Cinderline is wonderfully weird and I wouldn't have it any other way

I play a lot of games, and usually I have a pretty solid idea of how I’m going to write about them by the time I’m done. Occasionally, I’ll play one that’s so hard to describe that I struggle to put words on paper (metaphorically speaking). Cinderline is one of those games. It’s a bizarre psychedelic experience, and utterly incredible because of it. 

Cinderline by Luke K and Zenon Ortiz is all about exploration and strange experiences with even stranger characters, all so that our little bird character can find the ingredients for a s’more. However, there’s a sentient and apparently very anxious toaster, a questionable local pickaxe dealer, and some rather large, chompy dentures between you and the perfect fireside snack. 

And that's just in the first town.

End of the line

Cinderline’s main character is an adorable (and familiar, if you played Luke K’s previous game Summit Drive) bird with an oversized head and small, spherical hands that float in front of him.  In Cinderline, he’s newly hatched and enters a strange world of PSX graphics and hand-drawn 2D characters that bring it to life. 

Immediately after birth, our little birdie friend hops into a rail-locked car and travels down the track to the station at Wallerton, where he meets the first bizarre supporting characters and things take a series of weird turns. The track ahead is blocked, and you need to head into Wallerton to figure out how to clear the way. 

Getting out of the station and into Wallerton itself involves interacting with an eyeball that appears to make its home inside a toilet. It’s all a bit reminiscent of the Ministry of Magic, because I’m assuming you get flushed down the U-bend to reach your destination, although you never get to see that part, so I could be wrong.

Nothing makes sense, except everything does

Cinderline feels, and I mean this in the most loving way possible, like someone took a bag of unused assets, shook it, and then pulled things out at random with the determination to use them in one game. If you took the characters out and stood them side by side in a lineup, you’d probably never guess they were part of the same game, but Cinderline is so lovably chaotic that it just works. Everything somehow manages to feel cohesive despite the differences in style. 

There are a few 2D, hand-drawn characters reminiscent of Picasso's distorted, Cubist portraits, a realistic and very talkative fish with drawn-on stick-figure arms but no legs, a 3D toaster, and a pixelated picture of a real person who moves like he’s had way too much caffeine in a very short period of time. In a way, it’s representative of how unique we are as people within a community, but then again, I might just be thinking a little too deeply about the concept here. 

Cinderline doesn’t try to be anybody’s idea of normal, and I think that’s exactly what makes it so thoroughly enjoyable. Everything is unexpected and unhinged in the most delightful way, and you find yourself just going along with the weirdness because fighting it feels pointless. The caffeinated man wants a crumb in exchange for a pickaxe? Fine. The toaster has anxiety issues, so now you need to get the toast back because you made it jump?? Sure. 

A giant set of dentures appears in the sky alongside a strangely happy moon? Not the strangest thing that’s ever happened in Wallerton. 

How deep will this go?

According to the Steam page, Cinderline gets more surreal the further down the line you travel. As the demo only lets you explore the first town of Wallerton and you’ve just read through how bizarre that place is, it’s hard to imagine things getting more surreal. I’m usually someone who can predict what’s coming in games, for better or worse, but Cinderline leaves me sure of nothing, and that just makes me want to play the full game more. 

You can find one of five pieces of s’more in Wallerton, so I’m assuming there will be four further towns to explore when the full version of Cinderline releases, and I can’t wait to see what surprises are thrown our way as we travel down the tracks. One thing is for certain: the demo does an incredible job of leaving you wanting more of the strange and wonderful world this game creates. 

Cinderline doesn’t have a release date yet, so there’s no telling when new adventures are coming for this little bird. However, the demo is available through Steam and is worth playing if you like things on the weirder yet wonderful side.