The first thing the game Kid A Mnesia: Exhibition tells you is that it’s not a game.
Kid A Mnesia: Exhibition reviewDeveloper: Arbitrarily Good Productions, NamethemachinePublisher: Epic GamesPlatform: Played on PS5Availability: Out now for free on PS5, PC and Mac
Even though it’s published by Epic Games and is downloadable from the PlayStation and Epic Games stores, Kid A Mnesia isn’t a game in the traditional sense, no, but that’s why the additional subtitle “exhibition” offers a little helpful context here. A partnership between Epic and alt-rock band Radiohead, Kid A Mnesia is more a visual and aural experience than a traditional game, an interactive music video through which you can experience Radiohead’s music alongside the trippy artwork of singer Thom Yorke and the band’s long-standing cover artist, Stanley Donwood.
Your experience kicks off beneath the angry canopy of a 2D, hand-scribbled forest, the trunks of dark, broody trees stretching endlessly upwards towards a colourless sky, their limbs jutting off at acute angles to tangle with – and jab at – each other. In the distance burns a bright red fluorescent light but, well, that can’t be the way I’m supposed to go, can it? Red means it’s an , not an entry point – entryways typically glow green. Sometimes the colour red is even video game shorthand for “something scary is about to happen”. Why on earth would I turn towards the scary red light when everything I know (read: not much) about codes and semiotics tells me I should be running from it?