OFF is a video game created by a team of two Belgians, Martin Georis (known as Mortis Ghost) and Alias Conrad Coldwood. It was released in 2008 and received critical acclaim, becoming well-known in the Francophone indie gaming scene, but it was after the 2011 translation into English that OFF became an international cult classic. The game’s genre is JRPG (Japanese-style roleplaying game), and it follows a character called the Batter on his mission to purify the world’s Zones by killing specters and other enemies. In terms of gameplay, OFF follows classic conventions for its genre, with leveling and party-building mechanics. Its creativity shines most in its plot, visuals, and music. 

OFF takes place in a dark, surreal world, where identical suited creatures called Elsens farm metal and manufacture addictive sugar on the orders of their monstrous, tyrannical bosses. Very little is explained about the Batter or other characters’ motivations, or the history of the world, leaving the player to piece together a story based on the religious and psychological symbolism scattered throughout the game. JRPGs as a genre are defined in part by their battles against enemies, with the player being rewarded with experience and loot for killing as many as possible. Unlike most JRPGs, OFF is ambiguous whether the Batter’s mission to kill every enemy is truly good. Once the Batter is done with them, a purified Zone is devoid of all its previous life and color, filled with sounds of haunting whispering and metallic banging, and new creatures that kill anything in their path.

Visually, OFF is extremely striking, with its hyper-simplified colorful environments populated by more detailed, but black and white characters. Character designs reference classic archetypes, like baseball players, office workers, and the Cheshire cat, but these archetypes are removed from their contexts and placed in a hyper-saturated artificial dystopia. The game is noted for having completely original sprites and artwork, in contrast with many other games made with the software RPGMaker which use the software’s pre-made artwork. It is also noted for Mortis Ghost’s unique, haunting, grayscale illustrations of enemies used in battles. Enemies range in appearance from cartoonish ghosts, to grotesque animalistic creatures, to distorted versions of humanoid characters. Besides these detailed illustrations, the game is in a pixel art style common in JRPGs and games made in RPGMaker.

Though it has a dedicated fanbase and has received critical praise, OFF remains obscure, which limits its influence on other games. However, it was an inspiration for the highly popular and acclaimed 2015 game Undertale. The two games are similar in that they both break the 4th wall and explore the consequences of the traditional JRPG gameplay of killing numerous monsters. Interestingly, both games also have a smiling character who at first guides, then opposes the player character: the Judge in OFF and Sans in Undertale. As someone who appreciates both games, I don’t want to put them in competition- OFF may have done it first, but Undertale develops its ideas into a more complex plot with more choices for the player. I do hope that OFF can get some of the credit and fame that Undertale did for being a unique, creative game that uses the conventions of its genre to create a meaningful work of art.