The sun is lethal in Helpless, so you’ll have to carefully navigate around its rays while looking for supplies and learning about this world (and yourself).
You play as a kid and their mother as they drive a decaying camper across a scorched land. Something about the sun has changed, and now its heat can kill within moments if you’re just standing in direct light. Thankfully, staying in shadows is enough to keep from dying, so you can still poke around the world for the things you need to survive. Most places are pretty picked clean, though, so it’s important to keep moving to new towns so you can keep finding new survival supplies. So, your camper breaking down is a huge disaster. Naturally, this is exactly what happens to you.
With the camper broken down, you have a bit of time to explore yourself while your mother tries to fix the vehicle. This gives you, as the player, some time to learn about this world, the kid’s past, and their connection to their mother. As you wander this dying place, details about each thing start to unveil themselves, some directly and others through hints in what you see. These insights, as well as the ever-present danger of the sun, keep pulling you along to learn and find more. Plus, meeting and taking care of a canine friend also helps to keep things fun when there’s so much danger around.
Helpless presents you with an interesting apocalyptic world and lets you learn about it on your own. I enjoyed getting to know this place (even if it could kill me easily if I messed up), and felt a strange joy in the small moments of happiness stolen with the dog and with my mother. It’s a sharp experience in what is truly important in our lives, as well as the hope we can find in appreciating what things we do have.
Helpless is available now on Steam.
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The concept of a deadly sun sounds intriguing! Is Helpless difficult to play?