A nameless boy is walking all alone on a vast plain that looks like a dried-up seabed. In front of him stands a gigantic rock tower he has to climb in pursuit of an unclear goal, with a little blue creature as only companion. From then on, he keeps climbing, and climbing, exploring the abandoned tower in search of hints. Letters and wall paintings were left by the members an old civilization, seemingly hit by a disaster that made the rain stop and the sea slowly disappear − the "Jusant"note .
Jusant is an indie adventure-mystery game by French studio Dontnod Entertainment, released in 2023. You have nothing to defend yourself with, but don’t worry − only small, harmless animals still inhabit the tower. In fact, you cannot die, your trusty rope will always keep you safe. The main challenge will come from the climbing puzzles that get increasingly long and elaborate and will require you to use everything you can grab, from rocks to plants to small creatures, managing your stamina and rope length all the while. The climbing is done using the controller’s triggers or mouse buttons, as the developers were going for an approach that was intuitive while still feeling like the climbing required physical effort.
This game provides examples of:
- 100% Completion: There are several optional collectibles: cairns, letters, shells, murals, and shrines. After finishing the game, you can replay chapters to find all of them.
- After the End: After the water retreated from the Tower, the people eventually left. All that is remains are some abandoned settlements built on/into the cliffs, and letters chronicling the inhabitants' final days.
- Anti-Frustration Features: While checkpoints are rare, there is no way to die in the game. While climbing, you can always go back to where you started by winding in the rope. During longer climbs, there are rest points that allow you can reset your rope and stamina. You also have 3 pitons that you can place while climbing, reducing the amount that you need to backtrack if you fall.
- Bilingual Bonus: Jusant means low tide in French. In-Universe, it is the name of the event when the water was lost.
- Bioluminescence Is Cool: The caves are lit by bioluminescent mushrooms called sparkleshrooms. They give off enough light that lets you see without any sunlight.
- Climbing the Cliffs of Insanity: The game is about climbing an incredibly tall rock tower. While there are several rests, including small villages built on the cliff-side, the climbs themselves become longer and more elaborate as the game progresses.
- Determinator: While everyone else is leaving the Tower for the lack of water, Bianca and her companions decide to climb upwards instead in search for the ballasts that would bring the water back. Eventually, she settles down just near the top, after her companions die trying to forcefully capture a ballast.
- Double Jump: Your jump while climbing is impressive enough in itself, albeit it drains a lot of stamina. For some extra height, you can also double jump, draining even more stamina.
- Flying Seafood Special: The ballasts are huge whale-like creatures flying in the sky, bringing the rains.
- Foregone Victory: You simply cannot die in the game. You will always hook yourself in before starting a climb, so even if you fall, you'll always be caught by your rope, and can reel yourself in to the start to try again. There are also no hostile creatures on the mountain to try and kill you or knock you off, so you can explore and climb at your own pace.
- Foreshadowing: Your companion makes sloshing sounds as it moves around. It indicates that it is a ballast, a creature that carries water and brings the rain.
- Green Aesop: Bianca's journal contains one. Her companions try to capture a ballast, and die in the process. She decides to settle down at the top of the Tower instead, where she lives a happy life and is regularly visited by the last remaining ballast. The moral of the story: taking forcefully from nature doesn't work, it's better to live in harmony with it.
- Green Thumb: Your companion's echo can make plants grow. This is used throughout the game to provide roots and thorns that can be used as handholds for climbing.
- Gusty Glade: Chapter 5 has high winds blowing in various directions, even vertically. It can affect the direction you can jump, significantly increasing the distance you can jump or blowing you back, requiring you to time your jumps carefully.
- Happy Rain: The story is about the water being gone from the Tower to the point of an entire sea having dried out. Not surprisingly, the player character welcomes the rain finally coming at the end.
- Head Pet: Your companion travels on your shoulder while running around and in your backpack while climbing. There is one function where it climbs on top of your head and lets you see the direction of the closest objectives.
- Hold Your Hippogriffs: The former inhabitants of the Tower use phrases connected to rain as aphorisms. For example, one of the letters ends with the following good wish:May rain fall on you and your loved ones.
- Literal Cliffhanger: While climbing, you are always attached to a rope that stops you from falling to the bottom. You can wind it in to return to where the rope is attached, be it where you began climbing or a piton you attached later on.
- No Name Given: The player character's name is not specified, neither is how he got to the Tower in the first place.
- Non-Human Sidekick: Your companion is a juvenile creature called a ballast.
- Not Quite Flight: Your normal jumps might be impressivenote , but there are some ways to get even higher boosts from a jump.
- Chapter 4 has some creatures that fly around you and carry you upward for some distance.
- There are high winds in Chapter 5. By jumping the right time, you can ride the wind to jump several times your own height.
- Power Glows: At the end of chapters when you blow on the giant horns, your tattoos begin to glow. Then, the sound of the horn, accompanied by your companion's voice, makes the markings on the instrument glow and results in plants suddenly growing in the area.
- The Precarious Ledge: For a game about rock climbing, navigating ledges comes naturally. Downplayed as you cannot fall to your death. Whenever you are connected to a rope, you can always wind back the rope if you fall, and you can only disconnect the rope if you are standing on solid ground. If your rope is not connected, the game won't allow you to move off ledges.
- Ridiculously Cute Critter: Your companion is a small blob-like creature with four tiny legs and Black Bead Eyes.
- Saharan Shipwreck: There are ships of various sizes on the ground or hanging on the cliff-side, indicating that in the past there was an ocean washing the tower's shores.
- Scavenger World: As the water receded, traders weren't able to dock at the Tower any more to bring in supplies, forcing the inhabitants to build from whatever they have. This resulted in, especially on the lower levels, a lot of haphazardly built platforms.
- Scenery Porn: The game provides some spectacular vistas looking around from the tower.
- Shrouded in Myth: According to the letters, rain is something that only the older people speak of but nobody from the younger generations have ever seen. There is also talk about creatures called ballasts, which are responsible for bringing the rain, but these stories are dismissed as children's tales. The ballasts are actually real, and indeed they are the ones bringing the rain.
- Story Breadcrumbs: The story can be deciphered from letters and murals found throughout the game.
- The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: After riding an adult ballast you arrive on the snow-clad top of the Tower. Before you, there is another, man-made, tower you still have to climb. It contains the most difficult climbing situations that will probably put your stamina and rope length to its limit.
- Underground City: There is an entire town inside the Tower. You visit it in Chapter 4, in which there is even a scene where you visit a huge cavern with buildings in the distance.
- Understatement: Jusant refers to the event when the water vanished. In French, it means "low tide", which is quite an understatement for the ocean drying up.
