Amanda the Adventurer is an unsettling, first-person psychological horror, developed by MANGLEDmaw games and published by DreadXP. Amanda the Adventurer takes the tried and tested tropes of children’s TV, then rewinds and subverts them along with your expectations. What begins as a bright and bubbly cartoon with endearing characters soon turns dark and sinister, the player unraveling a disturbing reality through a series of videotapes.
Amanda the Adventurer is available on Steam and Nintendo Switch from £7.49 ($8.99).
Story – Let’s Bake a Pie!
Riley is responsible for organising the house she has inherited from her recently deceased aunt. Here she finds an obscure letter left for her, leaving instructions to explore the attic. The attic is home to an old block TV, besides which is a video tape. This and the tapes that follow feature a cheery children’s show, the titular Amanda the Adventurer. Amanda and her best friend Wooly break the fourth wall in the stereotypical children’s presenter way, asking questions in a call and response style while making pies, running errands at shops and even a day-trip to the petting zoo.
At first all seems to be in keeping with the ominously positive and slightly patronising tones of a children’s program. However, as Amanda begins to display more free will and Wooly attempts to pass secret messages on to the player, you realise this is more than a badly written TV show. There is also another type of tape to collect, by completing precise requirements to unlock them. While they take a bit of trial and error to find, it is worth doing to find out more of the history behind the creepy Amanda and her adventures.
The player joins Amanda and Wooly on lots of their ‘innocent’ adventures.
Gameplay – Easy as ABC
The player takes control of Riley, observing the dingy attic through a first-person perspective. It is important to take note of everything in your environment, as vital clues will discreetly appear as you progress. This remains true for what you see on the small screen too, both dialogue and background details providing answers to unlock the next tape. The mental power required alternates depending on the puzzle to be solved, ranging from glaringly obvious answers to more convoluted solutions.
How you interact with items remains the same however, using A to select or pick up objects and the left thumbstick to move. As you replay through the episodes, there will be multiple opportunities to manipulate and change the contents of the tapes. This is done through trying more bizarre solutions to the puzzles rather than the straightforward answer. Doing this should eventually lead to you finding a pause button for the TV, which aids you further in finding all the secrets in Amanda the Adventurer.
The puzzles you solve and how you solve them changes the tapes you find.
Audio and Graphics – Authentic TV
For the majority of your time in the attic, you are surrounded by a pressing silence. Interacting with some items and solving puzzles will cause some noise, such as the beep-boops of a toy robot or the shrill ringing of a clock. The jingle of Amanda the Adventurer is off-key, unease creeping in soon after the opening notes. Delivery of the script is extremely effective too, with sudden changes of inflection and randomly aggressive emphasis causing discomfort throughout. An additional nice touch of detail was the studio logo and chime at the end of each episode, which is not only relevant to the lore but adds to the authenticity of the TV show.
Amanda the Adventurer cleverly blends graphical styles. The CGI used is basic yet charming, fitting with an old-school animated show. As you watch more episodes, flashes of static and real-life images interrupt the show, hiding alternate events happening on screen. The animation style contrasts the footage found on the brightly coloured VHS tapes. These instead play out as camcorder videos of live-action people, showing links between the odd TV show and the real world.
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- Clues are cleverly scattered throughout.
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- Amanda the Adventurer twists childhood innocence into uncomfortable found footage horror.
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- The seemingly sweet children’s show has sinister overtones.
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- Clues to answers are hidden both in the TV and in the attic.
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- The found footage tapes unveil lore, answer questions and open more mysteries.
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- Found footage appears as brightly coloured tapes which stay available once found.
Amanda the Adventurer was reviewed on Nintendo Switch with a key provided by UberStrategist.
