Carrion, my wayward flesh mass

Have you ever wanted to be a mass of flesh? I mean, we’re all kind of masses of flesh already, but I mean a giant, rotting, putrid, rampaging mass of flesh? A carrion, if you will. Well Carrion, the new 2-D side-scrolling action/exploration game from Phobia Game Studio and Devolver Digital, lets you live this “dream.”

Carrion is one part Metroid-style exploration game and one part puzzle game. You guide your fleshball through labyrinthine corridors while chomping up human bodies and gaining new abilities. This is where the Metroid influence shines through, though the game is never as complicated as that series can be. Think of Carrion as a Metroid-lite, taking the basic idea of ability-based progression and streamlining it. There is thankfully very little backtracking, and the relative simplicity of the world design makes it easy to find your way to the next area. There’s no map, but I never had a serious urge to use one.

Instead of emphasizing exploration, the game uses the abilities you gain for clever puzzle rooms. For example, you can use your prehensile flesh arm (ew) to activate switches through gates, but often these gates are found in corridors barred by one-way pipes. One particularly tricky puzzle had me lopping off half of my flesh to re-gain an old ability, use it, and then re-absorb my flesh to go back to normal. The puzzles never quite reach Fez levels of complexity, but they’re efficient ways of padding out what would otherwise be a pretty simple game.

If you’ve been craving a side-scrolling exploration game, Carrion might sate your hunger for a little while, but don’t go in expecting something as meaty (ew) as, say, last year’s Bloodstained. It’s a straightforward blend of genres that offers some fun, fleshy action, if you’re into that kind of thing. Wink.