Indie Impressions: Fountains

[00:00:10] Welcome, welcome, one and all. It is another Indie Impressions episode and it is me, Jake, from the Pre-Order Bonus podcast running this series. Folks, how are you doing? I'm exhausted. It's been a long day. Streamed in the morning, recorded a Pre-Order Bonus podcast episode before this. And so if my voice gets tired and the episode feels a little short, that's why. So I do apologize.

[00:00:35] But I'm really excited to talk about this game. So the game I'm talking about is Fountains. And this game, let's see, I would describe it as, I don't know, a top-down souls-like Metroidvania. I think that's how they would describe it. It is a very difficult game, can I just say.

[00:01:02] From what I understand that this was solo developed by John Pywell and also self-published. I think though, if I'm not mistaken, that Fountains, let's see, I want to say that there was a publisher involved maybe in some capacity. But you know, I might be getting that wrong. So I do apologize.

[00:01:21] This came out on December 20th, 2024. And to be totally honest, this is a game that flew completely under my radar until fellow podcaster and friend John from Gaming in the Wild mentioned this in his Discord. And I looked it up and it looked great. There was getting a lot of comparison, not just from him, but from others to Hyper Light Drifter, a game that I love, that many indie game lovers really have enjoyed.

[00:01:49] And so I decided to give it a go. Now, what I did is I actually got a key gifted to me via the publisher. So just full disclosure, it was gifted to me. I streamed the majority of this game as I played it. And I have a lot to really say about Fountains. I think it's a really interesting game and there's a lot of really unique things about it that are worth mentioning for sure.

[00:02:16] So let us dive into it. If you're new to the to the indie impressions series from the Period of Bonus podcast, very much like I guess you will the parent podcast. We have categories here. I'll be talking about the art direction, narrative, game design, and then finally who I recommend this game for. Other tidbits I think just to know is that I did stream this game. I would really appreciate it if you follow me there.

[00:02:42] That is twitch.tv slash chipdip18. I mostly am playing a lot of indie games on there. I'm a big fan, especially of pixel art, which is one thing that drew me to Fountains as well. So those are the 10 types of games that I tend to be playing on Twitch. Please, yeah, stop by, say hi, drop a follow. That'd be great. But let's get to the game. Let's talk about Fountains. The first thing we're going to talk about here is art direction. Now, it's a top-down pixel game. I think it looks fantastic.

[00:03:12] It's got really great biomes. It's got really great color choices. Somebody in my chat said, hey, it looks like Hyper Light Drifter but without the neon vomit. And they meant that in a complimentary way. And I would say, yeah, I think you're here. You're getting a little more subdued in terms of colors. It looks good. I mean, it's a good-looking pixel art game. It kind of is one of those games where the sprites almost feel a little old school in a way.

[00:03:43] But what is kind of modern about them is they don't fit necessarily to tile sets. But they look good. I mean, it's a great-looking game. I think it's got really good animations. I like how the different attacks look. The bosses have good telegraphing. And so there's some good visual clarity in there. For the most part, I will say that is actually one of my criticisms of certain bosses. But yeah, Fountains is a great-looking game. It's got fantastic music.

[00:04:11] Like this stuff is pumping. Your heart is going racing. Blood is pumping. You feel tingling like in your nerve endings because of how this game is just drumming these amazing tracks into your head. And so I don't know if John Pyewill did the music for this or who he contracted. But the music for this game is just flat-out outstanding.

[00:04:34] Like if you want to listen to some really epic, high fantasy, you know, just orchestral, sweeping, epic pieces, every single boss track I feel like in this game is just outstanding. I freaking loved it. So just hats off. Just really, really, really love that. Something that I really appreciated about this game is that as you collect different armor bits and you equip them,

[00:05:02] you see that reflected in what your character looks like. So sometimes, you know, you're going for a specific build and your character just kind of looks like a giant hodgepodge of whatever it was that you collected. But at the same time, there's a bit of fashion in here. And I would say if any Souls-like game needs to, if they're going to kind of imitate this Souls formula, is have some sort of fashion game in there. And there is definitely in that present in Fountains. So I did really like that.

[00:05:29] There's one armor piece, a helmet that you can get early on, a human skull. And you can wear that and that's reflected. And honestly, the skull looked really good. So I would say even though the pixel art might look, let's say, it's not quite minimalist. But it might kind of feel that way in some regards. There's actually quite a lot of detail. And there's a lot that I really appreciated about it. I think bosses looked really good as well, too.

[00:05:59] Enemies look good. I mean, it just looks good. I have one really strange sort of, I don't know, piece here of criticism, I guess. And despite some really highly detailed moments, like in some of the biomes, you get these really detailed areas. You would get these really flat and big kind of bland spaces as well.

[00:06:24] It was where, too, where floors are just like one color next to these highly detailed walls. I don't think it was too distracting. In fact, I think it actually helped you focus on the combat. So I think the art direction there was smart in service of visual clarity to kind of see what enemies are doing, to see what it is that you're doing, and to be able to track everything that's happening. Because there's a lot of movement here. There's a lot of attacks. There's a lot of swinging of your sword, etc., whatever. So I do think it worked.

[00:06:54] But I think if we were to take a look at this and be like, okay, am I going to have a screenshot of fountains as a background on my phone? I think I'd have to be highly selective of what that screenshot was. Because the game doesn't always look super photo friendly, even if it's really friendly for gameplay. So I hope I explained that well enough. It's just a little... It's interesting. It's a little...

[00:07:19] It's not off or off-putting, but it's noticeable enough during the few kind of serene moments of just exploring or walking through the game. You're like, man, maybe the floors could have used a little more detail here. So kind of, yeah, like I said, this is a really random criticism of the art direction. But I think otherwise this game looks really well. It looks really good and it plays really well. Now there were a few attacks from bosses.

[00:07:46] And just for full disclosure, I got very close to the very end of this game. I think I just have two bosses left. And I do have plans to finish this game when I do have time because I am so close. But the one boss that was just a giant wall for me, some of the attacks were really difficult to tell. Like what exactly what was going on. And what I mean by this is like, it's fine. And I think it's good boss design.

[00:08:15] When you have a boss doing one attack, that may or may not lead into different combos. It keeps you on your feet and makes it so I don't memorize the boss within two seconds. And, you know, it's good, right? But I would say some of those attacks and telegraphing chains, like those attacks look way too similar. When a boss is going to combo, it is nice to have like just even a split second of a visual cue that a combo is about to happen.

[00:08:42] Versus it just really feeling like a crapshoot for the player of like, okay, what's going to happen here? I hope they don't combo or I'm just going to have to dodge this every single time because they might combo. So, I don't know, just like just a touch more cues, I think, visually in the animations on some of the bosses would have helped me help alleviate some frustration. But by and large, bosses in this game were great. But we'll talk about that when we get to game design.

[00:09:10] Just kind of wrapping up things about art direction. I liked the animations overall. I think they looked good, especially this is going to sound weird, but especially when enemies kill you, like their final kill attack move, like their stab or whatever. The animation, like there is some cool detail and creativity that goes into a lot of what's present in fountains. And so very cool, very cool game. Again, I think it had really great art direction.

[00:09:40] If you are at all intrigued by this game, definitely look it up. But also, please listen to the music. The soundtrack of this game is just phenomenal. I really loved it. All right, moving along into the narrative. Well, this is a Souls-like game, which means a lot of the narrative is kind of you have to piece it together. But essentially, I loved how this game started narratively.

[00:10:05] It started with a good narrative twist that kind of feels like a big reveal, which it is. Honestly, it starts with this big reveal and then there's other kind of tidbits that are added to you later on. But essentially, it starts with, and I'm paraphrasing here, what they didn't tell you about the prophecy is that the usurper would be one of them. And so you're like, ooh, hold on a second.

[00:10:31] We already have a bunch of information that's being withheld from the general public, but it's being given to us as the player. This is dramatic irony. This is classic from theater, from movies. When the player in this case, but when the viewer knows something that an actor or the character doesn't, it creates this interesting kind of tension as you watch these characters walk straight into traps sometimes. So I love that Fountain started with this dramatic irony.

[00:10:59] I think it was the absolute right way to go, rather than start with some sort of abstract quasi-mysticism that I think is really present in Souls games. It was a good hook. And then you start the game getting kicked into a pit, because you were suspected of being the usurper. And that's kind of what you go off of narratively for quite a while in the game. And I thought it was a really, really great way to create exposition quickly

[00:11:29] and create like a sense of urgency of like, wait, I need to clear my name. Like, I don't think I'm a usurper because I'm being thrown into prison. It's one of you guys, one of you guys. And you know that as a player and you know that as the player character. So very cool. Um, this game wears its, uh, inspirations to Souls games from software games on its sleeve. So I mean, you kind of meet like a fallen knight who from the get go in the Souls game will give you an Estes flask.

[00:11:58] Here it gives you something else. And that kind of corruption and greed and like obsession to the point of corruption, which is really common in Souls game. That stuff is absolutely present here. But essentially you come to learn, and I came to learn this quite late in the game, is that there is a specific type of magical property that's associated with water. And so there are fountains scattered about that have water.

[00:12:26] And, uh, you use this sort of as your mana. Now there is a principal fountain somewhere out there, and I'll just kind of leave it there. But there was a group of people called the Ageless who were trying to protect, but then completely hide the power that kind of comes from this fountain. And so you as a player, as you're kind of going through it, you're kind of presented as with

[00:12:51] a choice, it seems like, well, am I, am I like, what do I, who is a usurper? And why am I being considered that? But I know that I'm not the usurper. And there's, so there's got to be one out there. And so I think narratively, there's a lot of good mystery. Um, there's a bunch of cool things like about this game. Uh, there's well-placed humor. There's really funky NPCs, um, kind of the stuff that you would expect from any Dark Souls

[00:13:21] game. Just, I imagine a lot of these NPCs with really unhinged maniacal laughter as they're kind of saying what it is that they're saying. So great. I think the narrative is great here and it's really started to coalesce towards the end. And like I said, I haven't beaten the game, so I can't tell you specifically about the ending. Not that I would, cause we don't really do spoilers on the show, but I do want to say about this is I feel a big drive to kind of grind through the final bosses if they're

[00:13:49] really difficult because I really want to know how this ends. There's a good motivation here to continue. And as you explore, you'll find more than just item descriptions to guide you about what is happening in the history of this place, the lore of this place, who these bosses are and why you're fighting them and what their motives are. That stuff tends to be more clear than in Souls games, which I think a lot of people will really appreciate.

[00:14:16] There's less theorization kind of going on with what's happened and more just getting a story told to you bit by bit. I personally didn't think, I wouldn't think of this as a criticism, but I do think for some people having a lot of the narrative come starting around the 50% like halfway point of the game and then getting a lot more as you work towards the end might be frustrating to some people. You're going to meet lots of NPCs and they're going to have stories and things to say about the world and sort of some commentary.

[00:14:46] But I think getting some like really grounded narrative isn't going to come until much later in the game, much later than you would expect. So for some people that will be a turnoff. For me, it really wasn't. But for some people, it absolutely will. But yeah, I just kind of love this theme of starting with being wrongfully imprisoned and being perceived as a threat. And this is wrongful imprisonment is all about political motive and political gain by shutting

[00:15:13] away or shutting up, you know, undesirable opinions or peoples according to, you know, whoever's in charge, whoever has power. So I just thought that this was a great way to start a game. And I really enjoyed it. So I do recommend the narrative. I think it's good here. Moment to moment writing. I don't have like necessarily any quotes or NPCs that I'm especially fond of, but there was nothing that was distracting from this ultimate goal of who is usurper?

[00:15:41] What is their motivation and why exactly are they motivated to do what they're doing? So I give it a thumbs up for sure. Next, we'll move on to game design. I mean, this I don't know. Game's great. I mean, if you're familiar with this Souls formula, you're going to get a lot of that here. You're going to go from bonfire to bonfire, which in this case is fountain to fountain. You're going to get checkpoints. You're going to save and you're going to fight some tough enemies and you're going to feel

[00:16:07] underpowered for the majority of the game as you're kind of going through it. Few things about this game that really set it apart that make it different. One, I would say is that there's no block or parry. And I think as I got towards the tougher bosses, I wish I had more than a dodge roll to block or parry. Now, that being said, this game has a ton to explore and that includes items that will kind of manipulate your abilities.

[00:16:36] If there's a block or parry in this game, I did not find it. However, based on like the different items that you get that can manipulate your abilities, I think there might be one out there. So I'm kind of conflicted here. I think me personally as a player, not starting with a block kind of feels a little, I don't know. I kind of wish there would have been a block in there and that you would have gotten an item that could have changed that block into a parry, for example.

[00:17:06] But here you, let me give you a concrete example. You have a dodge roll, but you can get an item that essentially makes your dodge roll go a greater distance. And that's what happens a lot. After defeating some bosses, you do get some offensive abilities, which are very powerful. I would like to add that do cost more of your mana, your water.

[00:17:32] And yeah, so I think that like there is a little bit of build crafting in here, but more than like build crafting, it's a little more reactive. Whereas I would go into like a boss arena and I'd be like, oh my goodness, they do a ton of magical attack. So on the next attempt, I'm going to need to boost my magical defense. And really you're just dealing with like attack, physical and magical defense that you also

[00:17:59] have like stamina and health bars that you can manipulate, whether that be through item boosts or through permanent upgrades. You can also increase how much water that you hold. You kind of have this like file and that again, items or permanent. I didn't run into any, but I do believe that there are permanent increases to your file capacity as well.

[00:18:24] And so, but a lot of that felt to me like, no, like reactive. I'm in a boss fight. I kind of figure out what they're doing and I'm like, you know what? I can sacrifice this weapon that gives me a stamina boost because I can strafe a bunch of attacks. So I'll use a sword that gives me just greater damage every single time. Now, what I would say though, is please learn from my mistakes. Some bosses are infinitely more manageable with the right equipment selected.

[00:18:53] And there are, I mean, this game is kind of billed as a Metroidvania, but I feel like there are very few items slash abilities that you actually need, like that are critical to continuing in the story. So yeah, I don't know what to say there. Um, it felt, I think this Metroidvania part of it in terms of like getting abilities to unlock new areas felt a little messy.

[00:19:23] Now the game sort of compensates for this by having this massive multi-layered labyrinth of connected corridors to get from one area to another. And let me tell you, it is massive. I think for the explorer enthusiasts, you're going to love it. I think for people who just want to know where to go next, you might get a little frustrated. You might get lost. You might find a bunch of dead ends or what's what feels like dead ends. Um, and then you might not have an ability to progress.

[00:19:53] So I don't know. I kind of feel like all of the required abilities are the most, maybe all the required abilities are on the critical path, but I kind of wish it maybe was a little more obvious, uh, which abilities, I don't know. I don't know exactly what I'm trying to say here. What I'm saying, I think is that I wish, um, some of the, some of the items that you got that manipulated your abilities weren't so far off the beaten path when they can make

[00:20:20] such a dramatic impact, uh, for certain things you do in the game. So yeah, I think I'll just kind of leave it with that phrasing, but game design, I'm talking about the bosses a lot. It's not a boss rush. There's plenty of exploration. You have to go through, you have to hack down a ton of enemies to get there. There's a good enemy variety in here. The one enemy that I hated the most were, were the plants. And that's more on me. That was more of a skill issue because they fire, they have a projectile that, and there's

[00:20:48] very little warning before the projectile actually comes. Or I should say, I felt like the projectile would shoot out half a second later than it did every time. And so I would get caught quite a bit. Um, lots of bosses designed with souls bosses in mind in that you can't just dodge roll your way out of every problem. You've got to be smart. You've got to strafe. You got to conserve that stamina and you have got to be able to read and understand combos

[00:21:15] really well, which for the most part, you know, I've already talked about this. I think for the majority of bosses, that was the case that they were readable, that they were learnable, that it felt like I was making measurable progress. Every single attempt with the exception of one that, oof, it was tough. Like I said, I streamed this game and I think it was, it was tough for me as a streamer, but also for a bunch of viewers to see somebody make steady progress in a game and then suddenly get hung up on a boss for like two hours. It's tough.

[00:21:43] It doesn't, it doesn't always feel good to have that kind of difficulty spike. And to be frank, I'm not entirely certain what it could have done to mitigate that difficulty spike. Um, I think it could have done more exploration and try to boost like health and stamina even more. But from what I gather, it's pretty dang difficult to find weapons that do big damage. Like I didn't feel like there was a high risk, high reward for damage anywhere.

[00:22:10] Most of the swords that I have up at this point do between like 20 and 30 damage, which isn't, doesn't feel all that dramatically different from that. You're starting sword. So yeah, I'm not sure. Uh, there might be a little bit of power scaling in place there to make the final bosses that much harder and more gauntlet sort of style as they go through their phases, et cetera. But overall, I mean, I feel like I'm, I'm starting to criticize more. I really enjoyed this game.

[00:22:40] And like I said, I want to finish this game. In fact, I will finish this game. I know I'm going to make time to do it. I, you know, I can be stubborn and hardheaded. I can, you know, sit through two different boss fights and beat my head against the wall for a few hours. I'm definitely going to do it off stream, but I'm going to do it because I want to see how this game ends. And so overall, I think fountains is a really wonderful and polished product. I'm a big fan of, of what John Piwell is able to construct here for sure. And so who would I recommend this game for?

[00:23:08] You know, I wouldn't recommend it for fans of souls games more than I would just say like, Oh, if you liked hyper light drifter, you have to play this game. I just felt like the minute in the mechanics and the world building borrowed more from souls and hyper light drifter hyper life, hyper light drifter. It doesn't give you like anything. You have to theorize a ton about what's happening in that world, or you have to look up a bunch of articles on the game's wiki to figure it out here.

[00:23:36] I felt like it's much more in the player's control of what is happening and what you understand, what works, et cetera. So I definitely recommend it for people who enjoy souls games, especially something like dark souls three or Elden ring that are a little more straightforward than the other souls games. Um, when it comes to story, I recommend this game also for people who prefer aggressive, offensive styles of play.

[00:24:03] Like I said, as far as I found, there's no way to block or parry in this game. So it's your sword, it's your attacks, and it's your dodge roll that are pretty much doing everything. So you got to, you're zipping around bosses, you're zipping around enemies, um, and then you're attacking. So if you like that kind of high octane, aggressive offensive play, then I think fountains will absolutely work for you. I think if you like cool and difficult bosses, this is going to be one.

[00:24:32] I mean, like I said, so much about this game is exploration, but the bosses were super memorable for me and I highly recommend checking this out. If you like, um, interesting bosses. And then, like I said, people who love exploring, there are labyrinths. It feels like upon labyrinths in fountains that you can explore to find items, to find shortcuts, to find different ways to connect different parts of the map.

[00:24:57] As I progressed in the game, I was kind of shocked at how many areas are actually accessible to you. And then when you get new, um, sort of Metroidvani abilities, how many more areas and shortcuts get unlocked? It is very cool. Cool. Absolutely. Very, very cool. The game does have a map. I didn't find the map to be all that useful or legible. So I think again, if you love just exploring and discovering things on your own, then just

[00:25:26] never open the map and get into the game. I think you'll really, really enjoy it for that. All right, folks, uh, that is my review. My look at fountains, honestly, it's a great game. It's a shame. It kind of went under the radar. I am glad that I am, uh, publishing this review later just to try to give this game a little more longevity, uh, in the spotlight. It's a great game and I highly recommend people pick it up.

[00:25:52] Now, as far as I know, this is only on steam and may not release on other platforms. So this is for you PC gamers. Um, and if it plays on steam deck, which again, I'm sorry, I do not know, but I think I want to say that it does. Um, this would be another great one for steam deck for sure. But folks, um, thank you so much for listening. Thank you so much for kind of hearing me talk about fountains and my experience with it.

[00:26:21] Uh, please support the pre-order bonus podcast by listening, following, subscribing. Uh, same thing, uh, for me on Twitch. That would be great if you could follow, um, that's twitch.tv slash chiptf18. Uh, you can find the pre-order bonus on all of your major podcasting, uh, platforms. And then finally, if you like this episode, you'd want to hear more indie impressions on our Patreon. Um, you can get access to a bunch of indie impressions episodes. These are about 30 minute reviews of indie games that I'm playing for three bucks a month.

[00:26:51] That's three episodes plus a newsletter monthly. So folks, thank you. Thank you so much. And until the next episode, take care.