Over the summer, I had the (somewhat questionable) pleasure of playing an indie game known simply as OFF. Released in French in 2004 by Mortis Ghost, his website describes the game as a roleplaying game in which “you take control of a mysterious person called ‘The Batter’, who is described to be on an important mission.” The website’s description is just as ambiguous about the story as the game itself is, and this is what makes the game truly interesting.

In OFF, you start the game with a black screen, complete with questions reminiscent of any Pokemon game. The first is “are you a boy or a girl?” and, after answering this, you are invited to enter your name. Upon doing so, you are met with a screen telling you that “you have been assigned to a being known as the Batter” and that whoever is talking to you will “let you out in Zone 0.”

From here on, you assume control of The Batter, a man who fittingly carries around a baseball bat and wears a standard baseball uniform. It is important to note that you, the player, are not supposed to be the Batter, which differentiates OFF from other role-playing games (RPGs). Many non-playable characters break the fourth wall in various portions of the game by speaking directly to or about you, using the name and gender you provided at the very beginning of the game. This differentiation becomes more important as the game goes on, as the player and The Batter find themselves in increasingly morally ambiguous situations in which the player must effectively make choices for The Batter.

The game plays like any standard RPG, though it isn’t turn-based. Battles take place on a timer, with both the enemies and the player’s party having a timer count down until an individual member can make a move. Time is frozen if one member becomes paralyzed or suffers a similar health defect. Boss battles are fought at the end of each Zone, which serves as a level in the game, and these are generally very easy for any player who has been leveling up properly. Outside of battles, the gameplay involves a lot of puzzle solving, some of which is borrowed from earlier games in the genre. One scene features a musical puzzle similar to that of the Lost Woods puzzles in the Legend of Zelda series. Other puzzles are time-based, though the difficulty for these should not be troubling for those who have never played an RPG. While some have complained that the game is too easy, the game’s length does not complement a difficult battle system.

The main reason people play OFF is because they have heard of its story or have seen out of context screenshots that were so bizarre that they had to know what was going on. Gameplay takes a backseat to the story, which starts out innocently enough and becomes darker and more perplexing as the game goes on, right up to the point when the credits roll. Every character, barring perhaps one, is shown in two different lights by the end of the game, and each is completely opposite to the other. It is left up to the player to decide two things: the nature of the characters, and whether any is really all good or all bad, and what the storyline means. Part of the fun of OFF is not the gameplay or even the story, but the speculation it results in.

Another area in which OFF excels is its soundtrack. Written by Alias Conrad Coldwood, the soundtrack bounces around from spooky to upbeat to poignant. The battle theme, “Pepper Steak”, is the most recognizable and popular song on the soundtrack. Coldwood makes creepy places all the creepier by way of music; in the Purified Zones, for example, all that can be heard is the clanging of a bell, whispering and, at times, shouts, along with the occasional slam. In a later Zone, the music takes a turn for the darker, becoming very melancholy, and, at times, very loud. As the story progresses, so does the music. Music for each zone is easily distinguishable, though the music doesn’t sound very similar until Zone 3 is introduced. It is only in The Room, which is a culmination of the entire plot, that the music returns to its incongruity, with “Brain Plague”, a song that sounds like a piano melody has been added to a synth backup that has been reversed coming right before “Panic in Ballville”, which sounds like the soundtrack to an arcade game that has been modernized.

All in all, I found OFF to be a very enjoyable game. My one complaint was that the ending was very abrupt. For someone who hasn’t been paying attention to the clues that begin to pile up, the ending makes very little sense. Even if you understand the clues, the resolution may still be a bit of a letdown, as it doesn’t serve to resolve the various plot elements. In fact, one player noted that the penultimate battle “both explains the plot and confuses it even more”, which is probably the truest thing I’ve ever read in regards to the game. If you can look past that, however, and you enjoy bizarre games (which OFF truly is), then you’ll probably enjoy it.