Ford Cruller, for example, has buried the grief and guilt of an old trauma beneath seemingly random preoccupations with bowling, sorting mail and hairdressing. The genius of it is that, without spelling it out for us, Compton’s Cookoff not only conveys Boole’s poor self-esteem, his performance anxiety, his fear of judgement and rejection from his peers it also makes us participate in them and experience them first-hand through audio-visual overstimulation and stressful timed challenges without giving you the time to familiarise yourself with the layout and mechanics of the chaotic set.Įach stage is designed to express the psychological struggles of the person it belongs to. Since Boole is completely overwhelmed by the pressure, Raz needs to help him complete the tasks within an increasingly tight and stressful time limit. Diving into his mind, Raz and an aspect of Boole find themselves in a nightmarish cooking show called Ram It Down, with some of Boole’s colleagues as cruel judges. Compton Boole, a friend to animals and one of the original psychonauts, seems to be struggling with anxiety and sensory overload when we meet him in voluntary psychoisolation. Take one of my favourite stages, Compton’s Cookoff.
Our goal is (usually) therapeutic using all the tools of platforming games, we navigate and explore the mind to gain understanding, sort out emotional baggage, and fight off doubts, regrets, and anxiety attacks in the shape of pesky enemies. They are intricate, self-contained platforming worlds full of secrets and idiosyncrasies to be dealt with, each with its own messy tangle of free associations, symbols, and metaphors that express the preoccupations and struggles of a mind. Each mind we explore is a whimsical yet chaotic and treacherous stage on which mental processes are being played out. Using a Psycho-Portal which can be attached to a subject’s head, Raz projects himself into the confused unconsciousness of colleagues, mentors, and antagonists. In Psychonauts 2, we follow the young psychic agent/intern Raz on his excursions into the human mind.
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