One minute you’re bouncing across platforms like any other side-scrolling platformer.
Trevor, an office drone, wakes up one morning and learns his bosses are conspiring to kill him — and also that his entire life is built on a lie. American Arcadia is set in a ’70s-inspired metropolis called Arcadia, but something’s up with Arcadia: It’s a Truman Show-type widespread deception designed to trick thousands of people into living guilelessly for the entertainment of others. But that’s not American Arcadia’s only trick. One minute you’re bouncing across platforms like any other side-scrolling platformer. The next, you’re solving puzzles from a first-person perspective. Video games don’t often deploy multiple perspectives. Here, the shift is jarring but effective; it puts you on edge — kind of, one imagines, like learning the truth about Arcadia. — Ari Notis