Thank you Hatinh Interactive for providing us with a code!

Seems to me robot/AI narratives are becoming more popular as of recently. Developer Nerd Monkeys enters the puzzle platformer genre with their game Out of Line. A 2D hand-drawn experience, it stars a mysterious being named San as it travels through an abandoned factory. These giant claw-like tendrils float from the sky, capturing anything and anyone they spot. In this narrativeless adventure, San embarks on a journey to find out what is the cause of everything happening. I've had the opportunity to experience 45 minutes of gameplay of this preview.

Out of Line boasts clean 2D art, looking like the sketches of an art pad. The backgrounds invoke a watercolor and sketched pencil style. Compared to many other hand-drawn games, it is one of the more unique ones opting to look more like a painting instead of a cartoon or flash animation project. The environment blends natural foliage with the industrialism of factories, giving off a lively yet also dead appearance to everything. The machinery is still functional to the point that it operates with little issue and the plants are not overgrown to the point where nature is reclaiming its ground.

San will run and jump his way throughout the unknown factory, braving into the dangers unknown. Whether a controller or keyboard and mouse controls are used, they are fairly simple. Shortly into the game, San acquires a spear that he can aim with the mouse or right control stick. Throwing it only requires the X button or left mouse click. Recalling the spear back to San’s hand is with the same button. The spear is his main ability and he uses it for many environmental puzzles. Sometimes, he will throw the spear into the wall to use as a platform to reach higher places or stick it between rotating gears to keep machinery in place. The collision for spear platforming does have an issue every once in a while if the angle thrown is awkward as San occasionally clips through the spear. Fortunately, recalling is easy.

The environmental puzzles are fairly simple, yet manage to be quite entertaining due to the amount of interactivity in each of them. The puzzles progress quickly and the pacing only takes a few seconds at most before you’re completing another one. Fail states do exist such as getting crushed by debris (San only falls down when crushed), getting captured by one of the claws, or falling into the abyss. But it puts you back to the beginning of the room where the puzzle takes place. A few cheap deaths can happen with the claws as even if the slightest pixel touches their line of sight, it counts as a fail state for you.

Like most atmospheric games, Out of Line relies on ambiance instead of a musical score. The sound effects are varied such as the spear making different clang sounds depending on what it hits. The spear also has a funny door stopper sound. When San fails, there’s an ominous note that plays. The roars that the claws make are mechanical in nature. A great deal of effort was put into the sound design.