Butter Side Down

In Butter Side Down, you do some ✨definitely important✨ office work on a computer. After logging on, you're presented with a series of questions with four possible answers. It doesn't take long to realize that each of them is aligned with one of the four factions (maybe not exactly correct term but that's how I think of them anyway) of this bizarre world. Then, based on the answers selected, you get an ending for each faction. That's basically the bulk of the game. But uhh…who’s asking these questions and why are you answering them? Who are these people calling you? And why is there a file named “???” on the desktop?

Though not a complex game, one simple but important mechanic is the score counter at the top, indicating how many of your answers correspond to each faction. To understand how those manifest in writing is still something you have to do yourself, but it’s a helpful tool and gives you the ability to set little goals for yourself. What happens if all your answers count toward The Company of Jesters? What if you split them equally, as much as possible, between all the groups? It’s a clever little thing that drove the game and my curiosity forward.

The thing I like about Butter Side Down the most is that it’s confident. It trusts that after answering a bunch of non-sequitur questions and going ”uhhh what the fuck” you will be curious enough to continue and figure stuff out. The game feels indifferent towards the player in the best way possible. It doesn’t explicitly ask you to do anything and apart from the counter I mentioned previously, it doesn’t help you much. I'm certain that not everyone will vibe with game's particular brand of humor, but I also think that those people likely won't buy the game to begin with. If you look through the store page, you know pretty much instantly whether this is your jam or not.

The game got me laughing not just when I understood the jokes, but often when I didn't, too. That's in part due to this absurdist vibe permeating the entire thing, but it's not just that. Sometimes it feels to be less about simply not getting a joke, and more about the joke being intended for somebody else. Maybe it’s an in-joke of game's creators, or maybe it's a message for a friend? I might be completely off here or I'm projecting or whatever, but it's something I thought about while playing. In contrast to that, there are very explicit references to real world stuff or pop-culture, just to let you know that these guys have great taste. And of course, there are some really dumb puns, too. Love a good dumb pun.

Aesthetically, this thing is great. The game takes place inside BC-3 OS—a faux operating system complete with files, programs, and even some simple card games. I’m fond of the trope, especially when the game OS doesn’t look like a real one and instead has some actual personality. Here it’s like if MS Paint was an operating system. That goes for all art here, literally rough around the edges with it’s chunky pixels and saturated, flat colors. It’s definitely a vibe. It took me a while to figure out what the heck was going on with audio and I'm still not entirely sure I understand, which is all to say that sound design complements the rest of the game perfectly.

My overwhelming feeling while playing the game was that the creators had a lot of fun putting it together. Games that usually get described as "personal" are often ones dealing with some really heavy subject matter, but when people talk about something as oddball as this, you rarely hear that word. To me, BSD feels deeply personal and it's why I like it so much. No gen AI model will ever spit out anything like this.

Despite its short playtime, it managed to subvert my expectations multiple times. Initially bemused, I quickly ended up intrigued. It changed the way I played, something I only realized later on. Reaching the end took a little under two hours, with my achievement progress of around 40% a clear indication of questions and endings I've yet to see. I didn't expect the game to go where it went and I was smiling ear to ear as I hit the end credits. I really enjoyed it and I'll be coming back to it over time, slowly uncovering all that's left.