Is this my new thing now? Reviewing other things? Fuck if I should know, I'll probably get bored of this in a week but until then I'm going to ride this creativity wave.
I just got Steam. I know, I'm late to the party, I don't care. I didn't realize that there were so many free to play or cheap games on it though, and I am a cheap bastard so you know I love that. If you want to friend me for whatever reason, my username is AddyDee or you can look me up by my name: Addy von DenToten.
The first game I wanted to review is called The Static Speaks My Name. Release date August 10, 2015. It is a very short indie RPG game. It takes about ten minutes to complete the whole thing.
Done in first person, this game recounts the last day of a severely mentally ill man controlled by us. We start off in a void of nothing facing a small static blob. As we get closer to it, it displays some information: name, age, and cause of death. Walking into it pops our view into the perspective of the game's protagonist, staring up at a poster on the ceiling stating that today will be better as the alarm blares beside his head. Simple objectives light up on screen and then quickly go away leaving us to wander around the drab home to complete them.
Simply walking out of the bedroom shows how disturbed the person we are controlling really is. Stacks of TVs all showing static occupy the space near the boarded front door and windows.
The objective that orders us to 'eat breakfast' takes us down a hallway and past a door that hides many obsessive recreations of this painting that adorn the walls and the breakfast table. Recreated in different colors, infrared, inverted, and with many notes wondering about what the artist meant exactly with this piece of innocuous art.
When we catch a glimpse of a newspaper clipping on the fridge about the disappearance of a local artist, the unease starts to set in that it is apparent our character probably had something to do with it.
After a meal of live shrimp we have an online chat with our 'friend', an annoying sexbot asking for our credit card information.There are some very telling and creepy options to try and come clean to someone other than ourselves about what our day's plans are. It doesn't matter what you choose because, whether it's from the character's own anxieties or depression, the chat options stay stuck in our minds only. Then we are prompted to 'make a decision about the man in the cage'. Afterwards we kill ourselves and are taken back to the void. This time we are surrounded by about five static blobs. Choosing any of them ends the game.
At first I hated this game. The creator describes it as weird, dark, and sometimes funny. I just thought it was super bleak and thought a better name would be 'suicide simulator'. The non answers and ending made me roll my eyes and toss up my hands in frustration. Every part of it ultimately seemed meaningless. I had completely forgotten about the ten minute play time and played it over three times trying to inspect everything I possibly could in game. Maybe there was some secret I didn't see at first. I chose different blobs at the end, certain that if I chose the right one I could get answers to what all this meant. My last playthrough was just a speed run, going through the motions of the doomed man's day to get to the end and choose a different blob. Nothing changed.
Annoyed, I mentally thanked the creator for at least making it a free game and took to the internet to google other people's thoughts on the game. The reviews were mainly positive Steam had said, but all you do is kill yourself it made no sense to me. I had to see what other people were seeing.
I came across a review by user Sandworm that tried to explain the deeper meaning behind the game. This part stood out to me.
I then realized the cleverness of the game and how it was literally putting you into the shoes of the character you controlled. My obsessiveness with finding meaning in the game was mimicking the obsession with the paintings the character had. Both were ultimately meaningless with no answers. It reminded me of when I read American Psycho. I love the book, but I found most of it incredibly boring except for the death and torture scenes. I practically lived for the action scenes and then I realized that my moments of intense boredom interspersed with elation was exactly what the character was going through. I felt like I had been tricked into mimicking his emotions.
For this reason only I think that it's an interesting exploration in the meaningless. I still think it's a bit of a glorified depression/suicide simulator, maybe worth a playthrough if you are not sensitive to those types of games. Ultimately nothing more. I'd give it a two and a half out of five nooses.
After all of that I needed something bright, enter Outside The Lines. It's a very cute free game where you have a choice of three characters to pick from: a blue ballpoint pen, a pink crayon, and a blue crayon. Then it is a 90 second race to see who can cover most of the board with their colors.
Super cute. It uses the WASD keys to move around and there are little paint cans and other art utensils laying around you can pick up with the E key. You use the mouse to aim them and either the left or right mouse pads to use them. There's even a paintball gun you can use to hit other players.
That is absolutely all there is to it. It's a fun time waster game and the lightheartedness was definitely needed after Static.