Existentialism & Other Drugs

A personal blog for posting videogame reviews, news, and other miscellaneous personal things.

[theslothfulexistentialist]

Savant - Ascent

Overview:

Savant - Ascent is a 2D twin stick shooter developed by small indie dev team D-Pad Studios. The game was made using GameMaker and won the GameMaker GOTY award for 2013, it also won Gullstikka Norwegian GOTY 2014. It’s got much replay value with beating previous high-scores and attempting to be ranked in the leaderboards. It is based on real-life EDM artist Savant (Aleksander Vinter), who also provides the soundtrack straight from some of his albums. Savant - Ascent is available on Steam, Google Play, and the App Store.

Story:

Savant has been expelled from his tower by an evil Orb, as a result he needs to shoot and dodge his way back up the tower, defeating waves of enemies as he ascends.

Higher up the tower are even more powerful enemies, enemies against which your skill will truly be tested. Are you ready for the challenge that lies beyond the tower?

Gameplay:

Shooting and dodging are the game's main gameplay mechanics. The player shoots a burst of bullets before the shots become rapid-fire, dodging and taking down mobs also builds up energy that make your shots stronger. When enough energy is collected the player can shoot a powerful shot that mostly one-hit-kills enemies.

There is a variety of enemies in the game, ranging from small ones with different amounts of mechanics to big worm-like enemies with destroyable sections. There is also boss battles, which are challenging if the player fails to notice patterns and are careless. The enemies come in hordes, and if they’re not picked off in the order they spawn then you may have some crowd control to deal with, the burst shots help a lot with that. Throughout the whole game there are CD fragments, four of which form one full CD. CDs unlock more songs on the soundtrack and also unlock different abilities and buffs for the player.

There’s Story Mode, Endless Mode, and a Time Attack mode. You unlock latter two modes by beating the Story Mode. In endless you can try and beat your highscore and also rank high on the leaderboards; same with the timed mode, you can try to beat your time and rank high on the leaderboards. Good old arcade-style gameplay model, which give the game a high replay value.

Now, the Void Update.

With the Void Update a whole other section was added to the game, and this section is much, much harder. It adds more enemies with different mechanics, and it also adds a new boss, which is a pain in the ass to beat, to say the least.

Visual:

The graphics are an overload of visual stimulation. The sprites are fairly detailed and animations are fluous. Explosions and shots are brightly coloured and debris and particle effects are eye candy. Amazing art. Just wait until you fight the space-samurai, just wait.

Sound:

8-bit sound effects and Savant’s music make this game’s audio something unique but at the same time nostalgic. Aleksander Vinter (Savant) has savant syndrome, this makes him able to remember every musical sound he’s ever heard as well as make massive amounts of music in short periods of time. In his lifetime he’s made over 10,000 songs; since adopting the alias “Savant” he has released eleven albums, seven EPs, and twelve singles. He has no definitive genre or sound, and is constantly experimenting with his music.

For this game he chose most songs from his dubstep-sounding albums: Alchemist, Cult, ISM, Ninur, Orakel, Vario, and Overkill. Not including the musical scores made specifically for the game.

Final Thoughts:

Gameplay this simple and this addicting takes ingenuity to develop. D-Pad Studios took a world based on Savant’s music and fleshed it out into a full universe. The Alchemist from the album Alchemist, Vario from the album Vario, and the Samurai from the album Protos.

Personally, I bought this game simply because I’m a huge fan, had ‘Savant’ in its name, and because the trailer was featuring his music. What I was surprised to encounter was a ridiculously fun game with an amazing soundtrack and crazy good visuals. A must have for Savant fans and twin stick shooters alike.

[theslothfulexistentialist]

The Swapper

Overview:

The Swapper is an award-winning title with narrative-driven gameplay. Developed and published by indie Facepalm Games, and partly funded by Indie Fund, the game is a sci-fi puzzle-platformer with exploration elements; it has traits of metroidvania and the gameplay is reminiscent of Braid. Among the awards won are: Indie Game Challenge, IndieCade Special Recognition, and Indie Showcase Develop Conference. The Swapper is available for PC on Steam, PlayStation 3 & 4, and PlayStation Vita.

Story:

Set on a space-station orbiting a planet far-off in outer space, isolated from civilization, devoid of people and with much environmental storytelling, the space-station is filled with atmospheric dread. It begins with an unnamed character entering the space-station and finding a device that allows her to clone herself and to swap consciousness between those clones. She encounters someone who constantly contradicts herself and who functions as a guide.

As one progresses through the game it is revealed that humans have exhausted their resources, and have established seven outposts orbiting planets in distant outer space to extract and synthesize materials to send back to earth. These outposts must survive independently for decades; the one our protagonist is on is called Theseus, and it orbits a planet named Chori V which is abundant in minerals such as a more durable steel amalgam.

On Chori V there are sentient rocks that speak to you about concepts of thought, physical existence, and metaphysical existence; scientists dubbed these beings The Watchers. The Watchers observed how humans lived on the space-station, they looked on as they argued over complex concepts like the ones mentioned above. The Watchers have an apparent connected network of thoughts, revealed by discoveries of electrochemical activity within them, and have been extracted and studied by the scientists to understand more about consciousness, resulting in the swapper device. Further progression reveals what happened to the space-station workers, what role The Watchers had in that, and ethical disagreements between the scientists.

Gameplay:

The gameplay mechanic is directly linked with its larger-than-life themes of consciousness, identity, and thought, and the story itself; the swapper device is at the core of the game. The device lets the player create clones and swap their consciousness between them. You can make up to four clones and control them all at the same time, swapping through them determines which one is the ‘original’. The platforming aspect of the game is fairly straight-forward, you’ll have to jump and walk on platforms, sometimes using timing, and will interacts with various aspects of the environments, such as lifts.

There are light sources in the game that limit how much you can use the device. Red light prevents swapping between clones, while blue light prevents the creation of clones; the two lights overlapping (which results in purple light) prevents both. These lights play a big role in the puzzles of the game, which consist of using your clones to acquire orbs that open more areas of the map. The puzzles begin fairly simple, becoming harder as you progress more and more, in the end turning into complex puzzles that might take you a relatively long time to figure out (I got stuck in one of the final puzzles for an hour) but it’s never infuriating; the puzzles themselves are ingeniously designed, and along with a fair bit of logical thinking, require complete and total use of the swapper device.

The map is redolent of metroidvania-style games, where one may have to advance and go back to ultimately reach a final destination. There are teleportation devices that give the player more accessibility to come from and go to previously visited locations in the map.

Visual:

This game is very special when it comes to graphics. Instead of using digitally made textures and 3D models, the environments in the game are handcrafted; clay models were used for the levels. That’s not to say there’s nothing digital involved in the making of the game, it is a videogame after all. Nevertheless, the game never fails to portray itself how it wants to, and the mixed media results in a very atmospheric ambience. The Swapper is relatively casual with its visuals, but once you focus on details you can see the work and effort put into making this game as beautiful as possible.

Sound:

The best part about The Swapper’s audio was definitely the voice acting, though the sound effects and soundtrack succeeded in completing the atmosphere of the whole game. The quietness, and the sound of nothing but your footsteps really brings the abandoned feel to life. When the game wants to be dramatic and convey a feeling of impending doom, it achieves it. In its entirety, the sound is the icing on the cake for this one.

Final Thoughts:

Are you still you after cloning yourself? Are you the clone or the original? When swapping your consciousness into a clone, is it still you? Does your soul stay intact? These are some big questions that entail a drive to possess comprehension on a much higher level than humans currently have, or might even be capable of. The themes of sentience, thought, consciousness, and identity are what the game is all about. The Swapper explores these questions through its sole gameplay mechanic: swapping your consciousness into a clone.

The fact that the swapper device exists raises some ethical and philosophical questions as well. Throughout the whole story, as the puzzles become harder the story also becomes more intense, characters begin to question one another, building up the tension and the magnitude of its themes with its vocabulary and carefully paced narrative. At the end of the game you get to make a choice, it’s unexpected that they place this decision in front of you. It’s a hard decision to make, and the unexpectedness of it made me immediately think carefully about what I would really do, and I did… This game is much more profound than I expected it to be. It caught me off guard, it was one of those experiences that make you rethink many things, like finishing a book and being left with a big message that’s for you to interpret and figure out how to feel about, and how to come to terms with it.

I’m a fool for not having played it before!

The two main developers, Otto Hantula and Olli Harjola (who made this game in their spare time while in university), have made a truly special and unforgettable product right here.

[theslothfulexistentialist]

Homesick

Overview:

Homesick is an Indie first-person 3D puzzle-adventure title driven by exploratory gameplay, environmental interaction, and an emotionally sensible narrative. The game has a focus on atmospheric surrealism, and is the first game developed by Lucky Pause on the Unreal Engine after a successful Kickstarter campaign. It is a relatively short game, spanning about four hours. The game deals with sensitive themes, and manages to grasp everyday life in a way that is both foreboding yet serene.

Story:

You wake up, and your first and most important clue is half a drawing of a child next to some blue flowers. Homesick lacks anything close to a dialogue, what it doesn’t lack is information sprawled throughout the game’s world (a building), all there for you to decipher so that you can deduce what happened that left the inside of a building in such decay. Any text that you might come across -be it a book or a loose piece of paper- is in something that appears to be code or a foreign language; in the last puzzle you are able to decipher these and turn them all into proper letters. That progression encourages the player to turn back and revisit the previously explored places, and in doing so, revealing the lives of the people that resided in the building along with what catastrophic event left the building in its current shape.

Gameplay:

The gameplay consists of exploring a decaying building and interacting with various aspects of its environment. During the day you can go nearly everywhere you want, but cannot stand too close to the windows because you are hypersensitive to sunlight. When you go to sleep you have nightmares, these consist of darkness seeping and dripping upwards from the floor; you have to try to keep moving so that it doesn’t swallow you and wake you up, which prevents you from further progress. Parts of each puzzle are done during the day and other parts during the night. I will not mention the puzzles as to not spoil any of the story, but I will mention that they are satisfyingly challenging without being frustratingly difficult. To solve each puzzle you will have to explore and search, as well as interact with as many things as you can.

As I mentioned above, a big part of the gameplay is picking up and reading texts laying around the building. There are books, letters, and newspapers from which to acquire information.

Visual:

Okay, this is where the game shines brightest (figuratively AND literally).

This is one of the most photorealistic games I’ve had the pleasure to play. What little animations the game has are done well. All the environments and every object in them are modeled extremely well, but most of all it’s the textures that make this game a truly and strikingly impressive feat, and an absolute joy to look at.

Here are some of the many screenshots I took of the game, the third of which is my personal favourite:

Basketball Court.

Lounge.

Writing Room.

Something I’d like to add about the visuals, the game is relatively customizable for its genre. It has console commands, where you can change your FOV and how fast you move, to name a couple of its features. Another thing that is completely worth mentioning is the built-in camera; if you press ‘F4’ while playing it will save a screenshot that is double the resolution you’re playing at (this is the reason my screenshots are at 4K resolution).

Sound:

Homesick has a soundtrack that goes very well with the atmosphere and ambiance that Lucky Pause is trying to achieve, courtesy of Heather Schmidt. The music has a little bit of a relaxed acoustic style to it, with a hint of classical. Other than the amazing soundtrack the environmental sounds -such as doors opening and closing, keys jingling, or file cabinets opening and closing (and falling over)- are also done very well. The true MVP in sound for this game though, is the soundtrack, hands down.

Final Thoughts:

I saw this game on the Humble Store during its spring sale. I decided to buy it because the game looked particularly appealing, with its great visuals and almost-psychedelic nightmare scenes, it was something I felt I couldn’t pass up. It was a good decision, I absolutely loved this game. The two most enjoyable parts of the game were the graphics and the underlying story behind the game. I felt that Lucky Pause conveyed a story about a man-made natural disaster that resulted in the end of many people’s lives extremely well. Not only that, but the experimentation with other themes such as people and their everyday lives, it moved me; the politically charged contents of the newspapers (which are central to the narrative) are also food for thought. There’s nothing more I could ask of this game, it absolutely blew my expectations out of the water and delivered a wonderfully emotional experience, with great puzzles to boot. Lucky Pause should pat themselves on the back for making such a positively melancholy game, and I give a standing ovation to Barrett Meeker and his dog.

[theslothfulexistentialist]

Plug & Play

Overview:

Plug & Play is an Indie point-and-click adventure game developed by Swiss Mario von Rickenbach and Michael Frei, who coded and drew/animated it respectively; it is published by Etter Studio. It is based on the short film by the same name, created by Michael Frei. It has received various awards as a game and as a short film. The game is a casual, comical, and seemingly not too serious title. Nevertheless, it does have high levels of philosophical implications and symbolic imagery that may not be -and are most likely not- noticed by most people who play the game. The short film version conveys the core message in a much more direct way. It is an artistic expression. This game is about the human condition.

Story:

The game has a very ambiguous and vague way of telling its story. At first glance it is a slightly vulgar game that has much apparent sexual innuendo, phallic and yonic symbols are also ever-present in the game and play an underlying, much more profound role than what they may represent at first sight.

A ‘plugman’ connects and disconnects with other ‘plugmen’. They run, hit, get hit, touch, pull, push and converse with one another. You will laugh throughout all of this, since it’s an unexpectedly hilarious experience.

Gameplay:

There’s not much to the gameplay, you click and drag objects and ‘plugmen’, and hit switches which turn lights on and off.

Design-wise it expects you to get out of your comfort zone. Yes, it’s a fairly linear game, but there are parts of it that require you to try different things out, and the game doesn’t necessarily spell those things out for you.

Visual:

It’s a significantly minimalist game. All there is are drawn characters, hands, and objects such as light switches, electrical plugs, cables that plug in, and cables that get plugged into.

The ‘plugmen’ are actually very well animated, it’s one of the first things I noticed and appreciated about the game. Animations are very comical and don’t take themselves too seriously, but are very fluid.

Sound:

Most of the game is silent, unless you’re interacting with something or watching a sequence happen, and those sounds have a fairly high quality.

The beginning of the game has a choir singing, and it was actually a very pleasant choir, it gave the game a sort of duality. What I mean by duality is that the game seems so casual, not serious at all at first glance, and the choir gives it a kind of dramatic alien atmosphere that does feel very serious. I believe this is because the undisclosed themes that you have to read into -such as heartbreak, insecurity, and generally connecting with people- are actually very serious and very relatable to people as human beings.

Final Thoughts:

When I first saw the game on my activity feed, I surely didn’t think I’d end up writing a review for it; I was simply intrigued by its “what-the-f***edness”. The first time I played it I laughed harder than I have in a while, and the second time I played it I almost teared up. I had to play the game twice to really understand the themes that it experiments with. Once I did understand I related to the game on an emotional level. I enjoyed it and found it almost cathartic by the end of my second playthrough, which led me to write this review.

This is very much a work of art in its own right, a manifestation of self-expression. The biggest theme (the way I see it) is human connection, that’s the whole point of the game in my opinion. The theme of human connection serves as an umbrella for several other themes. Themes of love, relationships, friendships, insecurity, indecisiveness, trust, heartbreak, and mostly behaviors towards and from other people. All of these things affect us as people, as human beings; all this manifests everyday when we wake up in the morning and turn on the light. and when we turn the light off to go to sleep at night. This game is about the human condition.

Bonus

If you think you might like the short yet enlightening experience of playing this game but are doubtful, watch my playthrough and decide. Either way, I do believe experiencing it first-hand is much more special than watching someone else go through it.

If you’re interested in the short film that this game is based on, click here.

For more information, click here.

[theslothfulexistentialist]

Hyper Light Drifter

Overview:

Hyper Light Drifter is a 2D action-adventure RPG game inspired by and made as an homage to 8-bit and 16-bit classics from the 80s and 90s. The game consists of fast-paced, real-time strategic-combat gameplay. The game is developed and published by Heart Machine, made using GameMaker: Studio. It’s available for PC, OS X and is planned to be available for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in the future.

Story:

This game’s story has to be fully inferred. There’s no dialogue, only imagery; this takes after SNES’ games’ tendencies to not have any dialogue. The Drifter (our protagonist) is ill, he coughs up blood constantly, implying his impending death. The protagonist’s illness is inspired by the game’s creator’s own battle with heart disease. Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind is a major inspiration for the game’s world. Hidden around the game is ancient technology forgotten by the world’s inhabitants, The Drifter sets out on a journey to find a cure for his illness and his journey is revealed the secrets of this ancient technology. However, his adventure is not without obstacles. There are many enemies throughout the game, four main bosses to the North; South; East; and West; as well as some other bosses in some locations of the game.

The narrative through imagery is extremely atmospherical, which in turn conveys different emotions. There are some NPCs in the game which have certain stories to tell, most of which deal with themes such as hardship and needing help from the good-hearted protagonist. Although it’s a bit difficult to understand the story in its entirety, the game manages to leave you feeling like you’ve just been through quite the adventure by the time you finish it.

Gameplay:

The gameplay is extremely fun, it is also challenging. The Drifter uses an energy sword for melee attacks, ranged weapons like guns, and AoE attacks. The enemies in the game become more abundant and progressively harder to defeat, forcing the player to experiment with different tactics. The game’s creator, Alex Preston, says the game is a combination between TLOZ: A Link to the Past and Diablo. You can save and restore health at certain checkpoints in the game, which also serve as fast-travel points. These points can be found in the central city, and in the four areas surrounding the city. The player can upgrade certain aspects of the Drifter’s ability by finding batteries, which function like money/ability points. The developers also recently added a local co-op mode which is in BETA. Each boss has a very particular pattern, and have varying levels of difficulty, the last of which is the hardest. Even if this game takes after titles such as Dark Souls, it is not as hard, though gamers who enjoy a challenge will definitely enjoy this one. It’s simple but testing, can be casual at times, but unforgiving if you’re careless.

Visual:

Two words: Pixel Art. This game has a very attractive aesthetic, all rendered in beautiful pixel art. The animations are wonderful and the environmental design is a delight to look at. Even though it is clearly a 2D game, some of the animations are executed so well that it almost seems like it might be 3D at times. From the visual effects to the simple animations of doors opening, swords swinging, and things exploding. It’s all fluid and satisfying to see. Although the cover art and concept art for the game is relatively minimalistic, in-game everything is fairly detailed, considering it’s all pixel art. The character feels alive and never feels odd to move or strike with. The atmosphere and ambience that the game’s visuals manifest is enough to immerse you into playing it for hours on end.

Sound:

Sound in this game is what makes it all work. Combat sounds, environmental sounds, and character speech sounds, they’re all great, but the sound that makes it all come together is the music. It’s not very surprising that the soundtrack is so good, since the composer is Disasterpeace, the same guy who made the soundtrack for Fez. The 16-bit style music is a nostalgic trip to the SNES and is what completes the immersive experience of playing the game. The image-based narrative goes side by side with the soundtrack, making all extremely cohesive.

Final Thoughts:

To be entirely honest, I didn’t expect much about this game except that it had Dark Souls-esque gameplay and a nostalgic aesthetic... until I started playing it. When I did, it quickly took me back to my childhood experiences of playing games like The Legend of Zelda, I must have put in close to four hours in my first session, I simply could not put the controller down. The story drew me in, the gameplay satisfied and challenged me, and I’ve enjoyed every minute. When I finished it I was surprised to see the credits go on for so long, Heart Machine aside, this was a fairly big production for an indie game. The special thanks section has some interesting names in it. I can’t help but have full respect for Heart Machine in reaching out to different people, funding their game with kickstarter, and delivering a truly special product. This game is very special.

[theslothfulexistentialist]

Ori and the Blind Forest

Overview:

Ori and the Blind Forest is an open-world, 2D, story-driven, action-adventure platformer with exploratory gameplay and entertaining combat; the game is visually outstanding as well as sonically masterful with an amazing soundtrack. It was developed by Moon Studios -a group consisting of talented developers spread out over Europe, the Middle East, Oceania, and North America- using the Unity engine. It’s published by Microsoft Studios. The game is currently available for Xbox One and PC. It's one of the best games I've ever played.

Story:

We’re thrown right into the narrative, as the Spirit Tree begins to tell the tale of how it ‘lost’ newborn spirit Ori to the forest of Nibel due to a storm. Ori, now orphaned, is raised by Naru, a benevolent bear-like creature. Later, a cataclysm leaves the forest in decay, and Naru passes away as a result. Orphaned once more and with his surrounding forest dying, Ori finds Sein, who is ‘the light and the eyes of the Spirit Tree’ and offers to guide Ori in his quest to restore the forest to its previous state: full of life and harmony. In his adventures Ori learns of the events that triggered the cataclysm, and faces several obstacles in his quest. Among them a long-limbed creature named Gumo, who becomes Ori’s ally after making his life a little difficult; a gigantic owl name Kuro, a creature of the darkness who attempts to prevent Ori from restoring light to the forest; and many enemies along the way from whom Ori has to defend himself.

The plot is filled with a wide range of emotions, from carefree bliss to hopeless depression, and includes anything in between: annoyance, humour, curiosity, confusion, kindness, etc... Moon Studios did a marvellous job of tugging at the appropriate heartstrings through various events, resulting in a highly captivating and internalized storytelling experience. Ori takes influence from animated films like The Lion King and The Iron Giant, both of which are coming-of-age stories; in turn, Ori also feels very much like a coming-of-age story. The narrative has a peculiar tone and style to it, it likes to use vague but guiding vocabulary, allowing the player to infer quite a bit and interpret the themes of the plot (kindness, sacrifice and parenthood). The characters are all wonderfully written; there isn’t any excess, and that (together with its incredible visuals) makes the world surrounding the player feel fluous and whimsical.

Gameplay:

I cannot fail to mention the calibre of level design and game mechanics. The gameplay is some of the most fluid and well animated that I’ve had the pleasure to experience. This may be partly because I haven’t played too many games in the past year, or it might be simply because Moon Studios has some immensely skilled devs in their ranks. Ori has abilities and skills that he learns throughout the progression of the game, these skills are learned at the Ancestral Trees. The player can upgrade abilities by gaining experience through finding Ability Cells, or absorbing Spirit Light by defeating different kinds of enemies which have different types of attack mechanisms. There’s so much to do in the game: solve puzzles, defeat enemies, collect Energy Cells and Life Cells (more energy slots and life slots, respectively), use upgraded abilities to explore previously unavailable places, and ultimately restore the forest.

Falling into the genre of ‘metroidvania’, the game definitely takes after classics like Metroid and Rayman, which directly influenced the gameplay of Ori. Ori is very much intended as a ‘love letter’ to those games. The map itself is one huge open world; there are no loading screens, just exploration through jumping, climbing, swinging, bashing, etc… It’s no Dark Souls, but if you do not save often this game is very unforgiving.

Graphics:

Writing about the visual aspect of this game is difficult, because I’m at such a loss for words, it is probably the prettiest 2D game I have ever seen. The animations are pure magic and the hand-painted assets and environments are what make the whole game’s atmosphere cohesive. Designers took inspiration from a few well-known works, such as Hayao Miyazaki’s Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind and Disney’s The Lion King. The level “Valley of the Wind” is a straight-up tribute to Nausicaä. One of the things I think is the coolest about this game is that in the backgrounds there are no recycled assets; one of the two founders, Thomas Mahler, says: "You see this tree in the background and this mushroom and this rock? That's the one and only place you'll ever see those assets." I find this to be amazing because most games today tile their textures or re-use assets already used elsewhere in the game. Unique assets make the game’s environments feel as real, fresh, non-repetitive and original as they possibly can.

Onto the character ‘Ori’, the star of the game. He’s this little creature, a mix between a dog, a cat, a rabbit and a monkey. He’s got a weird little design, but awesome nonetheless; Ori is one of the coolest animalistic characters I’ve had the chance to play as. From his jumping and running animations to the way he interacts with different mechanisms of the game, the character feels as alive as perceptively possible.

Sound:

Sound is -a lot of the time- as important as the visuals in a video game. The audio of any given game is what gives life to the user experience, a game’s sound is what completes it, what makes you immerse yourself and just forget about whatever’s going through your head. Ori’s soundtrack by itself is serene and beautiful enough to make you disengage yourself from your surroundings. Give it a couple of hours and you’ll completely forget where you are, courtesy of composer Gareth Coker.

“Wait, what? Four hours have passed already? What do you mean it’s 3am?” -Me. Sound is what makes that possible.

The audio design in this game is next to flawless. All the way from footsteps to the environment sounds, to the narration, the audio is simply mesmerizing. The atmosphere, the ambience that the sound manifests, it’s magnificently special.

Final Thoughts:

I dove into this game with minimal knowledge about it, all I knew was that it was a very pretty and successful game. But there wasn’t much about it besides the seemingly amazing story and visuals that drew me in - until I read about the developers.

Did you know Moon Studios doesn’t have a location? It’s an independant worldwide collaboration between many talented people all over the world, the two founders (Thomas Mahler & Gennadiy Korol) are veterans in their fields. Mahler previously worked at Blizzard on Starcraft 2 and Korol was Senior Graphics and Tools Engineer at Animation Lab (an Israeli feature-film animation studio). Among their employees Moon Studios has some extremely talented people.

When I educated myself on who actually made the game, suddenly I felt like I had to play it. And boy was that a good decision! Choosing to play this game was a great call, it provided me with some of the most memorable moments I’ve had in recent gaming and got me out of a crippling writer’s block.

The fact that it was nominated for so many awards should tell you how well-made it is. And if not, the fact that it WON Best Art Direction among other awards should.

The game made me feel happy, sad, loved, alone, powerful, weak and a mixture of many other sentiments. It has become one of my all-time favourites, once I began playing I could not bring myself to stop; it’s challenging and frustrating but completely satisfying at the same time. I enjoyed every single second of it. In my humble opinion, this game is near-perfect.