Waking

Waking is an action-adventure game developed by Jason Oda and published by tinyBuild LLC. Set in a surreal fantasy world, it combines elements of combat and meditation to explore themes of life, death, and the afterlife. The game received mixed reviews for its genre-blending approach, challenging players to navigate through a unique and sometimes contradictory experience.

Waking: A Monumental Failure in Meditative Game Design

Introduction

“Fighting for your life while trapped in your own mind” – this premise, promising a deeply personal journey through coma-induced subconscious landscapes, positioned Waking as one of 2020’s most audacious indie experiments. Developed by the singular Jason Oda with partial funding from Microsoft’s ID@Xbox program, the game promised a unique fusion: punishing Souls-like combat seamlessly integrated with guided meditation and self-reflection mechanics. Yet, despite its ambitious thesis on life, death, and consciousness, Waking became infamous not for its introspective brilliance but for its catastrophic execution. Reviewing this notoriously polarizing title requires navigating a minefield of clunky mechanics, jarring dissonance between its philosophical ambitions and actual gameplay, and technical blemishes that overshadowed any potential insight. This analysis will dissect why Waking stands as a cautionary tale of execution trumping vision.

Development History & Context

Jason Oda, a US-based developer with a background in commercial games like the viral Skrillex Quest, embarked on Waking following a near-death experience. His prior work, the critically acclaimed introspective Continue?9876543210 – a narrative about a dying video game character finding peace – established his fascination with existential themes. Waking was conceived as his magnum opus, a project Oda envisioned over five years. The ID@Xbox program provided crucial partial funding, while tinyBuild served as the publisher. This combination – a solo developer’s deeply personal vision backed by a major indie publisher – set high expectations. Released simultaneously on Windows (June 18, 2020) and Xbox One, the game arrived amidst a landscape increasingly receptive to experimental narratives (Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, Deus Ex series’ psychological themes). However, Waking‘s reliance on Unity and its ambitious scope for a solo project often clashed with the realities of its execution.

Narrative & Thematic Deep Dive

The narrative is stark and metaphorical: you, the player, are a comatose individual imprisoned within your own mind. An ethereal “Guardian Angel” guides you through meditative sequences, encouraging introspection, while “Somnus,” the Emissary of Sleep, relentlessly attempts to convince you to accept death and ascend to the afterlife. Your objective? Rebuild your consciousness and memory fragments to physically wake up, resisting Somnus’s pull.

Core Mechanic & Thematic Integration: The game’s defining (and most problematic) mechanic is its insistence on guided meditations. After combat or upon completing objectives, the angel instructs: “CLOSE YOUR EYES.” For several minutes, the screen fades to black, and a soothing voice (reminiscent of ASMR guides) leads you through vivid, personalized reflections on specific aspects of your life, as defined by the personal questions you answered at the outset (pet name, hometown, significant others, struggles, desires). These aren’t mere cutscenes; they are integral segments demanding player participation. The underlying theme is clear: the struggle to reclaim one’s identity and fight to live through confronting one’s deepest memories and emotions.

Problems with Execution: This ambitious integration quickly reveals flaws. The questions feel intrusive and often trivialized (“What is your favorite place to go?” “Applebee’s” elicited amusement, not insight). The self-reflection segments, while potentially profound, become tedious chores that abruptly kill momentum. The narrative dialogue is delivered in an echoing, whispery “language” subtitled in a dry, overly earnest tone, lacking the weight needed for such existential themes. Somnus emerges as a simplistic antagonist, his monologues more foreboding than insightful. Ultimately, the narrative ambition collides with shallow execution, failing to deliver the transformative experience it promised.

Gameplay Mechanics & Systems

Combat System: Waking draws heavy inspiration from Souls-series games but executes it poorly.
* Core Loop: You traverse procedurally-generated “Mindscape” areas (stone temples, snowy mountains, forests). Combat is initiated by picking up scattered “clutter” (pipes, rocks) and throwing it at enemies to stun them. You also wield a basic melee knife attack (costs neurons, requires charge-up) and unlock memory-based abilities requiring Neurons.
* Neuron Economy: Neurons are the primary currency. They are spent to:
* Use special abilities (summoning pets, creating shields, energy blasts).
* Equip/swap abilities in inventory.
* Open doors, activate objects, and sometimes even perform melee attacks.
* The carrying capacity is severely limited to 200 Neurons. This creates a frustrating paradox: defeating enemies yields Neurons, but you often can’t use them fast enough to execute attacks effectively.
* Hope & Fear Mechanics: This is perhaps the most illogical system.
* Hope: Generated by defeating enemies without being hit. Accumulating Hope unlocks loot boxes and provides bonuses. Lack of Hope severely restricts ability use.
* Fear: Generated by taking damage. High Fear makes enemies faster, stronger, and reduces Hope generation further. Getting hit feels like a crippling penalty beyond typical combat failure.
* Abilities & Memory Integration: Abilities (Weapons of “Joy,” “Hope,” “Struggle,” etc.) are unlocked by answering guided meditation questions. Summoned entities (pets, loved ones) are based on your answers. However, this personalization is largely cosmetic (a dog avatar fighting alongside you) rather than functionally transformative. The pool of abilities is small, visually similar (often just different colored pyramids/dodecahedrons), and their utility varies little.
* Interface & Progression: The UI is described as “alpha-like,” with text-heavy menus for abilities. Progression involves returning to a hub world (“The Palace”) after areas. Levels are randomly generated, but backtracking is impossible due to lack of clear markers and procedural changes. Saving is irregular, often forcing restarts from the beginning upon death or crash.

Overall Gameplay Assessment: The system is a web of contradictions. The Souls-like difficulty is hampered by poor hit detection, floaty animations, and clunky controls. The memory mechanics offer intriguing potential but deliver minimal meaningful personalization. The Hope/Fear system is thematically apt but mechanically nonsensical, creating unnecessary frustration. The Neuron economy stifles combat rather than enhancing strategy. The overall experience is repetitive, frustrating, and lacks depth or reward despite its ambitious premise.

World-Building, Art & Sound

Setting & Atmosphere: The “Mindscape” is a surreal, dreamlike realm reflecting the protagonist’s subconscious. Areas include desolate deserts, murky forests, snowcapped mountains, and imposing stone tombs. The aesthetic deliberately evokes a coma dream: foggy, washed-out, heavy with bloom effects, and often dimly lit. This creates an eerie, introspective atmosphere, albeit one visually draining due to repetition and poor optimization. The environments are procedurally generated, but the randomization adds little meaningful variety, leading to monotony.

Visual Direction: Art direction aims for a haunting beauty. Character models (including your character and enemies) have a distinctive, slightly dated look reminiscent of mid-2000s games (e.g., Bullet Witch). Animations are often stiff, stilted, or floaty (poorly timed jumps, abrupt attack animations). Enemy designs include crystalline structures and anthropomorphic animal-headed figures, adding to the surrealism. However, the visuals are frequently marred by excessive bloom, making objects blend into the background.

Sound Design & Music: Sound is a significant strength. The Guardians and Somnus have imposing, resonant voices. The Guardian Angel’s soothing, clear narration provides a stark contrast to the oppressive environment. The soundtrack features hauntingly beautiful piano melodies for the meditations and serene ambient tracks for exploration. However, combat music (described as “electronic” and “out of place”) feels jarring. The music lacks variety, repeating core motifs excessively. Performance Issues: The game is plagued by severe technical problems. Loading times are painfully long. Framerate dips dramatically during combat or complex scenes, accompanied by stuttering and screen tearing. Instances of enemies disappearing, traps activating randomly, and getting stuck in geometry were reported, leading to frustrating losses of progress.

Reception & Legacy

Initial Reception (2020): Waking was met with intense polarization at launch. Critics were sharply divided:
* Praise for Concept & Meditations: Reviewers like TheGamer (70%), GameGrin (70%), GameTrend (75%), Hey Poor Player (4.5/5), and Gideon’s Gaming (3.5/10) acknowledged the unique, heartfelt concept and the effectiveness of the guided meditation sequences. Hey Poor Player called it “by far the most deeply personal, deeply moving experience in video game history” for those who engaged authentically.
* Scathing Critique of Execution: The overwhelming criticism focused on flawed gameplay. Scores from major outlets were low: IGN (2/10), Noisy Pixel (3/10), WayTooManyGames (4.5/10), BaziCenter (4/10), Movies Games and Tech (4/10), Gideon’s Gaming (3.5/10). Common complaints included the frustrating combat, clunky controls, poor UI, unbalanced Hope/Fear system, repetitive environments, excessive length, and severe technical problems on Xbox One.
* Metacritic / OpenCritic Scores: Reflecting this split, the game holds a Metascore of 44/100 (based on 9 critics) and an OpenCritic aggregate score placing it in the 5th percentile of reviewed games. User scores were even lower (Metacritic User Score: 2.8/10).

Evolution of Reputation & Legacy: Over time, Waking‘s reputation hasn’t significantly improved. Its legacy rests on being a notorious example of:
1. Ambitious Failure: It remains a prime case study of a developer successfully pitching and funding a deeply ambitious, conceptually rich game but failing catastrophically in its execution.
2. “Too Many Cooks” in the Kitchen (Solo Developer): It highlights the immense challenge of balancing narrative ambition, core gameplay mechanics, and technical polish, especially for a solo developer with a small freelance team. The game truly lacked “clarity of vision,” attempting to be both a Souls-like combat experience and a guided therapy session without ever succeeding at either fully or combining them cohesively.
3. A Cautionary Tale for Personalization: Its attempt to deeply personalize the player experience through intrusive questions and memory-based mechanics serves as a warning: authenticity requires flawless execution to avoid feeling invasive or gimmicky. The results often felt more like a “scam for personal info” than a genuine connection.
4. Underrated Potential: Despite the overwhelming negativity, its core concept – using a game to facilitate personal reflection through memory and self-confrontation – is acknowledged as genuinely unique and potentially valuable, albeit rendered ineffective by the poor vehicle. It inspired discussions about the boundaries of interactive narratives dealing with mental health, though not necessarily as a model to emulate.

Conclusion

Waking is an anomaly in gaming history: a title of profound ambition and bold conceptual design that utterly failed to realize its potential. Jason Oda’s vision of a game that forces players to confront their own mortality, identity, and memories through a unique blend of Souls-like combat and guided meditation was undeniably compelling on paper. The execution, however, was a disastrous collision of conflicting systems, frustrating gameplay mechanics, and significant technical shortcomings.

The guided meditation sequences, often praised for their thematic relevance and atmospheric impact, were overshadowed by repetitive combat reliant on a punishing neuron economy and illogical fear/hope mechanics. The visual style, while aiming for a haunting beauty, was undermined by technical flaws and monotony. The promise of deep personalization through player-provided memories resulted in largely cosmetic rewards that failed to create a truly unique or impactful journey.

While Waking deserves recognition for its sheer audacity and the emotional core of its narrative premise, its fundamental flaws – clunky controls, unfun combat, repetitive design, and poor optimization – render it a frustrating and ultimately unenjoyable experience for the vast majority of players. It is not a game to be recommended lightly, if at all, except perhaps as a deeply flawed artifact for those fascinated by the extremes of game design ambition and the challenges of translating personal introspection into interactive form. Waking stands as a monumental failure, a cautionary tale that reminds us that even the most brilliant ideas require meticulous execution to achieve greatness. It is a game that promised to wake you up to your own life but instead left many players feeling more deeply asleep than ever.