Video Game / Kid A Mnesia Exhibition

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KID A MNESIA EXHIBITION is a 2021 exploration game developed by Namethemachine and Arbitrarily Good Productions and published by Epic Games. Originally conceived as a physical installation but canceled due to the project’s scope and the COVID-19 pandemic, it serves as a virtual showcase of the music and artwork of the Radiohead albums Kid A and Amnesiac.

The game can be downloaded for free on the Epic Games Store for PC and PlayStation 5. Watch the trailer here

Tropes in their right place:

• Adaptational Nice Guy: In the original blips, a few bears were shown killing people or, at least, being malicious entities. In the game, they mean no harm to the player. Somewhat downplayed, since they were also portrayed in a comedic manner, like forming lines to dive into a pool of blood or being violently pecked to death by a goose.
• Bizarrchitecture: Downplayed in that, aside from a few instances, the exhibition is not hard to imagine as a physical space that one could traverse around without much issue.
• Blipvert: The game features many references to the original Kid A blips.
• Concept Art Gallery: The game is basically this for the Kid A/Amnesiac era.
• Cover Drop: One of the game’s Signature Scenes is a beautiful recreation of the Kid A cover art.
• Epic Rocking: A particularly memorable scene consists of a sequence with "How to Disappear Completely", "Pyramid Song", and "You And Whose Army" back to back. It lasts a whopping 15 minutes.
• Explorer Horror: While not explicitly a horror game, going through sparsely populated areas filled with bizarre visuals is definitely eerie.
• Flying Books: Downplayed, The Paper Chamber features pages of doodles and scribbles flying to the music of "In Limbo".
• Hub Level: The Pyramid Atrium is connected to various paths leading to other areas.
• The Lost Woods: The player starts in The Twisted Woods, a monochromatic forest filled with eerie, leafless trees.
• Mythology Gag: Almost every visual is inspired by or is a straight depiction of some piece of artwork from the Kid A/Amnesiac era. Even the starting area, The Twisted Woods, is based on the bizarre release of These Are My Twisted Words, which came out a little before The King of Limbs.
• Noodle People: A lot of stick figures are seen wandering the exhibition; a few are even doing maintenance work.
• Our Minotaurs Are Different: Aside from the crying Minotaur from the Amnesiac blips, there is a large, lanky Minotaur that walks around the inside of the pyramid in the Pyramid Atrium. At the "end" of the game, the player character is revealed to be a minotaur-like creature as well.
• Reality Is Out to Lunch: Zig-Zagged. While most of the game’s world consists of realistic rooms, hallways, and staircases, there are still floating geometric shapes, strange polygonal environments, and several instances where the player floats in the air yet maneuvers as if they were walking on the floor as normal.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: The modified bears look much goofier and cuter in this instance than in the original Kid A blips.
• Stop Faux-tion: The "You And Whose Army" sequence is made to resemble a 3D zoetrope.
• Triumphant Reprise: "Pulk/Pull (True Love Waits Version)" combines the gloomy vocals of "True Love Waits" with the odd, percussion-heavy instrumental of "Pulk/Pull (Revolving Doors)" for a much more happy-sounding version of the notoriously depressing track.
• True Art Is Incomprehensible: Invoked by a message at the entrance of the exhibition: