Refusing certain things can be a subversive act. Say No! More teaches us the power of ‘no’ so that we can turn against the abuse of power in a hilarious ‘auto-runner’.
Learning to say ‘no’ can be a hard road to travel, especially if we are talking about the workplace: the most classical education leads us to adopt a servile stance that does not bother our higher-ranking interlocutor and grants him what he has requested. no matter how much it may bother us. Say No! More is a humorous essay on that position of inferiority to which we are forced , a video game that helps us understand why accepting abuse does not have to be the norm, that saying ‘no’ is not always negative, but even It is useful to take care of ourselves, and that shifting responsibilities to those who really belong helps to maintain healthy interpersonal relationships.
Say No! More is the new title from Studio Fizbin , a team of German developers whom we know above all from The Inner World , a point and click graphic adventure that was their first major project in the video game industry. With this new work they radically separate from their previous proposal : instead of looking for the common places of an already established genre, Say No! More claims its own niche within the auto-runner putting ourselves in the shoes of a recently arrived intern who decides not to give up with everything ordered and learns to say ‘no’ to the absurd requests of his co-workers. This peculiar title comes to PC, iOS and Nintendo Switch from the hand of Thunderful Publishing , a publisher that has already distributed other indie hits such as Lonely Mountains: Downhill , Curious Expedition 2 or Steamworld Quest: Hand of Gilgamech .
Intern, bring me a coffee
We began our work adventure by putting ourselves in the shoes of an intern on his first day of internship , a position that does not drive him crazy but that he will try to cope with in the best possible way thanks to the lunch box that his best friend has prepared for him. Before that, the first thing we do in Say! No More is to shape our character with an avatar editor that takes advantage of the aesthetic low-poly of the game and allows us to create a scholarship in our image and likeness or vice we want, really then choose from a wide variety of languages in which to say ‘no’ : Say! No More has voices in English, texts in Spanish and a variety of languages to select so that our ‘no’ is more appropriate, being able to choose even if we want a male or female tone of voice for our character.
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The ‘Say No! More ‘is a lot more varied than you might expect.
Once our physical appearance and voice had been decided, we began to receive the welcome from the company in which we are going to participate as interns. Here begins a work parody that laughs in the face of all those stereotypes in the sector, taking us to a generic office in which nobody knows very well what is produced: there are people sitting at computers, others making photocopies, a small group in the water dispenser … Come on, the typical. The manager of our department not only welcomes us before guiding us to our workspace, but also explains one of the unbreakable rules of the company: here it is forbidden to say no. It’s a cursed word, in fact, and that’s why no one ever refuses anything. The company’s mantra implies that workers with a position immediately superior to yours can ask you for any kind of favor, knowing that you cannot refuse it. However, we, the protagonists of Say No! More , we’re obviously going to break that unwritten law by riding a good chicken all over the office .
A ‘no’ to dominate them all
The ability to say ‘no’ is one that is trained and our character does so with the help of a dusty self-help tape found on his brand-new workbench. When he plays the cassette , a muscular personal trainer appears who gives him the keys to refuse any absurd proposition that is put to him , thus initiating a true revolution in the office: the refusal is so unusual in the company that when we launch the first outburst it is creates an expansive wave that makes everything fly through the air and our colleagues stare, shocked by the force of the ‘no’ that we have just verbalized.
There is an unwritten rule in the office: don’t say no.
On a mechanical level it is a fairly simple game : it is practically played with a couple of buttons, the action button, which allows you to say ‘no’ every time you press it, and the direction button, which does not allow you to move the character on rails), but to modify between the different types of denial (irritated, cold, passive and trembling) as well as to carry out actions that distract our rivals before blurting out a ‘no’ like a house. The noes that we are launching can have different types of intensities, something that we can regulate by holding down the action button for more or less time; Of course, for this we will have to first disarm the office colleagues to whom we want to deny their requests, because otherwise we will not have enough stamina and we will choke when trying to release a too loaded ‘no’.
We advance through the office at the stroke of ‘no’ while our character automatically runs through its corridors : colleagues will try to stop us to ask us from the simplest tasks, such as bringing a coffee or changing the toner in the printer, to other more bizarre ones, like doing a staring contest or telling us about your new favorite video game (which is curiously Minute of Islands , Studio Fizbin’s next project ). Most of these interactions are resolved by snapping a quick ‘no’, but others require a bit more force to get our interlocutors out of the way. Also, Say No! More will reward us with hidden scenes if we know when not to refuse requestsOkay we can say no when it comes to an abuse of power, but what if someone wants to show us the new game project they are working on? What if they ask us to bring a love letter to the partner at the next table? If we know how to listen, we can choose between carrying out these types of small actions that unlock additional nice paths .
If we listen to our colleagues without refusing immediately, we can unlock unique and hidden situations that do not imply an abuse of power towards us.
Workers revolution during office hours
As we progress in the game’s plot, we will climb in the company to face more and more powerful characters in more bizarre situations , but we cannot expect a challenging game here: the different types of noes and their intensity They are not used as a dynamic of progression through difficulty, but rather as a narrative tool with which to frame ourselves in the work . Most of the time it does not matter if we blurt out a cold ‘no’ or an irritated one, it does not matter if we do it by fully loading the power bar or if we simply press the button once; Say No! More gives us the possibility to deny ourselves as we want and enjoy the commotion that we mount in the company, without pretending to become an action game to use.
Precisely because their ultimate proposal is to criticize the labor system and the abuses of power that occur in it. He does this in a very evident way, actually, with dialogues that are tremendously horny but that at certain times lack political depth; it doesn’t matter, honestly , because Say No! More is a hooligan and his straightforward style fits him like a glove. We could ask you to seek to present your anti-capitalist message in a more thoughtful way, but how would that fit into a game that involves yelling ‘no’ to your bosses and blowing everything up? Probably not very good. Studio Fizbin has perfectly understood the humorous rhythm of its main mechanics , as well as that of las cinematics that are sketches in themselves , and without that he has been able to make a political comment, however simplistic it may seem, welcome.
Sometimes the anti-capitalist critique is so direct that it remains on the surface, but it works within the jumble of the game.
Conclusions
Say No! More brings to the table a subject as delicate as the abuse of power in the work environment and does so with a parody of the work environment that covers all aspects of the work: from its low-poly graphic style to exaggerated animations and designs colorful, even its main mechanic, the one that allows us to shout ‘no’ to anyone who asks us to perform an absurd and abusive task . Those of you who come here expecting a challenging action game should know that this indie game is driven by satire, not challenge , and that the mechanics are there to allow us to be part of your humorous essay on salaried work., not to pose a challenge. The benefits of Studio Fizbin’s game are there, in his comic vision of an undeniable problem, and although sometimes his speech may err on the side of simplistic, leading a workers’ revolution through ‘no’ is a hilarious experience as good to recommend as to revisit .
