's* creators wanted to make the player feel like a rat in subway tracks that do not understand their surroundings and their purpose.

Critics gave *Rain World'' mixed reviews. Many enjoyed its art and animation, but hated the game's difficulty, the location of its checkpoints, and weird controls. Despite this, the game garnered a large group of fans.

In January 2023, Videocult created downloadable content titled *Rain World: Downpour*, which added many things to the game including multiple new slugcats. Downpour was released for Switch, PlayStation, and Xbox on July 11, 2023. The expansion pack received generally positive reviews from critics.

## Gameplay 
The slugcat can use spears to fight predators in the hostile world. The player is given almost no help and can go anywhere. Animals move freely around the region too. The slugcat can jump, swim, and climb poles to find food. Afterwards, the player must find safe shelters where they can save their progress and avoid the rain. If the player does not reach a shelter before the end of the day, the rain will kill the slugcat. Also, if the slugcat does not eat enough food by the time they sleep, the game will not save, and the slugcat will be starving. The slugcat will be slower and much less capable. Starvation can be fixed mid-day by eating, but if the slugcat doesn't, it will die when it sleeps.

If they die, the slugcat returns to the last save point. The player also loses one karma (a word that refers to the result of someone's actions). Karma grows every time the slugcat sleeps, and the player can save their current karma level by eating a yellow karma flower. The player must have a specific karma level to go through karma gates, which are at the ends of every region in the game.

Predators include plants to large vultures and lizards. Most animals can kill the slugcat immediately, and some have different types, such as different colored lizards, which all have special abilities. These animals spawn from holes in set locations and can wander freely, meaning the player is sometimes faced with problems that they can't fix. All creatures in the game possess a changing behavior and exist forever, even when not in the same room as the player. Players are expected to run from enemies, but can kill them with enough spears, though fighting is mainly used as a way to scare them away. Spearmaster can create spears at any time, but using them on predators is the only way that it can eat. Rivulet is nearly twice as fast as Survivor with a higher jump and better movement, but has short days. Gourmand can craft and can damage creatures by falling or sliding into them, but too much movement cause them to become weak where they must stop to take a break. Artificer can double jump and create explosives, but can't swim well and is locked at the lowest karma level, forcing them to use other methods to pass karma gates. Saint has a grappling tongue that gives them large amounts of speed, but can't to use spears or eat meat. *Downpour* also adds three new game modes. The first is Safari mode, which lets players freely wander the world without worry and control any living creature within it. After that is Challenge mode, which provides 70 different scored challenges with preset conditions. Finally, there is Expedition, which is a semi-roguelike mode with random missions that give experience points when finished. *Downpour*'s release also included the free Rain World Remix upgrade, which makes the game easier. In *Downpour*, both the Survivor and the Monk can instead go to Outer Expanse, a jungle without rain, and reunite.

More of the story is found by giving pearls to another damaged iterator named Looks to the Moon. She explains that the society that once lived in this world wanted to escape the cycle and succeeded, abandoning the iterators. and in final playtests,the developers saw how some players had more or less fun based on how lucky they were with animal behavior.

Jakobsson served as the game's artist, designer, and programmer. At one point, *Rain World* included a multiplayer mode, and separate story and custom modes. The development team successfully crowdfunded some of the budget with Kickstarter in early 2014. By early 2015, about four years into development, the team had changed to the Unity game engine and released a test version of the game to its Kickstarter supporters.

### Music 
Primate, who is also known as James Therrien, wrote *Rain World* music, handled the indie studio's business, and designed levels. Primate first found the game on an indie game Internet forum. He wanted to make a chiptune-style soundtrack with his musician partner Lydia Esrig, but turned to field recordings for otherworldly sounds. *Rain World* music is lo-fi and electronic. Primate wanted the music to be similar to the game's visuals, which include industrial, science fiction, jungle, and other elements. *Rain World* story is partly told through its soundtrack. The early game music is based on the slugcat's feelings of fear and hunger, and changes to describe new areas. *Rain World* has over 3.5 hours of music across 160 tracks. When the slugcat is in danger, between eight and twelve tracks will layer at the same time to respond to the slugcat's in-game context.

### Release 
*Rain World* was in the last phases of creation in early 2016. Animations from the game became popular on social media because of their "uncanny fluidity". The game was developed by Videocult, published by Adult Swim Games, and released for PlayStation 4 and Windows on March 28, 2017. Some compared *Rain World* to other games, including the difficulty of *Super Meat Boy*, the soundtrack of *Fez*, and the gameplay to *Metroid* and *Oddworld*.

Videocult made many major content updates, which were planned for release in 2017. Planned additions included multiplayer, 50 new rooms, and two new slugcats.  The '1.5' updated, which contained all of those features, was released on December 11, 2017. Another '1.7' update in late 2018 added two new game modes that either increase or decrease the gameplay's intensity. In 2018, Videocult and Adult Swim Games released *Rain World* for the Nintendo Switch on December 13, 2018. Limited Run Games released a physical edition of *Rain World* for the PlayStation 4 later that month.

In January 2022, Videocult announced that due to problems with Adult Swim Games, Rain World was now being published by Akupara Games after a long legal dispute. On March 28, 2022, the first DLC was announced. Named "Rain World: Downpour", it added five new slugcats with their own stories, over 1000 new rooms across ten new regions, and three new game modes. Downpour is a bigger version of the "More Slugcats" mod and was created by several community modders.

On March 28, 2024, the creation of a second DLC titled "Rain World: The Watcher" was announced, with a new playable slugcat. On September 19, the release date was announced to be on March 28, 2025.

## Reception 
The game, before getting cult status, had mixed reviews, according to Metacritic. Reviewers enjoyed the game's art and hated the difficulty, particularly its common deaths, annoying enemies, and hard food requirements. *Eurogamer* compared its survival gameplay to *Tokyo Jungle*.

*Rain World* difficult gameplay frustrated reviewers, who often lost their will to play. *IGN* wrote that the of the game's difficult parts alone would be "tough but fair", but together, they ruin the game. Reviewers were bored by the exploration and deaths. *Polygon* was miserable while playing. Reviewers hated how the slugcat's weird animations and controls led to many deaths. Many said that while some players might enjoy the tough gameplay, *Rain World* ignored a large audience with its design choices, and that it was unfair to most people. *Rock, Paper, Shotgun* called the game's checkpointing among the worst in modern platformers. *Rain World* karma gates, which need players to have slept a lot, wasted the player's time according to *GameSpot*. Making players wander through an area many times, *IGN* argued, is bad in a game in which exploration itself is the reward. *PC Gamer* reviewer saw *Rain World* controls not "bad design", but "appropriate" because the game trying to make the player weak.

Some reviewers remembered moments where they learned the game environment's unwritten rules. Not knowing what most things do, *Rock, Paper, Shotgun* reviewer liked treating new encounters as puzzles. *GameSpot* reviewer enjoyed the game letting the player find things out on their own. Those critics considered these mysterious interactions to be among the game's best features, though far outweighed by *Rain World* difficulty.

During development, *Rain World*'s animations became popular on social media, which reviewers continued to praise at release. *IGN* described the slugcat's animations as beautiful. They said it was among the best aesthetics in a 2D game, with each screen showing much detail. The graphics were interesting to *Polygon* reviewer, who also praised the limited color palette. While some compared the game's design to that of *Limbo*, *Rock, Paper, Shotgun* reviewer felt that *Rain World* had more in common with ''Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee* visuals. *Rain World* successfully depicted "the cruel indifference of nature", according to *GameSpot*. Its landscape recalled the spirit of games like *BioShock* and *Abzû*, in which the reviewer was attracted to the artistic detail.

### Accolades
The game was nominated for "Best Platformer" in *PC Gamer''s 2017 Game of the Year Awards, and also for "Best Platformer", "Best Art Direction", and "Most Innovative" in IGN's Best of 2017 Awards.  

It was also nominated for the Statue of Liberty Award for Best World at the New York Game Awards 2018, and for "Excellence in Audio" at the Independent Games Festival Competition Awards.
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