Thank you Hatinh Interactive for providing us with a code!

It seems to me robot/AI narratives are becoming more popular recently. Developer Nerd Monkeys enters the puzzle platformer genre with their game Out of Line. A 2D hand-drawn experience, it stars a mysterious being named San as it travels through an abandoned factory. These giant claw-like tendrils float from the sky, capturing anything and anyone they spot. In this textless adventure, San embarks on a journey to find out why these menacing alien-like beings are abducting San's people.

Out of Line has nice, emotional 2D visuals. The backgrounds invoke a watercolor and pencil style. Compared to many other hand-drawn games, it is one of the more unique ones opting to look more like a painting instead of a cartoon or flash animation project. The environment blends natural foliage with the industrialism of factories, giving off a lively yet also dead appearance to everything. The machinery is still functional to the point that it operates with little issue and the plants are not overgrown to the point where nature is reclaiming its ground. Some of the later levels get very imaginative with the scenery. In terms of animations, most of it is good, but in some cases it can get a little jittery.

San will run and jump his way throughout the factory, braving into the dangers unknown. Whether a controller or keyboard and mouse controls are used, they are fairly simple. Shortly into the game, San acquires a spear that San can aim with the mouse or control sticks when the left mouse click or X button is held. A line showing the trajectory of the spear will appear and releasing the button will launch the spear forward. Recalling the spear back to San’s hand is with the same button. The spear is San’s main ability and it uses it for many environmental puzzles. Sometimes, San will throw the spear into the wall to use as a platform to reach higher places or stick it between rotating gears to keep machinery in place. The collision for spear platforming does have a small issue every once in a while if the angle thrown is awkward as San occasionally clips through the spear. Fortunately, recalling the spear is easy.

The environmental puzzles are fairly simple, yet manage to be quite entertaining due to the amount of interactivity in each of them. The puzzles progress quickly and the pacing only takes a few seconds at most before you’re completing another one. Despite the simplistic premise, every new area continuously introduces new types of puzzles to keep the gameplay loop from feeling repetitive—all cumulating in a final puzzle that’s quite the brain teaser. Fail states do exist such as getting crushed by debris (San only falls down when crushed), being spotted in the claw's line of sight, or falling into the abyss. Failing puts you back to the beginning of the room where the puzzle takes place so there is very little punishment for it. A few cheap deaths can happen with the claws as even if the slightest pixel touches their searchlight, it counts as a fail state for you.

Like most atmospheric games, Out of Line relies on ambiance instead of a musical score. The sound effects are varied such as the spear making different clang sounds depending on what it hits. The spear also has a funny door stopper sound. When San fails, there’s an ominous note that plays to indicate failure. The roars that the claws make are ear-piercingly loud and mechanical in nature. A great deal of effort was put into the sound design.

I did experience a few glitches. They’re a bit hard to replicate and I’m not sure what caused them. After reaching a fail state in one level, my character suddenly teleported forward past the obstacle it was suppose to break. Walking a bit forward, the latter half of the level failed to load and San fell into the abyss. Luckily, exiting to the menu fixed this issue. The options menu only has a few adjustments such as sound adjustment, language, and V-sync toggle.

There aren't many issues from what I’ve seen in terms of morality or appropriateness. Violence is kept to a minimum with the most noticeable things being the aforementioned crushed state that San ends up in and one of the characters San meets stabbing another robot with its spear. Anything else that could potentially end up violent cuts to black.

Out of Line’s narrative can be somewhat confusing as everything is up to your interpretation. What I got from it was a story about finding your self worth and building up your self esteem. The experience lasts around two and a half to three hours and is generally safe for most audiences (might be a bit frightening for very young children). Besides earning achievements you may have missed the first time around there isn’t a whole lot of replay value to it and is something you’ll play once, maybe twice. People who enjoy a more streamlined story-like experience will find enjoyment in Out of Line.