After the week I’ve had, mainly with a horrid time I’ve had with UPS both trying to resolve a problem and shirk off any responsibility they have had for creating the said issue in the first place, you can guess my mood; exhausted and completely done with anything that wants to ponder about aimlessly setting up its story. In times like these, all I want is a game that focuses on gameplay, where I can leave the story if I want to. Normally, Dark Souls would be my go-to. Sadly I don’t get to pontificate about being wiped off on a beast’s shirt like an unwanted bogey on its hand.

With that explanation, this week’s free game on the Epic Games Store is the endlessly charming and slow-paced Horace. Horace is a game about an inoffensive little robot learning to be a “real boy;” as said by a Disney park mascot from under the costume, and “I’m not afraid anymore;” as said by a young boy who was friends with Michael Jackson. There has to be something said for Horace the glorified Roomba, because as sardonic as I am about games being slower and about feeling, he is a charming little git. By the end of the third chapter, I was really starting to like him.

It might just be all the references and little pieces I was picking up on; now I know how Alexx and Lisa feeling editing my work. Given the developer, Paul Helman and Sean Scaplehorn, references Corrie, Steptoe and Son, Night of the Living Dead, Spike Milligan, and Douglas Adams, I could see it being too British for some. Maybe if I go a bit deeper once I’m done here the references will loop around and really alienate America, I for one hope for a reference to “I Want to Break Free.” At least then we’ll know the game is directly aimed at me and me alone.

That said, I did mention those around me and those I enjoy hearing yell about games with anger saying the game was a bit long. I’ll tell you this for free, you’re getting more than your money’s worth if you don’t skip the free offer this week. 15$ and it is nearly a fifteen-gigabyte download; of course, that would be like saying Death Stranding‘s fifty-five GB for $60 is more than worth it, it is not. It should go without saying that when I do these weekly news/editorial pieces about a free game, I don’t get to play them all the way through. For all I know, the rest of the game could be two seagulls mating on the tip of a telescope in South End on Sea, i.e Hell.

All I know is when looking up Horace on the only semi-reliable source for how long a game is, it is meant to take 12-15 hours. That along with the size of the game. leads me to partially wonder where the priority for the game went. Was the original concept a robot platformer that grew into a charming story? Or was it possibly the other way around, but then the gameplay got a little in the way? What we do know is when telling Hideo Kojima he needs an editor, we need to tell the two-man team on Horace to use a compression tool to make a pixel art platforming game not take up almost half of Bloodborne‘s space on a PS4.

Horace is free on the Epic Games store until the 23rd of January, when it will be replaced by a logic puzzle game I’ve tried before known as The Bridge. If my rather questioning tone towards the end of the piece on Horace put you off, I do recommend you pick it up. It may be a little long and too large in scope for its own good; but its story, at least early on, is the type of charming and warm that gets me out of bed in the morning. Well, that and the sound of the seagulls on the roof.

While I do have you, I will note something I thought was a foregone conclusion already. However apparently it needed announcing from the rooftops, to be pelted with rotten veg by idiots. Yes, while Epic is still churning out free games on the weekly, I’ll still be here like that janitor cleaning everything up after the school disco. Also, if you’re interested or happen to be as boring as an accountant, Epic made money from people using their store. In other news, the moon is still in the sky and we’re just monkeys clinging to a rock falling through space that will die soon.

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