incredibox sprunki human edition
Incredibox Sprunki Human Edition: When Blobs Try to Be People (And Fail Gloriously)
Alright, buckle up. This one is... a choice. "Human Edition." You see that title and you think, "Oh, cool, maybe they use human vocals or something." Nope. They took the usual abstract blobs and gave them... hair. And clothes. Sort of. And faces that look like they were drawn by someone who's only heard descriptions of humans. It's unsettling. It's hilarious. I love it.
First of all, the character designs have more personality than some AAA game characters, but it's a deeply confused personality. This one looks like it just remembered it left the oven on. That one looks like it's judging your life choices. I showed my non-gamer friend this. They said "So you just... click things?" Yes. Exactly. And now the things have awkward haircuts.
The sounds are the best part. Since it's "human," you get less electronic beeping and more... grunts, sighs, attempts at singing, maybe someone saying "yeah" in a really flat tone. It sounds like a robot trying to recreate human emotions from a textbook and getting a C- on the project. I tried to make a "serious" composition. Ended up with circus music performed by anxious aliens.
My back is protesting from hunching over the screen laughing at this. There's a specific satisfaction when two icons sync perfectly. Better than coffee. Especially when those two icons are a guy who makes a "hmph" sound and another that goes "doink."
The UI uses at least 3 different fonts. Graphic design is my passion. And by "my passion," I mean "my nightmare." The icons don't have hover states. How am I supposed to know what I'm clicking? I guess it's a surprise! Is this the sighing guy or the one that hums? Only one way to find out!
There's a specific fatigue that comes from reviewing 50 versions of the same concept. But then one like this comes along and it's just so... bizarre that it wakes you up. This is what plays when you put a CD in upside down but it still tries to play. It's glorious chaos. My Discord status has been "making beep boop" for 3 days straight, but for this mod, it should be "making human-ish noise blobs."
This feels like what an AI would make after listening to 1000 hours of elevator music and then being asked to add people to it. The mood is "trying to be productive but getting distracted by a drawing of a blob in a hat." My foot is tapping along involuntarily. It has its own opinions, and its opinion is that this mod is weirdly catchy.
If a fax machine and a dial-up modem had a baby, and that baby tried to join a human acapella group, this would be its audition tape. The audio has noticeable clipping. Someone didn't normalize the audio, so sometimes a grunt is WAY louder than a melody. It adds to the chaotic charm. I think.
Look, is this a "good" game in the traditional sense? No. Is it an experience you won't get anywhere else? Absolutely. My notes app is full of half-finished thoughts about digital characters, and this one earned a "??????" followed by a crying-laughing emoji.
So if you've ever looked at a normal Sprunki and thought, "Needs more existential dread in a poorly drawn face," this is your holy grail. Dive in. Make some "human" music. Question your choices. I'll be here, clicking away, my wrist developing a permanent slight tilt from dragging these tragic, wonderful little people.
P.S. There's a tooltip that says "drag here" but it's not draggable. Troll. Never change, internet.
