For 2025, I've resolved to play a game available for free on itch once every weekend. I found out about Executive Towers late in 2024 through Bandcamp recommending the soundtrack to me, and after already betraying the entire premise of what I was trying to do by playing it *after* the weekend, I have a few things to say regarding it.
Executive Towers to me is quite reminiscent of the genre me and my friends have collectively decided to call Nikki-likes, after the RPG Maker indie game Yume Nikki. I'm pretty sure people generally prefer the term "walking simulator" for these types of games, and I'm pretty sure Executive Towers even momentaneously refers to itself as one, but the term Nikki-like has stuck in my vocabulary and I can't really seem to get it out anymore, so it's the one I use. I remember, although I could be misremembering, seeing the developer state that the game was inspired by LSD: Dream Simulator, and that wouldn't surprise me: it's another notable early Nikki-like and characteristics like its camera perspective and world design resemble Executive Towers more closely than other examples of the genre I could cite. Given all of the stuff I just said, I can now proceed to, uh, actually talk about the game itself in a more personal fashion.
Executive Towers does something I never really expected a Nikki-like to do; unlike the many I've played with my friends up until now, it follows a clearly delineated linear narrative progression. If you told me this before I played it, my reaction would probably be something along the lines of "Oh. That sounds pretty bad, open exploration is one of the most defining factors of Nikki-likes as a genre and achieving the dream-like or art gallery atmosphere most of these games are going for without that seems very difficult", but after playing it what I ended up thinking was that I'm pleasantly surprised by how well it works. For a game of its size and background (being a companion piece to the homonymous album by JADE STATUES), making it linear really does seem like it was the best idea; making a more traditional Nikki-like would not only take much more time and work, it would also leave the possibility open for the player to miss certain songs or listen to the album out of order, which would kind of defeat the point of making what is essentially a playable music video (a music game?) for the album. And despite having little room for active deviation from the path, the way the game flows and presents itself is better at creating that sense of dreamy disorientation than I would have expected it to be, given that it's a completely linear narrative. I've now said everything I liked about the game, and I hope this has made it clear that one of the things I liked the most was the concept! Artistically, it is a very tight experience with a somewhat lighthearted atmosphere that still manages to feel oneiric, and act as a very good support piece for the album. Now, onto my recommendations for the developer: this game is old and I have not played any newer games daffodil has published, but it did seem evident to me while playing Executive Towers that the game is pretty unpolished from a technical and visual perspective. Now, I understand: it's a small game made by an independent developer and published on itch with the option for free downloads available. It is not a bad game, however certain aspects do serve to take you a little out of the experience. Quite a few dialogue segments are broken and go over the allocated textbox space, effectively making you unable to read parts of them. There's also some rendering issues or just strange rendering in general: water interacts weirdly with the camera, the player character's hair blocks your view if you look directly up, and it also seemed a little poorly optimised in my experience? Like, I did not expect to be lagging while playing a freeware game from about a decade ago, yet it happened. The visual style is also quite inconsistent, I believe because most of the assets were openly available unity assets and not custom-made for the game? I wouldn't know, and it really isn't something I'd judge the game for either, but playing it made to me apparent the importance of a consistent visual style in Nikki-likes, at least on an area-per-area basis, to better immerse the player in the game's world. Executive Towers often shows the seams and stitches inherent to the art of making a videogame, and this does not make it stop being worthwhile, but I figured if I was already leaving a comment, I might as well mention these things so the developer can make their future games better, or perhaps even pick up the concept again and make something new out of it. The asset thing is especially hard to fix because I have to assume that if the assets look that way it's for a reason, and making original assets everywhere that needs them in something as idiosyncratic as a Nikki-like and making it look good requires a bit of technical skill in 3D modeling or spriting, and that's not really a skill every single indie developer should be expected to have. However, the thing with the dialogue boxes could likely be solved by playtesting the full game once or twice before release; if it was, it may just be being caused by my computer, and in that case I am truly sorry because I have no idea how to help with that either. Nevertheless, I quite enjoyed my time with it, and when I have some more free time (and am not playing other games by other devs I haven't played anything from before) I might play more recent games by the developer; it had an air of charm I quite enjoyed.
By the way: I'm supposed to give you, daffodil, someone's regards, however I am quite bad with names and I already forgot who it was. No matter - I'm probably going to replay the game and be able to check that again soon enough, but for now this is all I got. Thank you!