Manny’s Review (Xbox Series X|S & PC)

I washed ashore in Manny’s without the slightest clue what to expect. Honestly, I never expected a great game. Rather, I just assumed that it would be a half-baked, low-poly catastrophe that would make me laugh and leave me with some awful memories. And, to some extent, I suppose it did. It was bizarre—totally ridiculous, even—yet it was also an irritating affair that I just wanted to see more of. I’ll admit that, in the first five minutes I hit a brick wall. I found myself at the foot of a deserted island, without two sticks to rub together and only a simple spacebar-mashing fishing mini-game to keep me company. I farmed coconuts, reeled fish, and watched the hours fly by as insanity slowly began to consume me. But then, I blacked out. The grains of sand disintegrated, and the faint neon light of an ominous diner filled the sky. It wasn’t a liminal island-based survival game anymore; it was a full-fledged fever dream that had little interest in freeing me from its unconventional form.

Manny’s isn’t a game that you can easily describe. I’d love to tell you about it, but even now, after shedding the final layer and spending an hour or two trying to comprehend it, I just can’t for the life of me figure it out. It’s a bit of Stranded Deep, and a bit of Happy’s Humble Burger Farm, if that makes sense. And I know what you’re thinking: neither of these properties work together. Yet, Manny’s makes it so that both gel with a single overarching plot. See, on one hand you have a daytime routine—a period during which you wander around a deserted island and catch fish. But on the other hand, you have the night—an entirely separate arc that requires you to slip into a perpetual fever dream that centers around a gloomy diner. In those instances, you either converse with members of the staff who, for some reason that escapes you, are completely oblivious to the fact that the outside world is drenched in black and surrounded by water, or “work for your meal”—an act that involves exploring the diner and completing various odd jobs. Well, sort of.

If you’re just as confused as we are at this point, then join the club — we’ve got jackets, and nuggets. Unlike most games that lather context over specific turning points in the story, Manny’s makes a habit of keeping you second guessing almost every move. In one minute you’ll be on an island, slurping soda from the ever-alluring Manny’s. But in another, you’ll be at the kiosk, staring blankly at a checkout employee as they ask you if you prefer nuggets or burgers. Somewhere, and somehow, these two realities merge into one perplexing timeline—a barren island, and a diner. The problem is, you don’t ever receive any detail about who you are, or what on earth you’re even doing. A confusing loop eventually emerges, and before long you find yourself volleying back and forth between nightmares, wondering what the heck went wrong.

To call Manny’s a by-the-numbers horror game just wouldn’t be true. For the record, it features a lot of the familiar trappings—stealth, exploration, and the occasional bit of choice-driven gameplay, for example. But I suppose Manny’s is more of a low-poly flick with lightweight interactive elements, if anything. Sure enough, the game does require you to explore certain areas and engage in small talk with various characters and inanimate objects. That being said, to call it a fully-fledged game might be a bit of an overstatement. No, Manny’s is a bit more than that. It’s an absurdly complex, oftentimes grotesque and even humorous fever dream that wants you to feel uneasy and at a loss for words. Fortunately for the creators, Manny’s hits the nail on the head as far as all of this weirdness goes.

While there is a rather short game here (forty, maybe fifty minutes at a push), Manny’s does manage to give you a lot to think about with multiple endings to unlock and an underlying message that requires you to scratch and ponder in order to understand. To call it a simple experience just wouldn’t be true. From a mechanical and gameplay standpoint, maybe it is. However, there’s a layer of intrigue here that will, unfortunately, knock you back and cause you to question, well, everything. 

Of course, Manny’s is a shoddy game — but that’s sort of what it aims to be. Graphically, it strives for the low-poly aesthetic that favors blocky, almost PSX-like models and emulated facial expressions. At times, it’ll make you chuckle. But in certain situations, it’ll make you uncomfortable, to the point where you’ll feel like staring away from the screen, believe it or not. For the record, it isn’t a comedy. Having said that, it might make you giggle for all of the wrong reasons. Though, that doesn’t mean that it isn’t a disturbing game. It is. This world just happens to have a funny bone. Silver linings, you know how it is.

Verdict

Manny’s stands out as one of the strangest, most convincing imitations of a fever dream in recent years, with its bizarre low-poly aesthetic, oddball script and eccentric design serving a cocktail of weirdness that feels deserving of its own trademark. To call it a good game might be a bit of a stretch, as it is about as barebones and as graphically inept as it gets. That being said, it is an awfully unique experience that I can’t help but recommend to those who might be on the market for a quirky romp that goes a little further than the kitchen quarters of Happy’s Humble Burger Farm.

To echo, Manny’s is about as unusual as they come, so it’s best not to expect a transparent experience with a lot of context here. Still, if you’re all for the wackiness of the low-poly world, then I suggest taking the time to wash ashore in this eccentric borough, if only for twenty or thirty minutes or so. Frankly, it’s best not to stick around much longer than that. Thank us later.