A Drug Trip With a Retro Coat of Paint
I first played Nowhere, Mi around the time it was released in August 2022 while I was extremely hungover. I didn’t know what to expect when I first jumped into it, I was just happy to not think about how dehydrated I was. I grabbed my gas station iced coffee and downloaded the game from Feverdream Johnny’s itch.io page. Nothing could have prepared me for the experience I loaded into.
Nowhere, MI is a game that excels at breaking your expectations. It’s pretty difficult to describe what the game even is because of how bizarre things are. It’s a fever dream. It’s a drug trip. It's a FPS with Metroidvania elements. Most importantly, it’s on par with becoming one of my favorite games of all time.
I don’t want to give too much away, so if you want to try it blind, you can download the game here. It was really great playing it without an idea of what it was, and I highly recommend it. If you don’t care much for spoilers, read on to get my take on Nowhere, MI.
Welcome, to Nowhere
The game starts with a short conversation between the player, known as James, and his mother. James is looking for his brother, Alex, and is heading to Nowhere, Mi to find him. The conversation is cut and the game opens.
Immediately the player is tossed into the world and given free rein to explore. You’ll quickly learn that the few things that you can do is move around, jump, and talk to NPCs. A lot of the conversations are hilarious, uneasy, confusing, or fourth-wall-breaking.
You’ll meet a massive cast of all sorts of folks like an army of policemen, some cute scuba diving dudes, a wizard, an army of monkeys, and of course, a talking revolver. This game is a flavor text heaven, so you’ll have a great time talking to every ‘person’ that you meet.
I spent most of my efforts running around the hub area and trying to piece together the ‘lore’ of the land. Turns out, that's harder than I thought it was going to be. The story has a loose direction but most of the NPCs will fill you in on what’s going on in their little corner of Nowhere.
The demo does leave a few things vague, and finishing it only left me asking more questions. The way the short experience gives you just enough context without too much foreshadowing left me with so many theories or ideas that can only be revealed when the game is completed.
Overall, Nowhere may seem like a confusing mess of nothingness at first glance, but each zone has a small story to tell which explains why things are the way they are. Of course, they are written in a way to not fully outright tell the player everything that’s going on, giving you room to fill in the gaps with your imagination. Combined with the level design, I think it’s what gives the game a lot of its ‘meat’ in between finding upgrades or clues.
With that being said, what can you actually do in Nowhere?
What you can do in Nowhere, MI
You can’t really do much besides talk to people and jump around when you first start playing, but the main hub, Nowhere Crossing, has a few teasers that indicate that there must be other ways to access more parts of the hub. One example is that there are a couple of cliffs that look just out of reach, with visible objects and structures to attract your attention too. The player is given a loose path that they can follow that twists and turns allowing the world to feel more open.
Following these paths will often lead you to find an item or an upgrade for your character. The first one you can grab, and probably the most useful one, is the jetpack. This gives you a nice double jump that allows you to access more areas in the game. There are a couple of other available mobility upgrades that can be found in the demo at this time and I’m looking forward to what other Metroidvania-type powerups can be found in the final release.
Key upgrade items aside, there are other things you can do in Nowhere. Occasionally you can find people or uh, things that may need help with something. Helping these characters out can benefit you later, or just give you some flavor text as a reward. One example of these ‘side quests’ are the quarters you can find to use on vending machines. If used on a machine, you’ll be able to get another item that a character needs or a nice max hp increase.
There are two boss fights in the game at the time of writing (unless I completely missed one). The first boss you fight immediately after finding Concord is pretty easy compared to the Poltergeist. The Unborn Angel seemed less threatening, but it was a good way to get used to moving and shooting a boss before being given a real challenge.
The other boss, however, was much more fast and aggressive and showcased the developer's future plans for combat sections. The poltergeist downed me twice since I reacted too slowly to some of its telegraphs. I enjoyed this, as I improved by paying as much detail to the boss in combat just as I would in the overworld. I’m really excited to see future plans for combat when the game is complete.
The gun isn’t just for shooting terrifying creatures. You can also shoot obstacles to reach even more areas, so you’d be surprised by the secrets that you can find while searching every corner of the game for more items and locations to explore. Shoot everything (except for the monkeys).
I couldn’t get enough of the art
Nowhere, MI’s art style is reminiscent of classic consoles like the Nintendo 64 and the Playstation One. You’ll find sharp and polygonal three-dimensional assets alongside pixelated sprites that make up most of the NPCs and non-interactable environmental pieces. I made a surprising connection to Conker’s Bad Fur Day when I was exploring the hub world and ‘side levels’.
Much like Conker, It’s a mash-up of several ideas and concepts working with and against each other. This gives Nowhere, MI a very impactful style that stands out from other similar-looking HPSX style games. It's definitely one of the demo’s greatest strengths and a major contributing factor to why I love Nowhere, MI so much.
The combination of using three-dimensional objects alongside jpgs and sprites gives the game just enough depth to allow the player to feel immersed despite the lower fidelity appearance. Nintendo 64 and PsX games captured me in their low poly worlds, Feverdream Johnny flawlessly uses similar techniques to inject nostalgia through Nowhere, MI.
Another standout point is the world design. From the design and art style alone, I felt like I was intruding into a world that was still determining if it wanted me in it or not. I felt like a parasite feeding off of a larger host in the form of information and upgrades while it was slowly finding ways to reject my existence there. I sound a bit dramatic but I loved the somewhat hostile environments and feeling like an observing outsider.
Some of the zones that stood out were Hell, Mi, where a giant burning sun swam in blood-red waters underneath a crimson sky. Then you had places like the gardens, where you jumped onto various ‘plants’ which led to a massive one floating in a voidsea. The skyboxes were all unique and contributed heavily to giving each zone more personality.
Before I move on, I can’t forget about the game’s HUD. Without trying to spoil too much, the upgrades that you collect that have constant practical use will light up when you can use them and bounce around after doing so, visually indicating the item being used. Everything is jumpy and eager to get your attention while you are playing, which gives NW, MI a lot of its own personality versus using a static HUD with simple numbers. Even the HUD carries on the nostalgic style of games that many gamers grew up with, matching the PSX vibe extremely well.
The soundtrack of dreams and nightmares
The element that ties it all together is the game’s audio design. Each zone is accompanied by its own music. The great library had an uneasy track that made me feel like I had accidentally stumbled onto something much greater than myself. The ‘slumber city’ had a tune that felt optimistically oppressive; It felt like a doomed city filled with characters that embraced the darker sides of life. I sound a bit philosophical, but that's the vibe I got when I was stoned out of my mind on my third playthrough (I highly recommend it for the flower enjoyers out there).
One thing that all zones had in common was that it felt like music that you’d hear in a dream. Not exactly tangible, but it sounds like music if you aren’t paying full attention. While many tracks don’t stick with you too long, the hub world track is the one that definitely left the biggest impression.
It’s like the Firelink Shrine theme when you somehow stumble your way back to it in Dark Souls. It's a haven of sorts, and it usually means you are progressing deeper into Nowhere each time you return to it with more tools at your disposal.
Now on to my favorite thing to critique, which is the SFX. Holy shit does this game have some sounds that inject dopamine every time you hear the sound bites. The menu selection noises, the dinging chime when you collect an item, the various pitches you hear when you interact with an NPC, it all was satisfying.
One of my favorite bits was talking to a certain monkey that had 99 dialogues to dig through. Spamming that and listening to his excited shout over and over in different pitches got a big chuckle out of me. Especially what happens after you finally read all of its dialogue, but you’ll have to play the demo to see what I'm talking about (wink, wink).
One thing I MUST acknowledge is how important the sound design is for the combat and platforming sections. During combat, you get plenty of audio cues that give you information without having to divert your eyes from your foes in front of you. You can hear when Concord is reloading. You can hear the squeak of your dash charges coming off of cool-down. Boss enemies can scream to indicate certain attacks that you need to prepare for.
These decisions are certainly intentional and it's where the game’s audio shines the most. Even getting my ass kicked by the poltergeist was a good time since it trained me to watch everything around me more than my HUD. This game's audio design was incredibly well done and provided style alongside functionality.
I can’t determine what sounds were used for a few things, as they were very unique and are hard to compare to tangible things to reference them. All the more to give Nowhere, MI its own brand, both in the visual and audio departments.
Is It worth getting lost in Nowhere?
So is this game worth giving a try? I’ll begin by saying that it’s difficult to critique an unfinished game, but I’ll be treating this as a showcase teaser of where Feverdream Johnny wants to go with the game. So, who is Nowhere, MI for?
If you are looking for a game that's a retro fps shooter with some light Metroidvania elements, you may enjoy this demo. A lot of what makes this game glow is by taking the game slow and really drinking in the world around you. You’ll have exploration phases, (limited for the time being) combat phases, and some item-based puzzle solving between both phases of the ‘gameplay’ loop.
Most of the humor and story is based on dialogue boxes given from various NPC sprites. This may not be for everyone, specifically anyone who prefers to just run around and shoot things instead of reading and exploring. But for anyone who likes to explore a virtual environment, you owe it to yourself to give this game a playthrough or two.
If you are the type who likes to comb over an entire area before moving to the next one, you’ll love Nowhere, MI. There are many things that are in-jokes, references, or just absurdities that went over my head, and I loved all of it. I felt like each time I ran through the demo, I had found a new secret or learned some critical worldbuilding information.
The demo can run you between twenty minutes to an hour or so of gameplay. If you’ve got some time to kill when you don’t know what to play, Nowhere, MI is a great choice to spend an evening after work. The demo gives you just enough to taste where the developer is going with the game’s direction, and you’ll be left wanting more after you scour everything the demo has to offer.
Want more NW, MI?
Feverdream Johnny has created a few other works that offer similar uncanny yet fun experiences. You can check out their linktree to see everything they’ve been working on. I’ve scoured a couple of their projects and I’m considering doing a full ‘developer breakdown’ of this creator in the future. Feverdream Johnny creates very unique art, and I want to get lost in more and more of his worlds.
If you still need more NW, MI type-content, check out Crypt Worlds, which inspired the developer while creating this game. This is based off of a hilarious exchange between Feverdream Johnny and an anonymous overzealous ‘critic’ who chucked a nothing-burger critique at them.
Once the game gets fully completed, I’d love to do an entire retrospective on Nowhere, MI and I’ll give it a proper review when it’s a shippable product. Speaking of, if you want to help contribute to the completion of the game, you can support Feverdream Johnny directly through their Patreon.
If you got this far in this post, check out the game and let me know your thoughts! With a project like this, I'm sure it can be interpreted in many different ways, so let me know how it impacted you in the comments below. Any kind of interaction with my blog helps me out a lot, so don’t be shy!
Stay tuned for more demos and games like this in the future, so sign up for email updates if you want hidden gem recommendations and some other easter eggs that I’m cooking up.
Otherwise, thanks for hanging out, and I’ll catch you in the next post.
Later dude,
~Greysyns