I have a three-year-old daughter. I probably shouldnât be playing Murasaki Baby, a game which is, in essence, about leading a toddler girl into and out of danger.
But, like fatherhood, I volunteered for this responsibility. The dangers here are metaphorical and not physical, yet Murasaki Baby feels all the more disturbing for it. Itâs a game that haunts you with how wrong decisions can result in heartbreak for those too young to understand the idea of consequence.
Baby is looking for her mommy. And youâthe player solving the puzzles, shepherding her across gaps and controlling little slices of her worldâare the only hope she has of finding Mommy.
Baby, well⊠thereâs no other way to put it: Baby looks weird. Damned weird. Sheâs got an upside-down face and stick figure body. Baby is essentially the creepy-cute Frankenstein lovechild of Jhonen Vasquez and Edward Gorey. But none of that means that Baby shouldnât find her mommy.
Baby loves her balloon. Itâs shaped like a heart. If it pops, Baby cries inconsolably and you have to start over from a save point. Having a balloon stand in for a health meter means that the child is never really in jeopardy, for the most part. That should make the ESRB happy. But the balloon also symbolizes Baby, and the larger dynamic of parent/child relationships. Baby and balloon are exposed to the elements at all times. You become far more aware of her vulnerability when itâs in the form of a balloon thatâs constantly in danger of being let go or popped by a sharp object. The outsize, inflated heart acts a signifier in another way, too. Kids lose their shit when balloons pop or float away. Their little brains view them as magical paradoxes, solid yet filled with air. And, to developing minds unable to grasp impermanence, changes in state are very hard to deal with. So, yeah, protect the balloon.
Babyâs scared of the dark. Baby vocalizes unintelligible coos and gurbles which still manage to communicate tone and emotional state. She does happy little jigs when she finds a new door that might bring her closer to finding Mommy and quakes in fear when thereâs not enough light. Sheâs real enough.
You have to make sure Babyâs going the right way by holding her hand on the Vitaâs touchscreen and pulling her along. Dragging a young child forward gets tiresome as a main form of locomotion. But the game doesnât give you any choice. This is the way youâre going to play. Babyâs never going to move fast enough for you, either. And, just like in real life, yank on that childâs arm too hard and she stumbles. Take it easy, will you?
The main play mechanic in Murasaki Baby is swiping two fingers across the rear touchpad to change a sceneâs backgrounds and then tapping it to activate the specific effects unique to each one. A desolate backdrop creates gusts of wind when tapped, blowing away the safety-pin-shaped flies that threaten Babyâs balloon. Alternatively, a cumulus-choked horizon lets you guide lightning to specific spots to power on mechanisms. Your taps turn a light drizzle into a useful downpour on yet another backdrop.
In some scenes, youâll need to combine effects from the various backdrops. It means using the rain background to raise a boat on floodwaters in one such sequence, then switching to the wind backdrop to fill its sails and move it forward. Other backdrops will present alternate paths and interactive objects to get Baby around or distract the threats moving on her. Later levels will demand that players use all the mechanics in rapid successionâtapping away at enemies, activating platforms, re-orienting perspectives, all within a quick few secondsâand a few instances will have a metaphorical-but-real timer ticking down, too.
Along the way, youâll encounter placement/positioning puzzles where you need to float Babyâs balloon above or below fire, thorns or other hazards. These moments can lead to serious finger obscuring, where your handsâ contortions hide almost the entire screen. Itâs not a frequent occurrence but it becomes annoying when Babyâs balloon pops on account of not being able to see what youâre doing.
Baby calls for Mommy a lot. Itâs the only intelligible thing she says. The repeated keening is as disturbing as Babyâs waking up without her in the first place. Even in a broad, darkly comedic game like this, the idea that both of a childâs parental units have up and disappeared for no defined reasonâleaving Baby to wander through an extremely dangerous worldâis disturbing. The gameâs world doesnât look anything like ours but the sense of danger still resonates.
Now, Murasaki Baby isnât exactly deep, textually speaking. It does use symbolism to gesture at bigger existential ideas and create a sense of dread. But, itâs a very rote sense of fucked-up-ness at work here. âOh, man, turning on the TV will distract that well-meaning but still-destructive parental unit! What a critique on the perverse, double-edged power of television in our modern world!â That kind of thing. However, as ham-fisted as some of the execution is, I still found myself thinking about how neglect, poor rapport, and smothering can really mess up a kid. Iâm still somewhat new to parenting so I think about this stuff a lot. But itâs rare to encounter a game that sets out to touch these prickly issues and this Vita title deserves some credit for that.
Playing Murasaki Baby made me feel queasy. The puzzles werenât ever so hard that I wanted to throw my hands up and quit. But the relative ease of the game paired well with the morbid curiosity I had about the next cartoony bit of body horror Baby would wander into. The reasons I kept playing were the same reasons I was hoping it would end soon. The short clutch of puzzles and peril winds up stumbling onto a weird little allegory that stops and makes you think despite its diminutive size. Not that different from when a kid blurts out grown-up language, like âNo, YOUâRE not being nice!â or âI love you so much it hurts.â Like a kid in between infancy and adolescence, Murasaki Baby scribbles down something thatâs awkwardly meaningful in a small way, despite its flaws.
