What are video games if not windows into different worlds? Sometimes it's worth taking a moment to peer through and appreciate the view. Even as Hazel stands impatient, kicking her feet at the outskirts of an abandoned Cajun community, I fight the impulse to steer her any further through this handcrafted, hallucinatory adventure. Patches of reed flutter imperfectly in the wind, rabbits jerkily skip steps into hidden burrows – as if some invisible, intangible force is lazily thumbing through a flipbook to give life to the world around you. A sullen melody breezes on with the wind.
South of Midnight makes a strong first impression. Then again, titles from developer Compulsion Games always have. There was Contrast in 2013 and We Happy Few a few years later, experiences defined by their visually evocative worlds and deliberately modest scale. "We've always been ambitious with all the projects that we create, within the means that we've had," says Compulsion founder Guillaume Provost. Although the studio head is aware that expectation has shifted underneath the studio in years gone by.
