Mr. Rainer’s Solve-It Service

One of the most beautiful games I have played. I just KNOW I'm going to obsess over it for the next 7 months if not longer

Mr. Rainer’s Solve-It Service is a dystopian sci-fi/horror sort-of-visual-novel in which you follow the protagonist Ülar as he attempts to make sense of his surreal, bizarre new world and his place in it.
At its core it is a simply presented mixed-media story, with small amounts of text and visuals being shown one panel at a time. There are interactive elements of varying degrees of frequency: point-and-click to explore your surroundings, brief puzzle games in the bitsy engine, their world’s equivalent of QR codes, highlighted text you can click on to get lore/definitions of things, and, of course, a couple diverging choices that determine what endings you get. For the most part, however, you generally sit back and enjoy the story as you walk your way through it.
Speaking of story, the game doesn’t handhold you through its narrative or preach to you; you’re left to digest its elements. For a relatively short game, there’s quite a lot going on to think over. I get that some people might find the purposeful vagueness of the game to be irritating, but I enjoy it because it means I get to mull over it and unpack it myself. (It also increases the replay value!) My only regret is that we don’t get to spend more time getting to know the characters, because I’d love to know more about them, but I also think that an appropriate amount of time is spent with them for how long the story is. I guess you could say that you learn enough about them to want to learn even more.
I don’t want to spoil anything but the game also digs into a lot of interesting themes like life in the digital age, consumerism, being a productive and functional member of society, and mortality. And throughout the game there is a persistent sense of melancholy and being lost; you really feel for the protagonist as he struggles his way through his surroundings.
The worldbuilding is also excellent. The legends and mythology, the types of important life-forms and what powers them and how they are different, the setting, the structure of their society from everything from occupation to entertainment to communication… it’s all been very well thought out. It’s also presented in such a way that you feel like you’re experiencing this world for the first time from Ülar’s perspective, feeling more like ‘show’ rather than ‘tell.’ Very atmospheric, especially for, again, something with such a short runtime.
Moving on to visuals. The art is charming, typically rendered in a simple three-color palette, and the character designs are remarkably varied for having a relatively simple base design for their species. Also the fact that each passing moment in the game is its own drawn panel is extremely impressive. Sometimes I’d be playing and experience a really poignant scene and then stop and go, “wow, Etherane had to draw every single one of these panels.” In that regard, sometimes it felt ess like a visual novel (even though I think that’s the closest genre to what this game is) and more like a comic, with each shot being maximized for the purposes being demanded of it by the scene.
The UI is also my favorite of any Etherane game—not that RPGMaker is terrible, but this is definitely a step up. I love the little sidebar where you could see Ülar’s status, current problems to solve, and even his mood shown through a mini animated sprite, plus the other windows for the profiles of different characters, important data set to you by Mr. Rainer, and a helpful troubleshooting page. It helped add to the immersiveness of the game. I wish the UI had a ‘back’ button included, but I think not having it also forces you to be more deliberate as you move along the story, so I get why it’s not there. Still kind of wish there was one though.
The game also has an original soundtrack, which is another step up from Etherane’s previous works, which have used non-licensed tracks. The soundtrack is by Kai Engels, whose work strongly complements the surreal, alien world and its quiet melancholy.
Overall, I really enjoyed this game, and I can definitely see myself revisiting it in the future. If you want to experience a somber yet heartfelt journey through a new world that you can then build all sorts of theories from (and don’t mind if it isn’t super interactive), then I highly recommend it.

a total fever dream. the atmosphere, art, music, and the confusion the game transmits are all amazing. but id like the world to be explored deeper. a shame :(

I absolutely adore this game. It’s definitely more in the VN/interactive-comic category than I expected but the atmosphere, themes, art, world building, and characters more than make up for it. The premise is world where a species called hjörians, who wear data storing rain coats and ingest animal-like techno creatures called echos, exist as the dominant species on their planet. The hjörian protagonist wakes up with no memories and struggles to follow the rules and high expectations of the society he’s found himself in. While the setting and most of its people are portrayed to nail the vibe of alien dystopia, ÜLAR (the protagonist) is written in a way that helps to ground the story amongst the surreal and sci-fi aspects. The art ranges from adorable and funny to breathtaking and the character designs are simple without risking players struggling to distinguish them (and even if you do, the inclusion of a character index has you covered). I also absolutely love the color palette, the red frequently helps to make natural settings still feel more distant and the limited set (it’s just red, white, black, and grey for most of it) never feels too restrictive to the visuals (I’m also a complete sucker for this type of palette though, so I’m probably a bit biased). The music serves as fantastic ambiance, so much so that when I played the Hello Charlotte dlc (a different game by the same dev) and realized it had no music I popped open the game files and had MRSS’s soundtrack on shuffle the entire time. The language/code in the game were an absolute treat to figure out for myself and honestly was a lot more satisfying than any of the mini-games. Which unfortunately are kinda meh at best, but they’re employed so infrequently that it doesn’t bother me that much. I also think that, after playing the devs other games, their strong suit is definitely writing and not gameplay so I’m glad that the story was put front and center instead. The world building is fantastic, this is where the “interactive” aspect is at its strongest. Whenever an unknown concept or item is brought up the game will give you a ‘link’ to click on that will explain it. If you’re observant there are bits of info you can gather by playing where’s Waldo with a particular symbol you can click on. The history and practices of HJÖ play beautifully with the themes of the story as well. The plot of the game is very difficult to discern, especially if you only play through it once. Which, depending on what you look for in your media, might be a good thing (as it is for me) or a bad thing. It’s one of those games where the experience, themes, and emotions tied to it are more important than the plot itself. A more well known, non-etherean game I’d liken it to is Signalis. If you can deal with and/or enjoy the levels of surrealism and ambiguity in that game and are okay with something a tad more abstract than it then you’d probably enjoy MRSS’s form of storytelling too.
My only real criticisms are about how the game expects you to rely on saves. A lot of other reviews have already bemoaned the lack of a back button, but honestly what bothered me more was the lack of a chapter select menu. When I finished playing it there were specific scenes I wanted to go back and read now that I had the full context but unless you saved religiously there’s no clean way to do it, and the game is just long enough that redirecting to some of the end scenes (the ones that you’re probably gonna have to watch the most to understand) is a pain. The end of the game includes a post credits index you’re expected to save at where you can go through all of the world building blurbs throughout the game, so I don’t think the inclusion of a chapter select screen would be that difficult and placing it here would prevent people from abusing it on their first play-through. Either that, include more ‘hey, you should probably save right now’ pop up boxes, or include clear chapters that mark a stopping point so the player understands that it’s a good point to save.
All that being said I genuinely adore this game. There was not a single second I wasn’t enthralled by what was happening on the screen and the ambiance’s affect stuck with me for days after I finished playing. Highly recommend to anyone that likes games with 2D art styles and is down for some surreal horror. Legitimately the worst thing about it is that it being so underrated means I don’t have a community of other people to gush over it with.

Wonderful art, a daunting soundtrack cuppled with a genuinely moving story: that while short, pulls your strings as you experience the world for the first time with Ülar.
Easily one of the best 90 minutes I've spent.
EDIT:
Okay, It's peak.

A beautiful, sad, and horrifying short story with an amazing soundtrack. A hidden gem that will stay in the crevices of my mind forever. Buy this game.

One of the few games I think a grilled cheese and tomato soup would be life altering for the main character.