Confetti’s Cozy Corner: Amanda the Adventurer
When you find a sole VHS tape next to a static powered tv it’s always a good sign… right? In Amanda the Adventurer you play as Riley Park who inherits her late Aunt Kate’s home, and in the attic she stumbles upon this mysterious setup. The VHS tape contains a cartoon-like children’s show called Amanda the Adventurer that centers on Amanda and her best friend (and sheep) Wooly who go on adventurers and solve problems… like an early 2000s Dora the Explorer, with a sheep.
When you watch the VHS tapes, things seem normal but progressively get stranger. Amanda will ask you questions on her ‘adventures’, such as where to buy a card or where to buy a treat for her friend, and you will interact with the correct corresponding item. Sometimes you will also have to type in answers to questions, such as what is your favorite kind of pie, and have a limited number of letters you can use.
When you complete a VHS tape, you must solve puzzles that correspond to the theme of what you saw. For example, the first VHS is called ‘In the Kitchen’, and Amanda asks what is your favorite pie. Regardless of your answer, you will be given the directions to make apple pie, and you will have to follow the directions given with the toy oven and items in the attic in order to receive the next VHS tape. To get the full scope of the plot and the messages trying to be sent to the player about the Amanda the Adventure TV show and the Hameln Entertainment company who created the show, you must obtain the secret tapes.
After your first playthrough, you can change up the ways you interact with Amanda in the show and the puzzles in the attic. For example, during the ‘In The Kitchen’ segment, Wooly mentions that his favorite pie is peach, so what would happen if you make a peach pie instead of apple? Perhaps you will get a secret tape? Thinking out of the box is encouraged when solving puzzles, which is an enjoyable thing as the sub-plot begins to unfold little by little with each playthrough leading to various paths and endings.
Playing Amanda the Adventurer really reminded me why I love the horror genre in all mediums and how it can be used as a tool to critique society. Horror as a genre can often play on exaggerating real life events, trends and occurrences. A great example of this in media is Jordan Peele in Get Out and how aspects of racism are used as horror elements. While things like brain swapping operations are obvious fiction, many of the symbols and motifs used throughout the movie are derived from history and experiences Black people face.
In Amanda the Adventurer, we see a relation to how children’s shows can be overstimulating and are intentionally made to be fast-paced, which (according to a 2011 study from American Academy of Pediatrics) can lead to decreased attention spans and difficulties with self-regulation. Just because something looks child-friendly does not mean it is, and I want to STRESS Amanda the Adventurer is NOT a kids game. The developers describe the content in the game as mature, with content containing: blood, mild language, and psychological horror.
Amanda The Adventurer also challenges players to be aware of the media you consume, especially when you learn about the lore behind the show, The Hamlen Entertainment company, and what Kate was seeking to expose. Growing up, I recalled watching many kids shows on networks geared towards children, which when I look back at certain shows as an adult, reveal that most were not child friendly at all. Many were overstimulating and pushed boundaries when it comes to the content that children and teens consume.
There is rich lore behind Amanda… who she really is, the origin of the show, the real story of the Hameln Entertainment company, and the message that Kate was trying to send to Riley. There is lore not only in the secret VHS tapes, but also in the tapes that progress the story linearly. I would encourage you to always look around and solve all the hidden puzzles when possible.
If you feel stuck, for the sake of the story, look up a spoiler free guide to gently push you in the right direction – I had to do this for the last secret tape!
The paranormal, especially when it centers on kid-like characters, always gives me the creeps; but Amanda the Adventurer is a decent horror experience. The only thing that removed me from the immersion of the experience were obvious jump scares and the use of extreme volume to jump scare me as a player. I find things like that more annoying than scary, especially if you play with your game volume at a reasonable level. Scare tactics like that feel hollow as an experienced horror player, but it did not detract from the story.
I want to thank DeadXP for the review code and I will be following up with Amanda the Adventurer 2.
Amanda the Adventurer is available on Steam, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation and Xbox.
Score: 4.0/5.0
Sources:
Lillard AS, Peterson J. The immediate impact of different types of television on young children’s executive function. Pediatrics. 2011 Oct;128(4):644-9. doi: 10.1542/peds.2010-1919. Epub 2011 Sep 12. PMID: 21911349; PMCID: PMC9923845
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