By Alec Meer on December 7th, 2010 at 9:00 pm.
In six days every single living cell in the world will die. You have one chance to save the world.
IMPORTANT: Please don’t click ‘read the rest of this entry’ until you’ve played the game. Please also precede all spoiler-containing comments with approximately 30 words (full words, not characters) of non-spoiler so as to not reveal important stuff in the sidebar on the right. Take pity on your fellow indie gamers.
Phew. Crikey. Dowwwwwwwwwwwner, eh?
The key to the game, lest you hadn’t grasped it, is that you can’t replay it. At all. Come back to it later, and you’ll still be greeted with whatever maudlin status quo you left this pixel-world in. Yeah, there are ways and means to trick your browser into giving you another go, but that really is cheating. This is a game about making choices, then dealing with whatever happens.
They’ll almost certainly be the wrong choices. Or, at least, they’ll feel like them. Your character’s attempts to devise a cure for cancer have doomed the world. Maybe you can save it, maybe you can’t. Either way, there will be terrible consequences.
For my part, it seemed horrifyingly clear come the last day that I had failed. There was nothing I could do. My family was dead. Humanity was all but dead. There was nothing left to save. I walked to the roof, and took the coward’s way out.
I feel awful.
That I feel awful is precisely why One Chance is a success. It offers the affecting mournfulness of Every Day The Same Dream and Passage; a smart emotional sucker-punch landed with savagely minimalist flair.
Go on, then. What did you do?
07/12/2010 at 21:05 zacaj says:
LALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALA
I worked every day except the second when I got curious what was on the roof, and it counted me going up the stairs as a day :( I saved the world on the final day, but only me and my daughter survived. I wonder what would have happened if I hadnt gone on the roof? (I bet a lot of failed suicides think that)
07/12/2010 at 21:35 JB says:
Same deal here.
07/12/2010 at 21:46 Brumisator says:
Exactly the same story for me.
07/12/2010 at 21:51 Marcem says:
You can’t work the second day, the workplace is locked.
07/12/2010 at 22:10 Shazbut says:
Me too
07/12/2010 at 22:22 Tei says:
Same here, :-/
07/12/2010 at 22:26 RagingLion says:
Same for me. I assume you ended up in the park with her as I did.
07/12/2010 at 22:27 jonfitt says:
Same for me.
07/12/2010 at 22:34 Vandien says:
I worked every day except the second where you have to see the suicide on the roof. wife committed suicide and last day take daughter to work, but she doesnt move once you put her down as she’s already dead, found the cure, then went and sat in the park with her. Fairly certain this is what you did, hate to break it to you but your daugter didnt survive
07/12/2010 at 23:18 Fede says:
SPOILERS AHEAD OF COURSE!
Played in exactly the same way, and I agree with Vandien. Rather sad, but at least we (who always went to work) tried everything.
Also, another thing: the last day the message was different, it was “You had a chance”. But I went to work nonetheless, just for pointless stubborness.
07/12/2010 at 23:52 Reverend Speed says:
Words Words Words Words Words Words Words Words Words Words Words Words Words Words Words Words Words Words Words Words Words Words Words Words Words Words Words Words Words Words Words Words Words Words Words Words Words Words
The exact same, though I’m unsure that I’d have the stamina to do that in real life. After all, games stimulate boredom far faster than they simulate exhaustion. =)
Then again, does this constitute ‘saving the world’? And, er, um, what’s next for our intrepid heroes?
Hmm. ={
08/12/2010 at 11:05 FhnuZoag says:
I wasn’t going to give up if there’s science still to be done, so that is indeed what I did. World saved, I guess?
08/12/2010 at 15:52 Caleb367 says:
Same here, now i’m gonna trick my browser and cheat.
Besides, I ended up in the park with the kid… but can’t manage to understand if she’s alive or not.
And that’s creepy as fuck.
08/12/2010 at 22:59 Pete says:
I can’t believe you guys went to work. It’s a game! Why would you want to do any work at all? I think you missed the point.
09/12/2010 at 19:32 Theblazeuk says:
Of course we went for the objective, its a game.
13/12/2010 at 18:55 sinister agent says:
Because as the person who devised the Thing that’s killing everyone, you’re surely the best possible chance the world has at devising an Anti-Thing in time. Anything else, sure, I’d think “fuck it” and stay home with the kid, but, y’know, even if it’s a long shot, I’d say that saving every living thing on the planet is worth possibly sacrificing your family.
14/12/2010 at 10:21 Maltose says:
She’s alive I think. She’s got a bit more color in the finale than she does on the last day just sitting on the floor.
07/12/2010 at 21:06 Sander Bos says:
Hmm, for me it was just a bunch of different flashing screens (3 seconds of playtime total)? And then every time I hit play again again between 1 and 3 seconds of flashing screens and that’s it. Bug or am I missing the point of the game?
07/12/2010 at 21:08 Sander Bos says:
Yeah, so if you have the same experience as me described above, switching browsers may help (I switched from firefox to chrome, but since it’s flash that should not really matter).
07/12/2010 at 21:12 Harmen says:
Same here. At which point I stopped caring.
07/12/2010 at 21:46 Henk says:
I simply closed the tab and reopened it, worked fine after that. (using chrome by the way)
07/12/2010 at 21:09 Alex Bakke says:
SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER
For me, everyone died apart from my daughter. I carried on working, on the last day I found a cure, but it was a pyrrhic victory. I took her to the park.
07/12/2010 at 21:10 Alex Bakke says:
But every single day, I went up to the roof and thought about it.
08/12/2010 at 00:38 RCGT says:
SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER
If you think that’s creepy, think about this: Every living thing will die, except those you have injected with the antidote. Human beings cannot survive off of rocks and dirt.
You die of starvation in a matter of weeks. And that’s the best ending.
08/12/2010 at 08:57 Alex Bakke says:
Tinned food.
08/12/2010 at 09:03 Rich says:
That’s something I did realise afterwards. I kept working every day, but I needn’t have bothered. Every cell is going to die, so how could you possibly deliver a cure to every living thing, everywhere on Earth? Time is irrelevant really, as I don’t think it would be possible at all.
Also five days is no time in science. Factor in the tea breaks and you’re left with only two or three.
08/12/2010 at 11:17 FhnuZoag says:
Well, the trees in the park were green and verdent at the end, and the newspapers said they should be dead. So I assume whatever cure you devised will spread throughout the would like the original plague did. So some life will in the end survive, not just you yourself. And IMHO, that’s worth it.
08/12/2010 at 11:22 FhnuZoag says:
Oh and also there are other scientists possibly still alive on the last day, so I guess they might be able to deploy the cure in their local areas too. LET ME HOLD ON TO MY HOPE.
07/12/2010 at 21:19 Skippy says:
Played this a couple of days ago, then made the wife play it. Love this game; it really makes you think about your choices. Suprised Alec was the one to cover it, my first thought on playing it was “this is very Quinns”.
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
I was convinced at the outset that “go to work every day, no matter what” was the key to beating the plague. I still am. But then after that “daddy, where’s mommy?” bit, the option to go to the park instead of work popped up, and I couldn’t not. Stared at the screen for five minutes trying to convince myself that I’d already failed somewhere along the line anyway, and then off to the park we went. Goddamn fictional little girls.
Going to the park did momentarily make me think there was some way of beating the plague there, though, on account of all the trees still being alive. Possible misstep with the art, intentional misdirection, or something else?
07/12/2010 at 22:12 Josh Brandt says:
LA LA LA LA
LA LA LA LA
LA LA LA LA
LA LA LA LA
LA LA LA LA
LA LA LA LA
LA LA LA LA
Yeah, I went to work every day until the last, and then went to the park.
Maybe it’s the newish-parent thing, but I’m kind of tearing up. I wish I’d gone to the park the next-to-last day too.
07/12/2010 at 22:25 a says:
Yes, this for me too. I tried to work every day, but come the last day the “you had one chance” made me realize there was no point to it.
SPOILERS AND THINGS LA LA LA
Her closing her little eyes with her head on my arm… god damn. ;_;
07/12/2010 at 22:48 Brendan Caldwell says:
Found it so hard to resist going to the park with her. I took her to work instead because I figured – “If there’s even the tiniest, TINIEST chance I can save her life, it’s worth going for.” Even if it means sacrificing being together when we died.
07/12/2010 at 23:34 CaLe says:
5 minutes? I don’t get it. People are crazy.
08/12/2010 at 10:20 MajorManiac says:
Hmm.. Hmm.. Hmm.. Hmm.. Hmm..
Hmm.. Hmm.. Hmm.. Hmm.. Hmm..
Hmm.. Hmm.. Hmm.. Hmm.. Hmm..
Hmm.. Hmm.. Hmm.. Hmm.. Hmm..
Hmm.. Hmm.. Hmm.. Hmm.. Hmm..
@ Josh Brandt :
Yeah, I’m thinking about taking my baby daughter to the park right now. Though it does look exceedingly cold outside.
10/12/2010 at 04:56 Johnny Go-Time says:
@Josh Brandt and “a”:
Yes. My kids are 6 & 3, and I felt the same way as you, responded the same way as you; and we died in the park the same way as you.
I’m gutted.
07/12/2010 at 21:23 Sander Bos says:
So we are in the spoiler zone right?
What is the way to beating this game? On the first day I skipped work (hey, I read in the paper I just cured cancer!), but on the other days I headed dutifully to work and to the lab if it was not locked, but I did not see any progress (apart from the days counting down).
08/12/2010 at 08:38 Jhoosier says:
I did the same, then the game got stuck at the very end, sat down and closed my eyes, and nothing. Weird. Had to close out the game.
08/12/2010 at 16:05 Seth says:
I don’t think you guys got it. When you get ‘stuck’ on the bench at the park at the end with ‘your eyes closed’, you’re dead. It’s over. Not a bug.
13/12/2010 at 18:58 sinister agent says:
Also, it seems quite clear to me that you can’t “win” the game. The “one chance” isn’t necessarily the chance to save the world – it could just as easily be the chance to be with your family.
07/12/2010 at 21:24 roBurky says:
Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler
On the first day, I worked.
On the second day, I saw my colleague jump from the roof.
On the third day, I went home to be with my family.
On the fourth day, I stayed home with my family.
On the fifth day, my daughter was missing. I went to work, and I was attacked by a man with a knife. At first I tried to run, but I couldn’t, and he stabbed me before I could defend myself. I bled to death on the floor.
A sad, inelegant, pointless death.
Amazing.
07/12/2010 at 22:03 just a cat in a hat says:
you can take his knife and survive. but at what cost?
07/12/2010 at 22:26 7rigger says:
SPOILER
thirty words thirty words thirty words thirty words thirty words thirty words thirty words thirty words thirty words thirty words thirty words thirty words thirty words thirty words thirty words thirty words thirty words
I replayed the game (I cheated) and got to this same scene. As the nutjob runs at you, you are given the split second to disarm him. I managed to – but he simply goes to your house and kills your family.
I has a big sad now.
07/12/2010 at 22:27 7rigger says:
Ninja’d. Oh edit button! I never used you when you were here…
07/12/2010 at 22:38 Lambchops says:
I did that the second time.
Spoiler,spoiler,spoiler,spoiler,spoiler,spoiler,spoiler,spoiler,spoiler,spoiler,spoiler,
spoiler,spoiler,spoiler,spoiler,spoiler,spoiler,spoiler,spoiler,spoiler,spoiler,spoiler,
spoiler,spoiler,spoiler,spoiler,spoiler,spoiler,spoiler,spoiler,spoiler,spoiler,spoiler,spoiler,
it was even bleaker than the work but fail because you took a day off to celebrate ending. At least in that one you were trying to achieve something, with this you tried to find comfort in spending your last days with your family and even that was snatched away from you before it’s (admitably soon to come) time.
07/12/2010 at 21:25 Lewie Procter says:
I was sure that it wanted me to think the cure was in the park, but my faith in science made me keep bringing my daughter to work with me, I was sure I could work it out.
I really regret taking the first day off work. I was thinking “I just cured cancer, I deserve a day off”.
I thought the newspaper were great, that and whole the whole atmosphere changed as a consequence of your characters actions.
07/12/2010 at 23:18 Cooper says:
SPOLIER SPOLIER SPOLIER SPOLIER SPOLIER SPOLIER SPOLIER SPOLIER SPOLIER SPOLIER SPOLIER SPOLIER SPOLIER SPOLIER SPOLIER SPOLIER SPOLIER SPOLIER SPOLIER SPOLIER SPOLIER SPOLIER SPOLIER SPOLIER SPOLIER SPOLIER SPOLIER SPOLIER SPOLIER
I did the same thing. Only took the first day off. Now all I can think is ‘what if I hadn’t’ and feelguilty about an imaginary drink in an imaginary bar in a game. So, you know, the game worked I guess.
07/12/2010 at 23:24 kraz says:
I would’ve gone to work, but I’ve accidentally pressed space wanting to skip the dialogue. ;/
08/12/2010 at 02:35 Devan says:
I didn’t skip work the first day, but was thinking that maybe I should have since really it was the work that caused the problem in the first place. What is the condition required for the cure anyway?
Incidentally, I encountered a bug where the daughter appeared on my shoulder when I arrived at work on the final day, even though she had been buried the night before. She disappeared when I started moving though; maybe that was intentional?
08/12/2010 at 07:08 Shadowcat says:
I stayed with my family, but then they were murdered. At the end I went to the park by myself, and at first there seemed to be a girl hiding behind a tree, who disappeared as soon as I moved. It didn’t occur to me that it was my daughter, but I’m guessing now that it was a different instance of this same bug, and it was actually her on my shoulder.
08/12/2010 at 16:34 sfury says:
Another accidental Space for skipping work here. :(
14/12/2010 at 00:47 MadMatty says:
Spoiler Spoilt Spludgeon
Spoiler Spoilt Spludgeon
Spoiler Spoilt Spludgeon
Spoiler Spoilt Spludgeon
Spoiler Spoilt Spludgeon
Spoiler Spoilt Spludgeon
Spoiler Spoilt Spludgeon
Spoiler Spoilt Spludgeon
Spoiler Spoilt Spludgeon
Spoiler Spoilt Spludgeon
Spoiler Spoilt Spludgeon
Spoiler Spoilt Spludgeon
Spoiler Spoilt Spludgeon
Spoiler Spoilt Spludgeon
Spoiler Spoilt Spludgeon
Yeah same as you Louie.
I mean, i just cured cancer!
I could probably kill 2-3 interns and still keep my job!
Still, it wasnt enough that i worked all consecutive days- wouldnt go to the park with my daughter as i suspected it was full of looters.
07/12/2010 at 21:26 The Ticktockman says:
These things never really interest me, but oh man. On the last day, as I carried my daughter to work with me to give it one last shot, I realized she was dead when I set her down in the office and she didn’t move. At that point I gave up and went to the roof.
But the fact that I didn’t realize she was dead until I had carried her all the way to work really got to me. Man, that was heavy.
07/12/2010 at 21:31 Meneth says:
She’s not quite dead. I continued working that last day, and afterwards we were both alive in the park.
07/12/2010 at 23:48 bob_d says:
@Meneth: Hate to break it to you, but I think only one of you was. I did the same thing, and it doesn’t appear what you said is the case. Look at the character’s eyes. Vertical marks are open eyes, otherwise….
08/12/2010 at 00:28 President Weasel says:
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.just in case we’re still worrying about spoilers, 190 comments in
.
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.She’s… she’s just sleeping. She’s just sleeping!
She’sjustsleepingshe’sjustsleepingshe’sjustsleeping!
/tears up.
I found the cure, after driving through the empty deserted streets. It’s ambiguous as to whether I saved the daughter or not, although opinion here seems firmly in the no camp.
I love how much atmosphere the creator has managed to pack into such a simple game.
08/12/2010 at 11:16 Mr Ak says:
“Recognition that it was we who did the dispossessing. We took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life. We brought the disasters. The alcohol. We committed the murders. We took the children from their mothers. We practised discrimination and exclusion.”
Good speech, although not one of Keating’s better delivered ones.
Anyway, I’d argue the daughter’s still alive, as I *think* she changes colour. Which wouldn’t make sense if she was dead… maybe.
Nice switch to vocals for the fourth or fifth day for the music, too. Other than that, I’ve got nothing.
08/12/2010 at 11:42 President Weasel says:
are we still doing spoilers? ………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Just in case we are here are some words and dots…………………………………………………………………….
From reading the newspaper articles and what the characters said, the original “cure” that doomed the planet was meant to be “gas based” and a virus – perhaps the cure for the cure was also gas based and viral, and so injecting you started a process that saved at least some of the biosphere.
I’d never been to the park before the final day; other people said that the trees there looked better than the rest of the world anyway and led them to believe that maybe there was a secret to the cure in the park. Not having seen the park before though, I am choosing to believe:
- I look less grey therefore I am getting better
- the girl looks less grey, therefore I cured her before the end, but she’s still recovering.
- the trees look better therefore there’s hope that the entire biosphere of the Earth won’t be destroyed.
Alternatively the graphics are just a little misleading, the trees are all dead and so is the little girl. Either way the main character is responsible for the deaths of just about every human on the planet – juding by the city scenes and the lab, everyone is dead – and unless the cure is airborne and spreads to some other survivors, repopulating the planet is going to have some serious moral and genetic issues associated with it, even in the most optmistic interpretation of the “best” ending.
08/12/2010 at 21:31 bob_d says:
@President Weasel: I was pretty sure that the negative outcome you describe is what’s going on, but it’s interesting that it’s left just ambiguous enough that we can’t be sure. I like some narrative ambiguity, and it’s sadly lacking in games except on accident, usually.
Edit: I went back to the game. The park looks green now, but the bench is empty.
13/12/2010 at 20:25 Pigeonreaper says:
Does it need to have thirty words even if it’s a reply? Not taking any chances.
Does it need to have thirty words even if it’s a reply? Not taking any chances.
Does it need to have thirty words even if it’s a reply? Not taking any chances.
Nah, nah, nah, the daughter was DYING on the last day, when you set her down on the floor. On the final day, you both have a sickly grey pallor about you- you’re on the way out. When you find the cure, you inject yourself, and go back to the pink from before. In the park, Molly is pink too. So you both live, though you might be the only ones.
07/12/2010 at 21:26 benjamin says:
Everyone died. And I think a small part of my soul died with them.
Sniff.
07/12/2010 at 21:28 DrPepper8 says:
Gosh, that was a pretty depressing 10 minutes. I think I’m going to be hearing that music in my dreams tonight. This is about ten or so additional words of non-spoilery text…
I worked most days, spent 1 day with my family, failed to save the world and ended up passing out on the floor of the lab with my family and all my colleagues already dead. I wish I’d jumped off the roof instead, now.
07/12/2010 at 23:38 sassy says:
that music is still haunting me. I closed the tab about 5 minutes ago but the music is still playing T_T it is trying to *SPOLIER* make me regret cheating on my wife (granted I figured she committed suicide because of that but apparently she died for most people)
07/12/2010 at 21:28 Bas says:
These are approximately 30 words of text so that nobody’s fun is spoiled because SOME PEOPLE could not be arsed to type them and almost ruined it for me.
SPOILERS
SPOILERS
SPOILERS
Kept coming to work to find a cure. Wife died, took daughter to work with me, as I couldn’t leave her with her dead mother. Found it at the last moment, me and the daughter are now sitting in the park, the only living beings on the planet. I don’t think there’s any way to have saved more people. Should I have just gone to the park with her and died? We’re the only 2 people left on the planet. SAD ENDINGS ALL ROUND.
09/12/2010 at 10:46 SAM-site says:
Spoiler prevention text for justice! Spoiler prevention text for justice! Spoiler prevention text for justice! Spoiler prevention text for justice! Spoiler prevention text for justice! Spoiler prevention text for justice!
I’ve got some bad news for you Bas. I did the exact same thing and thought “oh well, at least I saved my daughter”…. then I noticed her eyes were closed. She died. It’s all my fault.
I’m now sitting in the park with the lifeless body of my child with the rest of the world also dead. I think I might have a little lie down. Just for a moment.
07/12/2010 at 21:28 frozenbyte says:
RPS just loves these pretentious games, doesn’t it?
07/12/2010 at 21:31 Dominic White says:
There needs to be a rule against posts like this. Powersliding in, shouting ‘Pretentious!’ and peeling off like the cool kid you are… isn’t. It got old years ago.
07/12/2010 at 21:33 Sander Bos says:
Hey, at least you didn’t get a survey about whether you are gay/ your mother works in prostetution… :-)
(also, suicide was a choice in this one, well if it was a choice I was off working on a cure without any result)
07/12/2010 at 21:35 frozenbyte says:
So tell me how this game is not pretentious, then.
07/12/2010 at 21:48 MkHarris says:
Do you actually understand what pretentious means?
07/12/2010 at 21:49 Kieron Gillen says:
Because throwing pretentious at anything which tries to be in the slightest bit emotional is reactionary bullshit.
KG
07/12/2010 at 21:49 realmenhuntinpacks says:
Yeah fuck art n feelings n shit. Fuckin magnets, etcetera.
07/12/2010 at 21:50 Scandalon says:
Tell us why it *IS* pretentious. You said it, burden of proof is on you.
I hereby declare this game…purple.
07/12/2010 at 21:51 Matt W says:
If you’ll excuse my deploying a quote from an article linked from here by the late, great Kieron Gillen, may he rest in peace:
“And there will, finally, be readers who claim to find Morley’s extravagant prose experiments “pretentious”, but since anyone who can use this violently resentful, very English word with sincerity has already committed to the idea that it is better not to try than to try and fail, that clever and creative people should in general shut up rather than try to provoke an audience out of its aesthetic complacency, and that art overall has no business attempting to be transcendent, such readers may be well advised to stick with their grubbily thumbed Nick Hornby collection. In the end, Morley’s exasperating, brilliant and joyous book about pop is tribal to this extent: that it excludes the chronically narrow-minded. “
07/12/2010 at 22:20 frozenbyte says:
I think it’s pretentious because the game is so overly melodramatic. One shouldn’t expect a Newgrounds flash game to be very well-written, of course, but I’m saying that this game doesn’t deserve the attention you’re giving it.
07/12/2010 at 22:30 Deekyfun says:
Still waiting to find out who actually arbitrates deserved attention.
07/12/2010 at 22:32 JB says:
I’m with MkHarris here frozenbyte, you need to go and look up the definition of pretentious.
07/12/2010 at 23:20 Wilson says:
@frozenbyte – It didn’t strike me as especially melodramatic. If anything, I found it fairly understated. I mean, when you consider the subject matter, they could probably have been far more dramatic about it. I found it very moving for how quick it was. Excellent little game.
Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler
Ok, actually I’m not sure about the wife’s suicide, that might be a bit melodramatic since there wasn’t any lead up to it that I noticed. She didn’t plead with me to stay or anything (not strongly anyway). I assumed she had died of the virus, and as I prefer that it’s what I’m going to believe.
07/12/2010 at 23:35 kastanok says:
Can we as a culture just ban that bloody word? It’s the first, last and only refuge of those who hate to think and think it is somehow their duty to inform others they may not do so neither. As I understand, to be pretentious is to try to be something better than what you are – isn’t that what we should all be doing? If we don’t aim higher than ourselves how can we ever improve?
07/12/2010 at 23:46 sassy says:
Ooops forgot.
Thirty words! Thirty words! Thirty words! Thirty words! Thirty words! Thirty words!Thirty words! Thirty words! Thirty words! Thirty words! Thirty words! Thirty words!Thirty words!Thirty words! Thirty words! Thirty words! SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS
on the final day I sat at the destination choice screen for about 4 minutes, deciding whether to take one last ditch effort at saving my daughter, or spending our last day together in the park.
That is a true emotional response to a rather simple game. The game never tried to force a message at you and never tries to be greater than it is, in what way is it pretentious?
07/12/2010 at 23:50 Scandalon says:
Ah, clarity at last. I think by “pretentious” you actually mean “it didn’t work for me”. Same as when people say “over-acting” they really mean “It wasn’t good enough to draw me in, instead it seemed cheesy.”
And of course what seems melodramatic toss for some people is deeply touching for others.
But I’d much rather people try, and fail (or not succeed fully or whatever) than not try at all.
(And while I do think there is room for improvement, I’ve now commented like 4 times, and replayed it once, so it obviously wasn’t a total failure.
07/12/2010 at 23:53 Okami says:
Fact: People who call games that try to be different pretentious also write death threats to Roger Ebert for saying that games are not art.
07/12/2010 at 23:58 Baf says:
Also, “pretentious” doesn’t mean “overly melodramatic”. Luke Skywalker shouting “Noooooo!” is overly melodramatic, but it’s far from pretentious. Stan Lee’s prose style is overly melodramatic, but it’s only pretentious when Norse gods are involved. Bohemian Rhapsody… well, no, that’s not overly melodramatic, that’s melodramatic enough. Still, not pretentious.
08/12/2010 at 00:23 UW says:
Maybe it is pretentious… I just hope it isn’t portentious…
08/12/2010 at 00:57 President Weasel says:
fuckin’ blankets… how do they work?
Pretentious is not another word for “I don’t like it”.
Personally I found the game understated and moving. The creator did a hell of a lot with some simple graphics and two tunes.
08/12/2010 at 01:24 Peter says:
I think it games, and art in general, are pretentious when they attempt to mimic the form of good art without any kind of depth. Imagine maybe poetry written with flowery thesaurus words, while it’s clear that the poet doesn’t understand the shades of meanings of the words, a sense of rhythm or structure, or anything interesting to say.
I’m don’t think I’d call this game as pretentious*, I just thought it failed. But I also think pretentious almost fits. I wouldn’t think one could make a profound game about “choices” where every option is so shallow, binary, uninformed. Real life choices are much more interesting than the choices I was given here, and that’s important–leaving out the complexities makes my choices here meaningless to me: I just didn’t feel like my choice to go to work meant that I also chose to spend no quality time with my family/friends/co-workers, even though I think I was supposed to feel that way. I can’t regret my choice to continue my futile work on a cure because there was no way in the game to gauge my chance of success.
I do like the idea of not allowing replays, but since I never cared enough to think about replaying it, it’s kind of moot.
08/12/2010 at 01:26 Consumatopia says:
“…but since anyone who can use this violently resentful, very English word with sincerity has already committed to the idea that it is better not to try than to try and fail…”
This is backwards. Once you’ve admitted that there is such a thing as trying and failing, that we don’t simply give out awards for trying, that art isn’t just about seeing how many levels of recursive meta-theory you can toss in a sloppy mess on top of each other, then you’ll have to admit that there is a place for that word that burns you so.
08/12/2010 at 04:10 kongming says:
And that place… is for a ten minute flash game?
08/12/2010 at 07:14 Shadowcat says:
Powerslide, eh? Now that was an awesome game.
08/12/2010 at 10:01 Longrat says:
The main reason I consider this game pretentious is because it has no replay button. It tries too hard to mimic a real life course of events despite the fact that it IS still a game and it is just a railroad down to several predetermined endings. The creator thinks he made something more than that, which is pretentious of him and so this game is pretentious.
08/12/2010 at 10:20 Babs says:
Cannot a work be greater than the sum of it’s parts? Personally I think the non-replayability is a vital component, it subtly changes it from a game that’s about winning to a game about an experiance.
08/12/2010 at 20:02 MrGoodGuy says:
@Longrat
Oh really. The no replay idea is the only reason for this not to be pretentious. If it could be replayed, it would be just another Every Day The Same Dream.
09/12/2010 at 02:42 arccos says:
I have to say, I’m disappointed at the replies. Everyone’s entitled to their opinions, so why bash someone for having one you don’t agree with?
I disagree with it being pretentious, if by that you mean “Attempting to impress by affecting greater importance, talent, culture, etc., than is actually possessed”. I don’t know how talented the author is. I do think it is ostentatious (which I found on the same dictionary page): “intended to attract notice and impress others.”
I honestly don’t think its very good, either as a game or as art.
As art, its completely derivative. How many of you didn’t know what was coming when you saw the daughter and wife at home on the first day? How many of you couldn’t predict the possibilities you would have by the end of the game? Maybe I’m jaded by too many of these type of games, or too many great interactive fiction stories, but seriously, I’m not attached to the npc of my “wife” or “child” after two sentences of interaction, so I don’t really care what happens to them. You have to have a grip on someone’s heartstrings before you can begin pulling.
In terms of a game, there are no actions or choices I found interesting. It created a system: work, home, ditch work, and then immediately abandoned it by removing these options from the player’s choice without rhyme or reason. If my work colleague jumped from the roof, I’d be shaken up, but you could damn be sure I wouldn’t go home for the day if the world depends on a cure. In fact, I wouldn’t be going home, period. I would be at work 24/7 trying to save everyone. My wife and child would be at work with me, or with family. The player choices offered are the least interesting possible, and player action is rarely mapped to a reasonable response, similar to some of the problems with the old Sierra games.
Just so its not all negative, if people like (or even dislike) this game, I can highly recommend Aisle, a short interactive fiction story that really understands what you can do with limited player interaction:
http://parchment.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/parchment.html?story=http://parchment.toolness.com/if-archive/games/zcode/Aisle.z5.js
09/12/2010 at 16:57 kongming says:
Now arccos’s post, that’s pretentious.
14/12/2010 at 00:12 Adventurous Putty says:
PRETENTIOUS IS NOT YOUR PERSONAL ARMY
My hobby: replacing every use of “pretentious” on the Internet with “having an inflated sense of self-importance” and seeing how many make sense.
07/12/2010 at 21:29 Schizoslayer says:
That other one was better I forget the name. The depressing game that this one is clearly channelling.
SPOILER SPOILER ALERT SPOILER
So I went to work every day. I took my daughter to work when I had to and on the last day found a cure. We went to the park. Forever.
It seems you can only ever find a cure on the last day regardless of what you did on the way there so the entire exercise feels a little pointless. I give it meh out of ten.
Also: Bored of the artistic depressing games now.
We need more Man With Gun.
07/12/2010 at 21:33 Meneth says:
According to several of the reports above, it’s not just that last day that matters.
07/12/2010 at 21:37 Kieron Gillen says:
Thirty words! Thirty words! Thirty words! Thirty words! Thirty words! Thirty words!Thirty words! Thirty words! Thirty words! Thirty words! Thirty words! Thirty words!Thirty words!Thirty words! Thirty words! Thirty words! OF STUFFFFFF!!!!!
Rob – probably worth pointing to whatever walkthrough you got that from. Also, to make sure they were right. I’m sure the cure only happens on the last day, but I’m not convinced it’d be a “did you go to the lab on the last day?” switch unless you’ve some proof otherwise.
I admit, if I did this, I’d randomise some variables in there so you couldn’t have people like Rob calling something pointless when they’ve had to go outside the game to get the knowledge to render something pointless. This card trick was a trick! Like, Christ Rob.
EDIT: Though you’ve also missed what I missed – you don’t save your daughter. Your daughter’s dead. The injection is futile. You only save yourself.
EDIT 2: If only I could replay it to check, eh? Next time be clearer, indie bods.
KG
07/12/2010 at 21:56 Nick says:
Kieron – certain newgrounds cookie deletions will let you replay it should you so desire.
07/12/2010 at 22:02 Meneth says:
“Thirty words! Thirty words! Thirty words! Thirty words! Thirty words! Thirty words!Thirty words! Thirty words! Thirty words! Thirty words! Thirty words! Thirty words!Thirty words!Thirty words! Thirty words! Thirty words! OF STUFFFFFF!!!!!”… sorry if anyone saw the spoiler before my edit..
It looked to me as if she regained some of her color after finding the cure.
Also, who’s Rob?
07/12/2010 at 22:19 JB says:
“Thirty words! Thirty words! Thirty words! Thirty words! Thirty words! Thirty words!Thirty words! Thirty words! Thirty words! Thirty words! Thirty words! Thirty words!Thirty words!Thirty words! Thirty words! Thirty words! OF STUFFFFFF!!!!!”
Meneth, I’m sure she did regain her colour, and her eyes were more open. Or is that just wishful thinking on our part?
07/12/2010 at 22:26 Kieron Gillen says:
Rob is Schizoslayer. We’re friends so I went for the real name.
KG
07/12/2010 at 23:04 Schizoslayer says:
SPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILER
Actually I don’t know it for 100% I just read the comments on Newgrounds after I played through. It’s a psychological game of chicken. The game keeps telling you that you have one chance in order to make you question exactly what that one chance is for. It bets that you’ll blink and bunk off on the last day. The story after all would have far less impact if you can randomly find a cure before the point when it’s too late and the only reason to work on the only reason to work on the last day is to suckerpunch the player with a “It’s too late! You am a failure!”.
I think it would have been better as IF than a flash game actually.
07/12/2010 at 23:36 Rob Hale says:
Worth noting I’m also quite bad to watch sad movies with as I sit around analysing how they are trying to manipulate my emotions with the direction and music to a point where the impact of what they are trying to get across is largely lost. It’s something I’ve always done and since I’m a games designer I’m even worse at it with games.
As soon as I saw the arrow pointing to the roof I thought “OK so this is riffing on that other depressing game so at some point I or somebody else will throw themselves off the roof” and the entire experience lost meaning for me when I was able to predict the different endings that might occur based on the rather simplistic plot devices being used. “Oh so you have a daughter. That means the game is saying you have one chance to be with your family. Very clever.” and so on. It reached a similar point where your wife commits suicide. I saw the blood coming from under the door and thought “Ah so my wife is dead in the bathroom. I’ll go straight to bed then.” but the game wouldn’t let me. I HAD to go in the bathroom.
The only one I wouldn’t have predicted is the homicidal co-worker. Shame that I didn’t get that ending in a way as it’s the only one that wasn’t blatantly obvious to me.
If you remember I had a similar reaction to the IF that Harvey Smith did. These kinds of games just don’t work on me as I end up finding the invisible walls and the things the designer didn’t account for in the first 30 seconds of the game.
EDIT: I’m not trying to be elitist or anything. I wish these games did work on me because I’m missing out. But I’m the guy who if presented with a level to test at work will break it in 30 seconds without even trying (to the sound of a level designer screaming “You weren’t supposed to do that!” and then crying).
08/12/2010 at 00:52 Lilliput King says:
Schizoslayer is a fucked up name whichever way you slice it.
It has no bearing on the discussion, but seriously what were you thinking.
08/12/2010 at 02:48 Josh W says:
SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER
Are you serious? I went to work every day but the last, when it said I’d missed my chance, so we went to the park. If not I would have kept taking my child to work until I got a cure. There was only one thing I could see had a chance of making a productive effect, and I was hoping all the way through that there wasn’t some stupid adventure game gotchas that says “actually you should have skipped work on the first day, and gained some insight that would stop the whole thing”. I get the impression that there wasn’t thank goodness, but I kept expecting some special insight to crop up from somwhere, like I’d talk to someone on the roof or something,
On the emotional side the bit with his wife was actually really sad, in the usual way, as was the “I am Legend+with a daughter” feel I got from the later stuff. You sort of have to make a choice; do I fill in the blanks and let this affect me?
08/12/2010 at 04:52 Muzman says:
Ooplely Doopelly Dooo Ooplely Doopelly DoooOoplely Doopelly DoooOoplely Doopelly DoooOoplely Doopelly DoooOoplely Doopelly DoooOoplely Doopelly DoooOoplely Doopelly DoooOoplely Doopelly DoooOoplely Doopelly DoooOoplely Doopelly Dooo
My assumption was the exact opposite from the first post here. I guessed the one chance would be the first choice they gave. I call this Bioshocking. That wasn’t quite true either though, to its credit.
I get the no replay mechanic and it’s well used here. But this game is actually pretty complex. It’s annoying to read about all the other interesting turns of events. On the whole these sorts of games say more about people’s assumptions of game mechanics themselves than anything else. But the experience they can create doing so is fascinating when it works.
08/12/2010 at 11:22 Milky says:
Quick and easy replay “cheat” if anyone needs (less hassle than screwing about with browsers) – http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager07.html
Just clear the stored info from your machine, jobs a good one!
07/12/2010 at 21:32 Kieron Gillen says:
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
Even in the face of Armageddon, I will not compromise. I will still do my work.
KG
07/12/2010 at 21:46 Matt W says:
‘,.pyfgcrl/=aoeuidhtns-;qjkxbmwvz’,.pyfgcrl/=aoeuidhtns-;qjkxbmwvz’,.pyfgcrl/=aoeuidhtns-;qjkxbmwvz’,.pyfgcrl/=aoeuidhtns-;qjkxbmwvz’,.pyfgcrl/=aoeuidhtns-;qjkxbmwvz’,.pyfgcrl/=aoeuidhtns-;qjkxbmwvz’,.pyfgcrl/=aoeuidhtns-;qjkxbmwvz’,.pyfgcrl/=aoeuidhtns-;qjkxbmwvz’,.pyfgcrl/=aoeuidhtns-;qjkxbmwvz’,.pyfgcrl/=aoeuidhtns-;qjkxbmwvz’,.pyfgcrl/=aoeuidhtns-;qjkxbmwvz’,.pyfgcrl/=aoeuidhtns-;qjkxbmwvz
I spent most of the game daring the developer to try and suggest that, in the face of an armaggedon I created, I should just give up, slack off and hope someone else finds a cure while I totally abdicate responsibility and just enjoy myself. The “You had one chance” thing half-suggests that that’s what was intended, but I’m tempted to give them the benefit of the doubt and lean towards a deliberate ambiguity on their part.
08/12/2010 at 00:20 drygear says:
I took it as an existentialist thing. I went to work like Sisyphus with his boulder or Dido and Gogo waiting for Godot to arrive.
08/12/2010 at 00:38 UW says:
Ah.. so, in your case if the world is about to end… you will write some comics?
I guess, you never know, your concoction might one day be discovered by future civilzations and lauded as the last creative works of a doomed species. The final desperate musings of the one man who, in the face of it all, persisted with their art until their very last breath. The final panel could be you, writing the final panel.
I suppose that would be pretty neat.
08/12/2010 at 01:41 Bret says:
What Gillen said. Duty above all. words words word sword swords words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words
Hmm. Just judging from how the disease spread, and the slightly better looking trees and flesh at the end, the cure does some good even if not injected. So, humanity?
Possibly maybe saved. Maybe.
08/12/2010 at 11:22 Mr Ak says:
Beware the blue penis, KG.
13/12/2010 at 19:08 sinister agent says:
More important than duty was that the alternative to going into work was not “have sex with wife”.
07/12/2010 at 21:32 ecurtz says:
It was cute to reference Every Day the Same Dream (although it may have gone a little too far.) Also here’s another sentence of spoiler prevention filler about the cute graphics, I really like how these games have combined pixel art with subtle textures so it looks like the big, blocky pixels are made of some woven material.
I failed in my playthrough, mostly because it was impossible to tell when something was likely to trigger the end of day, so if you explored at all you were likely to get screwed. The “message” (if it has one) seems pretty damned simplistic, and not really very sensible. Why would everyone in the lab kill themselves? If you were going to die a non-horrific death in five days anyway why not stick it out and work / go to the park / enjoy whatever your limited choices may be?
07/12/2010 at 21:49 Nick says:
Reguarding everyone in the lab – they didn’t.
07/12/2010 at 22:11 ecurtz says:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud …
You saw at least one colleague jump (if you decided to investigate the roof on the wrong day) and there are pools of blood around others. Since the plague victims don’t appear to bleed it is safe to assume suicide or murder.
07/12/2010 at 22:21 JB says:
“Thirty words! Thirty words! Thirty words! Thirty words! Thirty words! Thirty words!Thirty words! Thirty words! Thirty words! Thirty words! Thirty words! Thirty words!Thirty words!Thirty words! Thirty words! Thirty words! OF STUFFFFFF!!!!!”
ecurtz, i saw at least 2 colleague corpses and only one pool of blood around a body, though I didn’t go further right than the lab door. Had work to do, you see. Saving what was left of the world. And my family.
07/12/2010 at 22:42 Fox says:
There are many spoilery words down here below these first words that we shall call pre words that go before the spoilers so that you won’t inadvertently spoil things for yourself before having played the game for yourself in a run-on sentence-like manner, also why are you even reading this far into the comments if you haven’t played yet, you silly silly man and/or woman.
You say the plague victims don’t appear to bleed, but in my playthrough the wife was dead in the bathroom with blood all over the place. So much so it seeped out the bottom of the door into the hallway. There was no indication that I could find to suggest that came from anything but the plague. Unless she slit her own wrists and bled so profusely as to fill and then overfill a tub? At any rate, following that train of thought, I assumed the dead co-workers at the office died to the plague as well.
08/12/2010 at 06:46 Nick says:
“Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud …”
Yes, they didn’t all kill themselves, they were murdered as you yourself can be if you happen to be there at that time.
08/12/2010 at 09:24 Nate says:
* Spoilers * Spoilers * Spoilers * Spoilers * Spoilers * Spoilers * Spoilers * Spoilers * Spoilers *
* Spoilers * Spoilers * Spoilers * Spoilers * Spoilers * Spoilers * Spoilers * Spoilers * Spoilers *
* Spoilers * Spoilers * Spoilers * Spoilers * Spoilers * Spoilers * Spoilers * Spoilers * Spoilers *
* Spoilers * Spoilers * Spoilers * Spoilers * Spoilers * Spoilers * Spoilers * Spoilers * Spoilers *
The wife killed herself, I’m pretty sure. I assumed that her staying in bed was meant to be a sign of (suicidal, as it turns out) depression.
Side note: There isn’t enough blood in the entire body to fill the bathroom sink, let alone the tub. Google tells me it’s a little more than a gallon for the average person, so what, about 5 liters? So we can probably call that a bit of artistic license.
Also, if you’re going to slit your wrist in the tub, you’d probably fill it with warm/hot water first as it’s supposed to make you bleed out faster… and I’m a little disturbed that I know that.
07/12/2010 at 21:33 Heynes says:
The game itself is a bit of chore to play, but I’ve always been fascinated by enforcing permanence in your choices as a gameplay mechanic. Some might argue that it defeats the whole purpose of games, but there’s just something more elegant and immersive with having a bit more fatalism rather than simply reloading the last quicksave/checkpoint.
08/12/2010 at 02:21 Fumarole says:
I often artificially restrict myself in this way when gaming, particularly with RPGs. It can indeed increase immersion.
07/12/2010 at 21:35 Jsnuk says:
Sadface
07/12/2010 at 21:35 DeliriumWartner says:
Yeah, this was a little too influenced by EDTSD for me. To the point of distraction.
It was ok, but not as affecting as its predecessors. It really did leave me wondering if I’d played it wrong, which I guess is sort of the point, but not something I enjoy.
07/12/2010 at 21:37 Geoffrey says:
SPOILERS…Howmanycharactersisthirtycharacters…
That should be enough. OT:
Wow.
I worked.
Saw my colleague jump.
Worked
Worked
Worked (pretty sure this is the day I found that my wife had killed herself).
Worked (took daughter to work with me)
Worked (took daughter to work with me). Found a cure, cured myself, walked out to find what I’m pretty sure was my dead daughter in the hallway. Took my dead daughter to the park and sat on the bench with her, essentially the last thing left alive on earth.
By the end of it, I was pretty convinced that there was no way to cure the thing, and I was just going to be made to regret not taking the title card at its word (everything will be dead; implication that there is no ‘if’), and not spending the last time on earth with my family. Even then, I couldn’t not try to save the world. I want to say that the thought that I saved some life (since when I go back I see a park devoid of people, but green with life), makes me feel a little bit justified, but honestly, it just makes me sad that I chose to save “life” instead of comforting those around me.
07/12/2010 at 21:38 ThirdWorldFirstNation says:
Beautiful game.
Spoiler
Spoiler
Spoiler
I skipped a day of work when the boss told me to go home, and carried my daughter to work everyday after her mother killed herself in the bathtub. On the final day, I was told I ‘had’ one chance but I took it and went in to work; my daughter didn’t move when I put her down but the screen had a green swoosh on it! I cured myself, cured her and we’re having a lovely day in the park straight out of Ward Moore’s ‘Lot’. And there are no other people around, quite a happy ending.
07/12/2010 at 21:39 Inglourious Badger says:
SPOILER SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
etc
I went to work on all but the last day when I died a sad death on a park bench in an empty world sat next to my dying daughter.
Life lesson learnt: Don’t bother going to work YOU WILL DIE ANYWAY
07/12/2010 at 21:40 Sander Bos says:
Wasn’t there some article like maybe a year ago about playing far cry 2 without ever loading a save, to see how that would affect gameplay?
Presenting Super Meat Boy, one chance version. Recipe: Install super meat boy, play until first death, uninstall game, spend some time pondering on consequences of your actions…
07/12/2010 at 21:52 Kieron Gillen says:
I forget the name, but last year there was a parody-Mario-esque game which did that, including press stories about what happened to the man who died. “He just jumped on my head! I had no idea what he was doing”.
KG
07/12/2010 at 21:56 Lewie Procter says:
You only live once.
http://www.kongregate.com/games/raitendo/you-only-live-once
07/12/2010 at 22:10 DarioSamo says:
What? “I Wanna be The Guy” on Impossible mode fits better.(As if it wasn’t already nearly impossible on normal mode) There are some people who’ve claimed to have done such a task.
07/12/2010 at 22:12 Sander Bos says:
Thanks for the link.
That sure is a pretentious indie game. No wait, I can back up that claim!! See this screenshot:
http://www.sanderbos.com/pretentious_moi.png
:-)
09/12/2010 at 02:58 Marcus says:
Glad somebody remembers it
07/12/2010 at 21:44 KingCathcart says:
Using chromes Ingontio mode I have now played this twice.
@Alex Bakke
@Mereth
@Bas
SPOILER
Second time through I found the cure.
I’m pretty sure my daughter died and I was left the last man on earth, in the park, sitting next to my dead daughter.
This game seriously needs some cheevos.
07/12/2010 at 22:39 Meneth says:
I guess I might as well play again and take screenshots to be sure ;)
07/12/2010 at 22:55 Meneth says:
Here’s my results:
http://i.imgur.com/mgLzS.png
*SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS*
Seems alive to me.
07/12/2010 at 21:44 roBurky says:
Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler
So did nobody else get attacked by a man with a knife? Or are they just not mentioning it?
08/12/2010 at 11:20 phuzz says:
I didn’t.
SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER
SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER
I kept going into work, and at the end, I sat down and closed my eyes.
This game made me glad I don’t have kids :(
07/12/2010 at 21:45 Travis says:
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
The game would be less pretentious if the walking speed wasn’t so slow.
07/12/2010 at 21:50 westyfield says:
Ugh, indeed. I always come away from these games feeling like I’ve wasted my time – and I have, to an extent. If every living thing on Earth were dying, I’m fairly sure I would run to try to develop a cure.
07/12/2010 at 22:05 Deekyfun says:
I’m interested in how something can be considered pretentious on the basis of its movement speed. Does DooM become suddenly more worthy and self-important when I toggle off run? Maybe it does.
I thought it was basically a slightly fatalistic seeming choose-your-own adventure. Pretty evocative and spooky though.
I took the day off by accident on the first day, and, convinced the game was lecturing me on the consequences of being so self-satisfied, felt compelled to work to try and find a cure, though on the second day, I tried and the door was locked, so I went to the roof. My final day ended in miserable failure, dying in front of my monitor at work still flashing a red X. Made me wish I’d spent my time having fun instead. Pretty powerful stuff for such a simple game.
D
07/12/2010 at 23:02 Lilliput King says:
@Westyfield
buhg gus idjsmn isjnf shdn buhg gus idjsmn isjnf shdn buhg gus idjsmn isjnf shdn buhg gus idjsmn isjnf shdn buhg gus idjsmn isjnf shdn buhg gus idjsmn isjnf shdn
Hells yeah. And why would you keep driving home and sleeping? The entire world is dying, you can put in some fucking overtime, you lazy sod.
07/12/2010 at 23:28 westyfield says:
@ Deekyfun
It doesn’t become more pretentious, it becomes more annoying, which leads to more bitterness and accusations of pretentiousness.
08/12/2010 at 12:15 Deekyfun says:
@Westyfield
This I can agree with. The thing which most annoyed me about the game was that it seemed broken for the first bit, my character wouldn’t stop moving around at lightning speed – but that seemed to sort itself out after a few screens.
While I liked the game, I can understand that others wouldn’t, for whatever reason. I think I can even understand why people could feel the need to rationalise or justify their perfectly legitimate opinions with concepts such as pretentiousness which often seems to hold little resemblance to their actual feeling. I also think you need the manner of a saint to avoid doing such completely. I often find myself trying to reason with friends about how terrible X-Factor is, for a variety of pointlessly worthy reasons when I probably should just let them get on with enjoying it. Then again, if I will be coerced into watching such things…. oh well.
D
07/12/2010 at 21:45 nabeel says:
SPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILER
SPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILER
SPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILER
Moving.
I didn’t work one bit, just to see the world fall to pieces and my family die. The reckless abandon of a game player who thinks he can try something different the next time.
07/12/2010 at 23:33 John O'Kane says:
Yeah, games with no obvious way of figuring out what comes next have trained me to play twice. Once to explore the limits and boundaries of what can be done. Another to actually then play it well. Which makes you extra vulnerable to a game where you can only make one choice….
…which makes it brilliant. It’s more like life, you don’t know what the future is, you can only guess at optimising the outcome given shoddy forecasting, you live with your decisions, you feel your regrets and you take what is coming to you for it. Some what fatalistic, but honest.
SPOILERS etc.
Day one, went to work – skipped out with the girl (exploring the games boundaries – happens), looks like a homage to Every Day the Same Dream. Could this be a comedic take on it? Just sits there in the bar – fades to black, start of day two. Ah fuck, I ready know this is a game changer – cheating on the wife and work is not going to feed well into the next round. I’ll have to play an honest game next time – best explore more on the days this time.
Day two, eh, something in the paper about the cure going wrong, I see this is the games major story – best get to work, I wonder if I’ll need to work the 5 days or if I’m supposed to think laterally here and take the alternative options? How to know? Can’t work – go to roof, see someone jump. More homage to EDTSD.
Day three, choice of staying at home… hmm.. No work to do, maybe that cure is today. Driving in car… hold on – this is probably a day I’m supposed to savour time with the family… regret. Work.. nothing happens. Come back, wife dead. More regret – I’m really going to play this differently on the second run.
Day four – Picked up Molly in the hall. Went into the bathroom, don’t know why – still “playing” the game a bit I guess – see wife is gone. Get the choice of the park – feel I should explore this. Sit in park. Molly says she doesn’t feel so well…. :(. Night time, two graves outside the house. :’(
Day five – looks like my chance to save the day is now in the past tense. Walking slow, sick – fuckit, everyone is gone, lets just die gracefully in the park. Sit in park, eyes close. Sad.
Quickly glance down page – see that the author mentions no replay. Decide to take my punishment and write this story here – more meaning than a play through on another browser will allow.
07/12/2010 at 21:45 7rigger says:
thirtywordsthirtywordsthirtywordsthirtywordsthirtywordsthirtywordsthirtywords
No-one survived. I missed the chance it seems. I just sat down in the lab and died. I took the first day off and nothing else seemed to make a difference.
Everyone’s dead Dave, everyone is dead.
07/12/2010 at 21:46 skinlo says:
Everyone died.
07/12/2010 at 21:47 westyfield says:
Spoileroileroileroileroileroileroileroileroileroileroileroileroileroileroileroileroiler
Spoiler
I worked every day and took the daughter to work. Found a cure but by then everyone was dead, including (I think) the girl. Went to the park.
It was ok, a bit depressing but then I called the ending so it wasn’t a nasty surprise.
07/12/2010 at 21:51 westyfield says:
In short: I would rather have been downstairs eating cereal.
07/12/2010 at 21:50 Rinox says:
SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER
Skipped work the first day
Went to the roof the second, watched my colleague jump
Stayed with my family the third day
Went to work after my co-workers told me they were on to something and needed me
Went to work the last day, although everyone was dead. I died a slow death in the lab.
I also didn’t see my daughter or wife from the third day on anymore. Strange.
07/12/2010 at 21:52 oatish says:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
I messed up my 1st day spamming space to see what would happen and I didn’t go to work. I worked everyday after to make up for it but it wasn’t enough and everyone I loved (including myself) died. To see the loss of so much life (albiet pixely fake life) becuase I couldn’t be patient and just wanted to move onto the next screen is thought provoking.
07/12/2010 at 22:21 Lambchops says:
Snap.
Do I still need 30 words, well OK then I suppose I’d better. Spoily McSpoiler with spoilkerins sauce and spoil pudding on a flambeed bed of spoil follows. You’ve been warned!
I was just doing my automatic, “yes, yes I’ve read the text now let me go to the next line. Oh I’m having beers am I? Well that’s exactly what I damn well would have done anyway, I’ve one for pub lunches for far less meritous occasions than cure cancer before!” So I’ve learned the lessons that accidental carelessness will just lead me down the same path as willful carelessness!
I’ve fired it up in chrome to have another go because I’m a cheating little bugger and I fancy trying another path, even though I absolutely love that this guy has decided to make the game a one shot thing and think that more people doing short form games should have the balls to do so.
Also, in tespect to walking speed I actually liked the fact that as the days go on it seems to slow down on the last day to a depressed trudge as all around you dies.
Bleak, but one of the better recent efforts at this sort of thing I reckon.
07/12/2010 at 21:52 Atic Atac says:
SPOILER
Am I the only one who blew everything off to have dirty sex with a coworker?
07/12/2010 at 21:53 Kieron Gillen says:
I’ve got to admit, I was tempted.
KG
07/12/2010 at 22:07 phlebas says:
Was it worth it?
07/12/2010 at 22:27 The_Terminator says:
I played through the game twice, and did that the second time to see what happened. My wife somehow knew and left with my daughter, and everybody died.
First time I went to work every day except the last (when I went to the park instead), and everybody died.
Depressing much?
07/12/2010 at 23:14 Inglourious Badger says:
…and in the game
08/12/2010 at 03:06 Mad Doc MacRae says:
@atic atac – and in the game!
08/12/2010 at 03:15 Mad Doc MacRae says:
(Should’ve hit refresh before replying…
and in the game)
08/12/2010 at 08:25 Pmeie says:
I did, on my only playthrough. Then I got home and my wife was dead. -_-
08/12/2010 at 20:19 Hunter King says:
My IRL girlfriend is named Annie, so I figured it wasn’t that harmful of an idea. Then I come back and my wife committed suicide in the bathtub. Can’t help but think “At least I took the sexy route!”
07/12/2010 at 21:56 neolith says:
My daughter and I died together in the park.
08/12/2010 at 13:42 Tom Camfield says:
Me too, which I thought was sweet. I preferred that option. One last moment together.
07/12/2010 at 21:57 McDan says:
SPOILER?
SPOILER?
SPOILER?
YES, SPOILER.
Seriously depressed that I can only really properly play that game once. Found my dead wife in the bath after the third day. Found the cure on the last day.
Anyone know what the music is for this? Quite enjoyed it.
07/12/2010 at 22:25 phlebas says:
Under the game window it says the main theme is ‘Story Of Life’ by darthduba.
07/12/2010 at 21:57 noobnob says:
The creepiest thing about this game is that the lane your car is on has no other cars behind or in front of you. And you can’t reverse. It’s cursed. There’s no way back.
Also, we really need a spoiler tag. Something that changes the font’s color to be the same as the background it’s on, or encloses the text into a text frame that can be made visible by pressing a giant “SPOILER” button.
07/12/2010 at 21:58 bbot says:
Spoiler.
Spoiler.
Spoiler.
Spoiler.
Played through it three times. Got the cure on the first playthrough, died looking for one the next two. (in order of playthroughs: wife suicided, child died of disease before I could cure her; wife and child killed by coworker; wife suicided, child died in park.)
The “you had one chance” is a bit of a dick move. Well, the entire game is a dick move, but that’s an especially egregious one, since there is apparently no way to save humanity from your (off screen) mistake.
And though it’s a faux paus to nitpick art games, I’m going to have to point out that any plague wiping out humanity entirely, much less in a mere seven days; is patently ludicrous. If anything, the remnants of humanity giving in the great underground Vaults will survive.
07/12/2010 at 23:41 Susan says:
Don’t be ridiculous. The Vaults were never meant to save anyone.
08/12/2010 at 01:52 Bret says:
One two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven tweleve thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen ect ect ect ect ect ect ect ect ect ect ect ect ect ect ect ect
Well, yes, but what of the people in Subspace? I bet the main character’s lazy ass cousin Scott is fine.
07/12/2010 at 21:58 phlebas says:
I liked this a lot more than Every Day The Same Dream. This has a surprising degree of attention to detail in the backgrounds and interstitial scenes, drawing a lot of emotional power from its pixels.
(is that enough pre-spoiler text?)
SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER
Things like the stuff left on the floors in the house, the state of the tree outside, the people in the background on the drive to work. Really nicely done.
All along it was telling me I had one chance and I didn’t know whether it was one chance to save the world or one last chance to spend time with the people I loved. I missed the last chance to spend time with my wife and she took her own life; I wonder whether her leaving Molly alive was mercy or cowardice. The day after that I checked around the house as usual, only realising after I’d stepped into the bloody bathroom that I’d got Molly with me and getting out again as fast as I could. The final day I didn’t hang around, didn’t look in Molly’s room or the bathroom, just headed in to work because I might as well go out trying.
I found the cure on the last day and went to the park with Molly. But I think she was dead. It hadn’t sunk in yet. Life on Earth is saved, just maybe not the humans. And I wonder if it might all have been all right if only I’d bunked off work the first day and not put my cure out in the first place.
07/12/2010 at 22:00 8-bit says:
I took your advice and played the game before reading but ended up with the same results with one thing different, on the final day I went into work but as I entered the building I saw that he was still carrying his dead daughter, it disappeared after a moment so I assume it was a glitch but god that was creepy.
07/12/2010 at 22:12 Scandalon says:
I had the same glitch.
07/12/2010 at 22:27 Feet says:
Same as me, totally freaked me out. Like back when FEAR first came out and you got those glimpses of a little girl…. Was it a glitch? WAS IT THOUGH?
08/12/2010 at 08:50 Sinomatic says:
Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler
I don’t think that was a glitch at all. And if it was, it was probably the most perfectly timed emotional glitch in history.
08/12/2010 at 10:25 8-bit says:
Well if it wasn’t a glitch it certainly had what I guess was the desired effect, I was going to go into work on the final day but after seeing that I went up to the roof.
07/12/2010 at 22:00 Scandalon says:
So, while I don’t think it’s pretentious, I dont think it was…worth it? Every Day the Same Dream at least felt a bit novel, while this was exactly the same genre. I kept thinking “why am I stuck in a linear sequence.” Eventually a bit more choice opened up but…meh?
Anyway, I did get what I think is the maximum fail – went home first day, tried to find a cure all the rest, wife killed herself, daughter was sick (dead) on last day, I just sat down in lab and died.
The fabric texture underneath everything was kind cool though.
07/12/2010 at 22:01 Alec Meer says:
30 words, not 30 characters, people. You risk comment-deletion otherwise.
07/12/2010 at 22:01 Ian says:
LA LA LA LA LA LA LA SPOILEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERS
MORE SPOILEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERS
SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS
SPOOOOOIIIIILEEEEEERS!!!!!
MORE MORE MORE MORE FILLER MORE FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER
Enough?
Good.
So going to work every day IS the right answer? I went every day aside from when my daughter asked where mummy was when I went to the park and even then I really hesitated on it.
BUT, I was expecting simply plugging away at the cure to be the wrong answer, I thought it was going to be wanting me to accept the distractions.
07/12/2010 at 23:52 Matthew Whittingham says:
I think the whole idea that a game has a ‘right answer’ or nead to be ‘beaten’ (Agh – I hate it when people talk of games like that) needs to be overcome. Just think of it as an experience with choices.
08/12/2010 at 02:34 Fumarole says:
You’re not the only one who feels that way Matthew.
08/12/2010 at 09:48 Ian says:
Well change “right answer” for “way to a favourable ending” if it makes you feel better.
I don’t have a problem with getting a sad ending, but the question had to be phrased somehow and I was just asking because of the assumptions I’d made as to what it was going to turn out they wanted me to do.
07/12/2010 at 22:02 Kid A says:
Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler
I went to work every day. The last day before “You had one chance”, I took my daughter to work, and noticed that she wasn’t moving in the lab. I went to the park with her the last day and fell asleep on the bench there in the snow.
…I really hope that was snow.
07/12/2010 at 22:09 rei says:
Generally I’m all for these things—loved Every Day the Same Dream and many others—but this just feels a bit clumsy. I actually laughed when spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler my wife killed herself. What a shitty mom, and what an obvious and forced thing to cram in. It was a nice enough game, but of no emotional impact whatsoever (and I pretty much can’t watch anything on TV without being moved to tears, from children’s shows to the news to goddamn Touched by an Angel (and I’m a lifelong atheist)).
07/12/2010 at 22:10 Anonymous says:
SPOILER ALERT
Three years ago, I got a call from my wife’s doctor.
I was standing next to my graduate carrel in the basement. They had found, the doctor said, a four centimeter mass in her brain, just behind her right eye. I said: “We are not talking about a benign mass. We are talking about a … malignancy.” I could not call it cancer.
They performed a second MRI to confirm. The mass had grown by a centimeter. I was told that it was glioblastoma multiforme. This is a grade IV astrocytoma, doubling in mass every eleven days. I was present. My wife was not: that morning, she had forgotten how to use the shower. I had to help her. I said: “I know the staging system. This is not the kind of cancer you can survive.” There was a pause. “That’s right,” the doctor said.
By the next Monday, my wife was sleeping eighteen hours a day. When she was awake, her left arm was limp. She didn’t talk much. We took her to see her parents; her grandparents. We got an appointment with a neurosurgeon the next week, and the neurosurgeon gave her a choice: surgery or not. She told me she couldn’t think straight. She asked me to choose. I begged her to choose. We waited alone a dark hotel room. We filled out her living will together. Then I chose.
I chose surgery. because I don’t believe in miracles and I do believe in science. I kne , even then, that science would have to provide a miracle to save her life. This was not, the doctor said, the kind of cancer you can survive.
So, they cut off her hair. They cut away the scalp and removed a fifth of her skull with a jigsaw. This is what I chose. When I saw her next, she had two black eyes and a line of staples which started above her left eye and ended below her right ear. She was tucked into the recovery bed with a cup of ice chips; when she turned and looked at me after surgery, she croaked, “The margaritas here suck.” I laughed. It didn’t strike me until then that I hadn’t done that for a while.
Then she went into a coma for a while.
A few days later, I was sitting in her hospital room on a cot. An echelon of doctors walked in and told me, grimly, that it was not cancer. It was Marburg multiple sclerosis. This is also terminal. Days passed. She woke up. Months passed. She started blogging. She wasn’t sleeping as much. Her MRI was still clear. Years passed. I finished graduate school. I still come home to her every day.
Her diagnosis is still terminal. Her neurologist is unwilling to clear her, because no one has ever survived her condition for so long without severe disability or, indeed, without treatment. Her MRIs are still clear. No one calls it a miracle. (And yet.)
But I haven’t learned my lesson: I am still, as I’ve always been, a fact-driven pragmatist capable of making grim decisions. Even grim decisions about those I hold closest. I don’t believe in miracles. (And yet.)
So I chose to work every day until the end, and trusted science to give me a cure. Even if science had to give me a miracle.
I guess that’s the kind of person I am.
07/12/2010 at 22:23 Kieron Gillen says:
Thanks for sharing that Anonymous.
KG
07/12/2010 at 22:24 Scandalon says:
That was…affecting. And well written. Thanks for sharing.
(I’m just waiting for someone to shout “Pretentious!”.)
07/12/2010 at 22:25 Henke says:
Holy shit, thanks for sharing man. :o
And best of luck to you and your wife.
07/12/2010 at 23:00 Anonymous says:
I guess that’s the kind of person I am.
And in the game!
07/12/2010 at 23:23 The Army of None says:
Eesh. Thanks for sharing that, Anon. I’ll admit I cried there, reading that, heh…
07/12/2010 at 23:37 Solario says:
That was a great comment. Thanks for sharing.
07/12/2010 at 23:39 outoffeelinsobad says:
Anon, you’re a hero.
08/12/2010 at 04:51 Gabe McGrath says:
Wow.
I just… umm.. wow.
Whoever you are, thankyou.
For giving us that little insight into a very private situation.
Best wishes to you and your wife.
08/12/2010 at 13:50 Sam says:
Some idiot’s cutting onions downstairs.
07/12/2010 at 22:11 Chris D says:
Roses are red, Violets are blue, here’s thirty words, in case you’ve not played too. Actually that was only fifteen words so now I have to write this sentence too, which spoils the effect a bit.
I worked every day until the last. (apart from day 2 when the office was locked, so I went to the roof. I figured it was my mess so I had to try to fix it. As I was a happily married man I ignored the floozy. My wife died and I took my daughter to work, figuring I owed it to her and anyone who might be left.
On the last day the message changed from have one chance to had, so I took my daughter to the park where we both died.
If I had one more chance what would I do differently? I think I’d take the day off when my wife asked me, although without having read that even if you work on the final day everyone dies I think I’d have to try that as well. Ok, so that would involve two chances.
I was slightly resentful that the significant choices, ie: developing a virus that destroys cells and releasing it into the atmosphere, were taken before I had any input. Of the things I’d do differently that would be the biggie.
It seems unfair that by the time you have the experience to avoid making mistakes you’ve already made them. And in the game.
10/12/2010 at 06:17 Dagda says:
That last sentence justifies the entire game, I think.
07/12/2010 at 22:12 Easydog says:
SPOILER! SPOILER! SPOILER! SPOILER! SPOILER! SPOILER! SPOILER! SPOILER! SPOILER! SPOILER! SPOILER! SPOILER! SPOILER! SPOILER! SPOILER! SPOILER! SPOILER! SPOILER! SPOILER! SPOILER! SPOILER! SPOILER! SPOILER! SPOILER! SPOILER! SPOILER! SPOILER!
I lived and it’s ambigious but I think my daughter did too. I’m pretty sure that this is as close as it comes to victory. Damn, pyhrric victories are downers.
07/12/2010 at 22:14 Conor says:
LA LA LA LA LA LA LAL AL AL A LAALALALLA LALALA LALALA LALALA ALALLALA LALALALAL ALALALAL IS TRHIS 30 YET LA LALA LALALA LA LA LA LA LA 30 NOW
Worked every day, except the second, where my colleague jumped from the roof. Found the cure in the end, cured myself, and Molly. Then we sat in the park, surrounded by dead plant life.
BUT WAIT!
I reloaded it to see what it was like, and all the plant life was green again. My conclusion? The cure didn’t cure humans of cancer. It cured the planet of it;s cancer. Us.
Deeeeeeeeeeeep.
07/12/2010 at 23:11 Hippo says:
SPOILERS (not really, since the relevant info is in the post I’m replying to, but still. I guess I have to type something. Is this enough?)
Oh.
Now I wish I had done things differently. That would have been worth all the sacrifices, really. I mean, okay. Everyone died, but the planet lived on. Life continued. That’s big.
For the record, I worked every day except the second and the last. I died with my daughter in the park. It was kind of sad.
08/12/2010 at 00:01 Reverend Speed says:
That’s kind of awesome.
Not the ‘deep’ bit, but that the game makes such a huge thing of telling you not to replay it, but it’s only upon attempting to replay it that you get the full ending. If true…
…that’s tricky.
I like that.
07/12/2010 at 22:15 Narretz says:
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
Another game with a great premise that leaves me wondering if simple playtesting would not have improved it by lots. I managed to kill everyone including myself, (mainly) because there is no indication on when a day ends. I skipped work in the first day, and went to the roof the second day, just to know what was there. But after you missed work two times, there is apparently no way to find a cure. By desperate tries where not rewarded and so I died a lonely death in my lab. I was kinda shocked that my wife killed herself, but overall the emotional attachment was quite not there, and the artistic direction was also a bit bland for my taste. Although the limping at the last day was very fitting.
07/12/2010 at 22:17 MuscleHorse says:
The juxtoposition of cutesy graphics with a ‘weighty’ storyline doesn’t quite work here – also the music is absolutely awful and overly emotive.
Not bad but not quite worth a RPS posting!
07/12/2010 at 22:18 Henke says:
The characters in this looks like pixelated versions of characters you’d see in a Dave Teatro animation.
Also I enjoyed this game. Though everyone died.
08/12/2010 at 00:38 bananaphone says:
Imagine it instead of the music in the original game. That is all.
In the words of Hitchcock: the line between horror and humor is very thin.
07/12/2010 at 22:23 Quasar says:
Am I allowed to link to my personal blog here? I wrote about my own experiences: http://bit.ly/e7psMW
In short, I failed. I found it very touching, though.
07/12/2010 at 22:24 ErikM says:
Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler
Went out with some lady the first day. Felt bad about that. Went and talked to folks the coming two days. When the news about the deadliness of the cure was revealed I started to work on saving mankind. Then the wife commits suicide. That was heartbreaking. Took the daughter to work the day after that. And the day after that. I set her down the last day in the in the lobby. It seems like she was dead. Still I thought that maybe someone could be saved, so I went to work. And there I die. Goddamnit, I failed everyone.
I feel awful.
07/12/2010 at 22:29 Quasar says:
I thought she died from the virus, rather than suicide? I guess it’s left up to interpretation.
07/12/2010 at 22:33 Vinraith says:
@Quasar
SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER
I’m sure it depends on your choices. In my case, going to work every day, I found her in a bathtub full of blood. That was definitely suicide, as it’s not what dying of the virus looks like.
08/12/2010 at 00:15 ErikM says:
@Vinraith
Yes, I had the bloody bathtub as well. The daughter on the other hand seemed simply cold and dead(which was the way I ended up in the end. No blood there either), which made me assume it was the virus.
07/12/2010 at 22:31 FunkyBadger says:
Not sure anyone else had said it yet, but that was fecking awesome.
07/12/2010 at 22:39 Prove me wrong! says:
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
Ok… There is NO CHANCE to save the world. Complete lie. the fact that you can’t play again (well you can but that’s not the point) is an attempt to hide that. You can get the cure but everybody is dead. You can ignore everything but a some guy attacks you, you defend yourself and then find that he has hanged himself after killing your family. The only thing that I guess can be that I missed is that you can kill the attacker and not just take away his knife.
In any case a waste of time.
07/12/2010 at 23:13 Lilliput King says:
The tagline isn’t actually “You have one chance to save the world”
It’s simply “You have one chance”
07/12/2010 at 22:41 Mr.Nurgiharixaluminos says:
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
Ok… There is NO CHANCE to save the world. Complete lie. the fact that you can’t play again (well you can but that’s not the point) is an attempt to hide that. You can get the cure but everybody is dead. You can ignore everything but a some guy attacks you, you defend yourself and then find that he has hanged himself after killing your family. The only thing that I guess can be that I missed is that you can kill the attacker and not just take away his knife.
In any case a waste of time.
07/12/2010 at 22:45 Synchrony says:
I don’t think the point of this game is to ‘win’ but to experience the story, whatever it may be
07/12/2010 at 23:11 bigredrock says:
A few more than 30 words, so as not to spoil:
In memoriam (Norman MacCaig)
On that stormy night
a top branch broke off
on the biggest tree in my garden.
It’s still up there. Though its leaves
are withered black among the green
the living branches
won’t let it fall.
—
The game doesn’t necessarily say you have once chance *to save the world* (although the “Author’s comments” section does). The game just says “you have once chance”. I thought (after playing it) that it meant one chance to play the game.
08/12/2010 at 00:35 Thants says:
“In any case a waste of time.”
*Whoosh*
08/12/2010 at 12:21 Milky says:
a copy of someones 30 words so its actually more
A few more than 30 words, so as not to spoil:
In memoriam (Norman MacCaig)
On that stormy night
a top branch broke off
on the biggest tree in my garden.
It’s still up there. Though its leaves
are withered black among the green
the living branches
won’t let it fall.
—
“The game just says “you have once chance”. I thought (after playing it) that it meant one chance to play the game.”
Except on the last day when it said you HAD one chance, this is implying that there is something you could have done on the days before. That is why peopel are assuming there is a way to do somerthing to save everyone, but i bet it will be something odd like just leaving the game alone for 10 minutes or somehow crashing the car :p
08/12/2010 at 17:51 bigredrock says:
You could well be right.
I interpreted that to mean that you HAD one chance to play the game, and now that you’d reached the final day, your chance had gone / ended. I could easily be wrong though. :)
07/12/2010 at 22:43 Synchrony says:
I skipped work the first day (i mean i did just cure cancer)
2nd day I saw the suicide on the roof
3rd day i stayed with my family
4th day i stayed with my family
5th day i went to work, got attacked by a guy with a knife, disarmed him and he ran off, went home and he had gone to my house and murdered my wife and daughter then hung himself. buried my wife and id in the garden
6th day I went to the park, sat on the bench alone in the snow and died
07/12/2010 at 22:44 Mark Schaal says:
Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler
I actually tested the virus and looked at the test results 5 years before the start of the game, like any other researcher would have done, so I never wound up in the game’s situation in the first place.
Since the writer didn’t make the story in the least bit believable, I didn’t believe it.
08/12/2010 at 00:40 Thants says:
That’s a good point. No scientific development has ever had unintended consequence that were missed by tests. You’ve proven you’re smarter than all of us, and not at all a pedantic jerk.
08/12/2010 at 06:34 Muzman says:
There was a story a read recently about some drug or something that did something very special, but also did catastrophic things, nearly getting out of the lab (I don’t think it was a virus so it wouldn’t have spread, so there’s that).
It immediately leapt to mind playing this. I suspect the author read it too. I’ll have to go find it.
08/12/2010 at 09:02 Lightbulb says:
Thalidomide
I’m sure a perfect ‘cure for cancer’ wouldn’t be rushed through the system with minimal testing. Hell people call for ‘wonder drugs’ to be released for use without sufficient testing all the time and they onyl increase life span by a minimal time.
A little far fetched maybe but not totally unbelievable.
Also this is the plot of the I am Legend (the film at least).
08/12/2010 at 09:32 Muzman says:
It wasn’t Thalidomide I’m thinking of in any case. Thalidomide was tragically understandable in a lot of ways. Missing dangerous chirality that can switch itself in certain circumstances seems all too easy to me and virtually unpredictable.
Anyhoo, my one was some sort of mass destroyer of things that nearly got released (It might be this one). I take the point that “science” can screw up. I also take the point that nothing is going to cure “cancer” (which isn’t one thing to begin with) and then turn out to kill every cell in all life the next day. That’s the sort of thing that’s going to show up in testing. It really really is.
I’m also taking the point that “it’s just a game scenario starter, ok? shut up” as well, the moment somone makes it at me.
08/12/2010 at 22:57 Mark Schaal says:
I don’t understand the point of insulting me because I reacted to the game differently.
I understand people have different levels of caring about realism/believability in storytelling. Take the TV show “Heroes”. I gave up watching early when it became too ludicrous for me and it appeared that the writers were just making up stuff from week to week. Some of my friends watched it for years because that didn’t bother them. No biggie.
I suppose I should have made it clear it wasn’t just the set up that was unbelievable, but multiple points through the whole game. However, for a small game I thought it sufficient to give a small reason for my reaction.
14/12/2010 at 01:56 Adventurous Putty says:
Because you were a jerk about it. “I didn’t find the story believable because of X, so it didn’t really work for me” would have been fine.
07/12/2010 at 22:46 nemryn says:
Here are some words to prevent people from accidentally looking at spoilers. Here are some more words to prevent people from accidentally looking at spoilers. These are also words to prevent people from accidentally looking at spoilers.
I think I’ figured it out’: there isn’t any way to cure the plague and save everybody. The ‘one chance’ you have is a chance to be with your family, not a chance to find a cure.
07/12/2010 at 22:49 Fred Wester, CEO of Paradox says:
one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen seventeen eighteen nineteen twenty twenty one twenty two twenty three twenty four twenty five.
I guess the “story” of the game can be touching but the lack of actual game made it hard for me to connect to it. I’m playing this thing that’s presented to me as a game, where the choices I make have (apparently) large consequences, but in the end and in spite of what the game tells me I can’t actually save the world, I can only choose between having everyone die or having everyone but me die, and am sort of forced towards a sad kind of ending.
This, which I (paradoxically?) felt as a lack of consequence of my choices made it hard to connect with the story. The complete lack of any hints towards what would be correct choice, coupled with the “indie game with a message” kind of visuals and audio, kind of made me anticipate this from the start. I suppose it’s not a game for me, then.
07/12/2010 at 22:50 Stijn says:
Uh, so, that was me, forgot to log in.
07/12/2010 at 23:14 Lilliput King says:
Right.
08/12/2010 at 02:43 Hokie says:
Heh. Nice pun.
08/12/2010 at 09:08 RagingLion says:
I thought the complete lack of hints and truly not knowing if your actions will have any impact was it’s strongest message and the one that stuck with me most. Coupled with the fact that you also only get the one chance made this feel like the most life-like decision-maker I’ve taken part in. Typically in life you won’t know if your actions are definitely going to achieve a result in scenarios like this so I think it’s right to be portrayed in this way.
Also, don’t force every interactive experience to have to obey the rules of a ‘game’ where you’re trying to achieve something in a space where there are fair rules. The interactive medium has room for many more types of experiences.
08/12/2010 at 12:01 Stijn says:
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z a b c d e
Totally. But if, in a game that proudly proclaims your choices really matter (or at least implies so), your choices don’t seem to have any impact at all, that spoils the experience for me.
I’m not saying it should have hit points and whatnot, but with the role of the player being so shallow in this game, it doesn’t do much for me.
07/12/2010 at 22:51 passingstranger says:
Did anyone ever ditch work to hang out with the office harlot? I keep wondering what would have happened.
But that’s where the game is successful. It’s not easy to manufacture regret, but it would appear as if it has.
08/12/2010 at 11:00 MacBeth says:
Yeah, I tried it when I played a second time on my work computer… you get a few seconds of car-bouncing-on-its-springs, which raised a smile… but the wife had committed suicide in the bath (again) when I got home… if that had been my only experience of the game it would have been terribly guilt-inducing!
08/12/2010 at 11:55 passingstranger says:
Oh man, that would have been awful if it was your first playthrough. Good god, this game could be brutal.
07/12/2010 at 22:51 Lightbulb says:
Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty Thirty
I’ll sum my argument up briefly:
I made only one decision right at the start of the game. It was based on the evidence given, and the decision was that for me to save the world I would need to work each day. This was the one decision I made in the whole game. The reason for this was the unrealistic knowledge that “I had 5 days to save the world and would have only 1 chance”.
If you offer someone a choice and expect to agonise over it you need to give them some idea of the consequences.
Without knowing the consequences of my actions I cannot make an informed decision therefore I just carried on on my original path. The game didn’t give me any reason to change my initial decision. No further evidence to show that I should do something different.
In my opinion this is a failure of the game. My wife died and I did feel anger/sadness (in that order). However because she was no really my wife it was easy enough to rationalise that I had no way of knowing she would kill herself so why should I regret it?
Now in reality you aren’t told the consequences of you actions before you make the decisions BUT more importantly in reality I have no been categorically told that I have 1 chance to save the world and 5 days to do it.
I would change the game to not tell you how long is left. If you were given the newspaper from the first day, someone ran up to you in the car park babbling about a problem but everyone else says lets party most would party. If it then turns out they are one day short at the end you would regret that decision.
If when leaving the next day I was told it was my daughters birthday (but I still knew nothing about any problems since I partied yesterday) I would stay home. I could regret this decision.
If I knew on the fourth day my wife would kill herself I might stay home.
If I could not take my daughter with me to work I might have stayed.
As it is I made one decision right at the start and the ‘game’ and nothing made me think that I should do anything different. I felt I was powerless to do anything about anything and that I just had to keep working.
Hard to say if the game failed because I don’t know the intention but I stink it could have had more resonance if it had been done differently. However if the goal was to feel a sense of powerlessness, some anger/sadness, and a slight remorse/sense of loss it succeeded.
07/12/2010 at 22:52 mpk says:
That’s an amazing experience.
07/12/2010 at 22:54 kwyjibo says:
thirty words thirty words thirty words thirty words thirty words thirty words thirty words thirty words thirty words thirty words thirty words thirty words thirty words thirty words thirty words
Wasn’t particularly moved or impressed by it. But that’s because I’d seen the thing before with things like Passage, Every Day the Same, and You Only Live Once.
I’m disappointed with the spoilers that say that, yes – you can win, you can live! It’s saying that games, due to their interactivity, have a get out clause. There’s always a happy (or less sad) ending somewhere to be found! The player has all the power in the world! I also didn’t like there is a winning ending, given the supposed statement of fact the game opens with, “every single living cell on Planet Earth will be dead”.
It feels like a cop out.
07/12/2010 at 23:16 Lilliput King says:
Being the only living thing in existence is probably not much of a win for anyone, especially because you can’t really live particularly long in such a situation.
08/12/2010 at 00:45 kwyjibo says:
It is a win, because every other ending has you dying. It’s set up as a unique end, whether the outcome is positive or not, it’s the one chance realised, the get out clause, the solution.
07/12/2010 at 22:55 Jake says:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nullam euismod ligula ut justo lobortis vel imperdiet nibh malesuada. Proin id ante vel ipsum malesuada posuere. Suspendisse potenti. Nunc et risus.
I was angry at the game for seeming to suggest I should be spending time with my family when I had just destroyed the world. I was pretty angry at my character for even going home, you do something like that, you don’t just go to the park! I worked every day in the lab and cured myself and my daughter… and then went to the park! Why go to the damn park? What about the other people? Maybe I could have saved a couple more before going and playing on the swings.
I know this was supposed to be moving and emotional, but maybe I am just a robot inside. However if I ever doom the world you can rest assured I will try my hardest to fix it. (Hopefully I won’t doom the world).
For me, the moral of the story was – if everyone hadn’t committed suicide and gone all emo and had just done their damn jobs the cure would have been found on day 3. Now if you’ll excuse me I am off to play Warcraft.
08/12/2010 at 07:24 rei says:
I completely agree.
07/12/2010 at 22:58 zak canard says:
I am now padding this out with approximately thirty words so I do not fall foul of spoiler warnings. Is this enough so far? No? Well then.. Purple monkey dishwasher.
I blame going back home to my wife instead of working on day 3 for the death of all life on the planet rather than the dabbling in viral engineering.
07/12/2010 at 22:59 ddpk17 says:
SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER
The graphics being clearer would have helped. I thought the daughter was dead, then when she turned pink (which wouldn’t have happened without metabolic activity) alive, then come here and most other people are saying dead because her eyes are closed. Well, by that logic the main character isn’t blinking so maybe he’s dead too? Plus, the leaves haven’t fallen from the trees so I assumed the cure was also airborne and there would be other surviving people out there, but others have a more depressing interpretation.
You could put this down to the main character’s disturbed state I suppose but to me that feels like a cop-out, especially with the cartoon presentation’s implicit author’s-eye view rather than seeing through the lead characters eyes.
Worked very well as an accompaniment to the music, anyway.
08/12/2010 at 02:56 ddpk17 says:
SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER
Oh, I come back to the game a bit later and now the bench is empty, there’s no sound and the trees are green. Either a cute glitch or I really did win.
07/12/2010 at 23:02 Delusibeta says:
“This Spoiler Blockade Was Brought To You By Some Off Topic Stuffs” So, heard the Tron Legacy soundtrack yet? Daft Punk did a great job, even if it’s completely unlike anything else they’ve done.
So, erm yeah. Got about as close to a victory as you can get to this game, which was basically the Last Man on Earth scenario. And now it gives me a static image of a park, trees looking healthy. So, yeah. Victory.
07/12/2010 at 23:15 7rigger says:
Regarding off topic, I have to agree that the Tron Legacy soundtrack is indeed good. I didn’t realise it was by Daft Punk, but it all makes sense now.
And on topic, I have to agree that even the good ending in this game is still a downer. I suppose you can’t expect much when it starts by telling you “In 6 days…”
08/12/2010 at 00:47 Thants says:
Oh, I just got the soundtrack but I haven’t listened to it yet. When and if I do see the movie it’s going to be weird having heard all the music first. Like it was weird playing Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory for the first time after listening to the soundtrack a million times.
07/12/2010 at 23:03 pixelpark says:
The point is not to “win”, to find some kind of “win state”.
A touching experience. I desperately tried to rescue my family until the end, sacrificing my wife by doing so, until I finally gave up and brought my daughter to the park for one last day together before we died.
07/12/2010 at 23:06 blindmouse says:
lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of words….
That was really rather good.
So the way I see it there is no happy ending…? Best case scenario you spend the last couple of days with your dying daughter before finding the cure, only there’s no one left to cure but yourself.
That tune is going to haunt me tonight, good work
07/12/2010 at 23:07 Pode says:
Ok, seriously, if I’m only allowed one playthrough ever there’s simply no excuse for the control scheme not being rock solid. Stupid character would. not. stop. walking. Ever. For anything. If he walked into a wall only pushing harder into it would cause him to change direction. Played as best I could timing around this handicap, but the game decided to change directions on entering one of the later rooms and leave my daughter and I constantly moving back and forth through a doorway in our house.
07/12/2010 at 23:13 cjlr says:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi…
It’s a bit like on the beach, innit? Or the quiet earth. Man, that is pretty much my favourite movie ever. Anyway.
I went to work the first day. I tried to the second day – no dice. I worked on the third day. I worked on the fourth day – the boss told me to head home, but I stayed. That night I found my wife dead, presumably by suicide. The next day I could not bring myself to leave my daughter alone. I took her to the park. That night I put up a second cross in front of my house. And on the sixth day, I sat on the floor of the lab, and died, still staring at the big ol’ X on the monitor. Hooray!
08/12/2010 at 00:48 Thants says:
Bit like Children of Men maybe. Man, I love that movie.
09/12/2010 at 09:11 Bret says:
Read the book?
Liked the movie okay, loved the book when I read it after. Somehow felt more, well, right.
Of course, that’s just me.
07/12/2010 at 23:15 Gabe McGrath says:
Thirty words hath this filler. Apes, Orangutangs, Gorillas. But should this filler have thirty-one, then my friend, my work is done. But then I needed eight more freaking words.
———————————————–
Love the music, and the ‘semi-handstitched filter’ graphics.
But… I’m not sure what happenned in my game.
1. Went to work every day.
2. On the final day… I took my daughter to work.
She sat down inside the front door, and I went on to the lab.
3. There… I sat down, the screen still said “X”… and nothing else happenned.
So – I don’t know if that was “it” or had the game frozen…?
07/12/2010 at 23:23 AS says:
“And Saint Attila raised the hand grenade up on high, saying, “O Lord, bless this thy hand grenade, that with it thou mayst blow thine enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy.” And the Lord did grin. And the people did feast upon the lambs and sloths, and carp and anchovies, and orangutans and breakfast cereals, and fruit-bats and large chu…”
Bad ending, as you didn’t find the cure. But if you went to work each day it shouldn’t have happened, judging from what everyone else is saying – you’ll find the cure and save only yourself, or save yourself and your daughter depending on your views.
I’m not quite sure which cure ending is worse, being alone or trying to raise your daughter with no one else. Also, shouldn’t the trees be dead in the park if it kills every cell?
07/12/2010 at 23:27 Lambchops says:
Spoiler, spoiler, spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler
Did you go to celebrate for drinks on the first day? It’s very easy to do without even contemplating the option that you could actually go into the lab (I know if I ever make a major breakthrough the first place I’m headed is the pub, so even if i hadn’t accidentally gone to celebrate by pressing space to skip dialogue I would have done so anyway!). If so you get the the ending (it is indeed it) where you didn’t achieve the cure but worked your heart out to the end.
Interestingly I would have been more satisfied with this ending if I didn’t know what the others were at all, as much as it has been interesting discussing things I’d assumed that the trick of the game was that there wasn’t a cure at all. Sure the ending where the cure is found is still bleak but I kind of feel knowing about it somewhat belittles the heroic efforts of my guy to try and save the world.
08/12/2010 at 04:56 Gabe McGrath says:
Mary had a BFG, it’s case was grey as death,
and every room she shot it in, the demons were a mess.
And _still_ I’m under the 30 word limit – arghh!!
—————– reply below —————
Ah, the ‘celebrate the drinks’ thing!
Thanks for that
07/12/2010 at 23:16 Poet says:
Someone needs to e-mail Roger Ebert this game.
07/12/2010 at 23:20 AwkwardSilenceGames says:
Well. My life has just peaked.
09/12/2010 at 13:09 adonf says:
(Darth Vader is Luke’s father, Bruce Wills was dead all along, Maggie Simpson shot Mr Burns, Kevin Spacey is Keyser Söze and this is a thirty-word sentence to prevent spoilers)
Oh hi. There seems to be a debate here on whether the daughter dies or not, on day 6 if the main guy finds the cure. Could you tell us what you intended ? (Or maybe it was voluntarily not made clear in the game)
(And congratulation on your life peaking)
07/12/2010 at 23:26 TheFlyingWooly says:
SPOILERS!
I didnt skip the first day, curing cancer is nice but there are still problems to be solved.
I decided to keep working till the fifth day, as the creator of the problem it was my duty to fix it.
I would always check the roof before working to try and stop people from jumping.
Coming home to see my wife dead in the bathtub shocked me. Then it angered me. She gave up and abandoned us. What if our daughter had found her first and not me?
On the last day I took my daughter to the park. We died together.
On the bright side, I had a terrific beard. :)
07/12/2010 at 23:27 Scot says:
SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER
It looked like it was possible to bring your daughter into the bathroom where your wife was dead. I couldn’t bring myself to do that, but it occurred to me that it’s within the realm of possibility that I could have learned something useful about an antidote from the bathroom. Did anyone subject their daughter to that path?
07/12/2010 at 23:32 Lambchops says:
SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER
i tried this on a subsequent run through as the first time i had a go I made the same concious decision. She’s not in the bathroom (although the bath is still full of blood so it is fairly clear what has happened) but the daughter doesn’t seem to react at all.
When you go outside you see a grave marker, so I assume he buried her straight after finding her. Didn’t notice the grave marker the first time I played (too focused on getting into the car and back to work) but I reckon it would have been there.
07/12/2010 at 23:28 Gabbo says:
…In the not too distant future, next Sunday A.D. There was a guy named Joel, Not too different from you or me. He worked at Gizmonic Institute, Just another face in red jump suit. He did a good job cleaning up the place, But his bosses didn’t like him & they shot him into space!…
Anyways, on to the game. At first I had no idea what was going on, and I was tapping every button on my keyboard that wasn’t an arrow key to see if they had any effect (it was by accident I ended up going into the bathroom and figuring out what to do). After that was out of the way, I must say I did actually feel some kind of dread because the game gives you almost nothing and I had no idea if my choices made any difference in how events played out. ended up in the park with my daughter.
I understand the lack of a replay or an ‘end’, and applaud it for not having such features. That said, I’m an antsy gamer, and I want to know if there was another way. The only thing I would have changed would have been using the first screen before the game starts to splash the controls on screen, otherwise it served its purpose. It’s maybe lays on the attempts at eliciting an emotional response a little thick, but it was worth playing at least once.
I just realized, everyone looks like a ‘Canadian’ through the lens of South Park…. I don’t know how I feel about that.
07/12/2010 at 23:33 PASTRIES says:
cute, if somewhat of a chore.
but, for a game about “choices”, there are precious few and they feel pointless.
also, SPOILERSSSSSSSSSSS but i lol’d hard when the music came on after the wife died. falling like a stone…
08/12/2010 at 15:28 PASTRIES says:
i think part of the reason this falls flat is due to the blatant emotional manipulation… ie, the SAD SAD music and WEIGHTY WEIGHTY subject matter.
it’d be an interesting exercise to try and make a game with the emotional tone that the creators are looking for, but about a more banal subject or without the crutches that make this game feel cheap, like the music and the non-replayable gimmick.
07/12/2010 at 23:37 CaLe says:
Some of the reactions to this game frighten me. Some people look way too deeply into things, seriously. If you need a flash game make you realize something, there’s a problem there.
07/12/2010 at 23:48 Lambchops says:
Original comment deleted for undue narkiness and sarccasm, should never have bothered hitting submit in the first place.
I refuse to be narky in these comments. Unrelenting cheerfullness and optimism is the only way forward!
07/12/2010 at 23:58 7rigger says:
@Lambchops – Having read the offending comment I don’t thing it was undue at all. But I shall follow your shining example and keep the bile that I was about to spew away from RPS.
Back to Q.I.!
08/12/2010 at 00:09 CaLe says:
By all means, defend the craziness. Doubt you’ll change my mind but whatever.
08/12/2010 at 00:18 7rigger says:
Uhmm.. not defending it. Believe what you want – I’m too busy to play
08/12/2010 at 00:56 Thants says:
People have an emotional response to a piece of art! That’s Crazy! Rest assured, CaLe, you’re the one sane man here. Either that, or you may be autistic.
08/12/2010 at 11:03 Lilliput King says:
It’s a bit sad when a troll has to return to the scene of the crime to try and drum up any interest whatsoever.
07/12/2010 at 23:43 Solario says:
The game is pretty Eh for me. The “only one go” mechanic is interesting, but there are enough indie games filled with boilerplate nihilism, mixed with some determinism and driven by some aggressive false dilemmas – considering it’s a game about choices, there sure aren’t a lot of real choices.
I don’t think the game is pretentious I just think it’s vastly uninteresting.
07/12/2010 at 23:52 Epsz says:
I died with my daughter in the park. It was a peaceful and quite death, and I’m proud that I went after doing everything I could.
07/12/2010 at 23:57 EthZee says:
FZ:/>
FZ:/> cd C:/Spoliers
The system cannot find the file specified.
FZ:/> cd C:/Spoilers/
C:/Spoilers/>SPOILERS.TXT
———SPOILERS.TXT———
Right click on the flash window, select “Settings”. Click on the tab with the folder icon on it. Drag the slider for storage space to 0kb. Refresh the page.
YES, YOU CAN CHEAT FATE!
…Except not, because everything dies no matter what. But, you know. If you’re the bleak sort and like watching everything die in retro-pixel-o-vision whilst mournful light music plays in the background, then go ahead and jizz yourself silly. I guess that could count as another depressing message; it doesn’t matter how good you are at time-travel, humanity is doomed anyway.
It was a good game, though the initial similarities to Every Day Exactly The Same (down to the layout of the house and the car, etc) had me confused. It’s a nice message, I guess, although not as emotionally affecting as I had thought it would be.
—————————
C:/Spoilers/:>cd FZ:/
FZ:/> LIST GAMES
—-
FALKEN’S MAZE
BLACK JACK
GIN RUMMY
HEARTS
BRIDGE
CHECKERS
CHESS
POKER
FIGHTER COMBAT
GUERRILLA ENGAGEMENT
DESERT WARFARE
AIR-TO-GROUND ACTIONS
THEATERWIDE TACTICAL WARFARE
THEATERWIDE BIOTOXIC AND CHEMICAL WARFARE
GLOBAL THERMONUCLEAR WAR
—-
FZ:/> GLOBAL THERMONUCLEAR WAR
08/12/2010 at 00:02 Fraxas says:
This spoiler text will probably not be relevant, since it’s on page two; that said, I still want to put it here. Those words were mostly short; here are some other ones.
I found dealing with Molly by far the most traumatic part of the whole game. I have a young child myself, and it really has changed my reactions; I still can’t think about the chances Molly didn’t get to have, because of the actions of her father.
Ouch.
08/12/2010 at 00:09 Stompywitch says:
Sod hardcore more in Diablo; this is hardcore. I won’t think of my roguelike characters the same ever again, as I march them off into the dungeons; each one is going to their deaths. They will die, and they know it.
I took the first day off. My colleague jumped the second day.
On the third, I went to work. My wife killed herself in the bath. I regret not spending time with her, but I certainly don’t regret not spending time with the floozy.
I took the daughter to the park. She died.
Now it’s just me. The last man left, and I worked to the end. I’ll never know if I would have found a cure if I worked for just a few minutes longer… but what would the point have been?
I say I had two chances. And I blew one. I wouldn’t waste the second.
I’m going to go and cuddle my girlfriend now.
08/12/2010 at 00:10 Ben says:
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
I took the first day off to celebrate, this was probably my downfall. Couldn’t get into the lab the second day, spent the third and fourth working to find a cure to no avail, and on the last day I took the daughter (the wife having killed herself in the bath) to the park, where we died together in the snow on a park bench.
08/12/2010 at 00:11 Ben says:
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
Oh, and on the day I forgot to mention, some bloke jumped off the roof.
08/12/2010 at 00:22 Ryan says:
SPOILERS
SPOILERS
SPOILERS
SPOILERS
SPOILERS
several words
SPOILERS
I blew off work every day but the last two. The second to last day, it forces you to go in, where I defended vs Ryan, which means when you go home he’s killed your family and hanged himself. The last day I went to work and worked, but died in the office.
08/12/2010 at 00:33 Handsome Dead says:
I’m going to compare this to a rollercoaster.
A good rollercoaster (I.E. not this one) not this one goes up high then comes down very fast. Then it comes up very high, and goes down even faster.
A bad rollercoaster (I.E. this one) goes very slowly in a straight line, at slight downward incline while a low droning sound plays over some loud speakers.
Basically what I’m saying is the whole thing fell flat because it was an indie game. And indie games are always depressing in the most lazy way possible.
No hope spots, no change of tone, nothing. Just constant angst while some cunt stands behind you says things like “Well, your wife died. Bet your feeling real sad right now, huh?”
The whole “ONE CHANCE” thing doesn’t matter to me either: once was enough, thanks.
08/12/2010 at 01:07 nuh uh no way says:
SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER
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The fucking “it’s” in place of “its” absolutely killed this for me. I kept playing anyway, but god fucking damn.
08/12/2010 at 01:14 Kris says:
That zhengnt is determined to not spoil the game. He wrote so much that he forgot to tell his story.
08/12/2010 at 08:09 Lambchops says:
That’s what happens when you go forking for shoes. it just fucks with your mind that does. Be aware of the dangers people.
08/12/2010 at 01:23 Soobe says:
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK.
I was tricky and blocked the flash cookie right at the end.
I worked every day except for the roof jumping thing, then ended up in the park with the cure.
Problem is, the game just sits there now.
08/12/2010 at 01:25 Matzerath says:
I enjoyed this, but it is a blatant combination of two other art games, Every Day the Same Dream and You Only Live Once, which I find a little … um … inartistic?
08/12/2010 at 01:39 Jones says:
SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER
(That’s 40)
So I worked the first day, saw the guy kill himself the next day, went back to my family the next day, stayed with my family the day after that, and then the fifth day. The fifth day is when Jim tried to kill me at work. That fucker. He came to my house and killed my family before hanging himself in my bedroom. The last day I went to the park and died peacefully in my sleep, assuming that a cure could not be found and that even if it were found, I would not want to live in a world devoid of all life (nay, could not live. People eat plants and meat. Plants and meat come from living things. Living things are dead now).
08/12/2010 at 01:40 David_R says:
Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler
I played the game once and was very moved by the experience. I haven’t played the other games people are mentioning so I think I will have to check them out.
In my play-through I stuck to the program, and kept working. I got the ending where everyone dies but John, but then if you reload the game everything is green again. I take that to mean John saved the world, just not the people. (including eventually himself) It seemed like everyone in the game was trying to ‘distract’ John from his work, (his boss, his family, the other woman) and if John didn’t work there would be no cure.
I did play the game again, because of the ‘had’ in the last set of texts. I thought there was something I missed that would lead to a better ending. However, I don’t think there is any way to change that ‘had’, and there really wasn’t a chance. You either spend time with your family, and either they get killed or die with you, or you work to the end and save yourself but no one else.
Has anyone been able to find a better ending than that? Is that ‘had’ the inevitable conclusion?
Very good game. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
08/12/2010 at 01:48 Zhan says:
NO SPOILERS
Failed all around. Was spending too much thought on how pretentious and cliche can this game get and went to the park for some kind of miracle deuse ex machina nonsense about family ect. It’s all cute and mildly clever but the biggest problem is the same as it was with norrland – you can’t actually affect anything by your actions. Here it’s even worse though that it makes you think that you can do more because of all the distractions from work but you are still forced to do what the author tells you to do, you can only make decisions but not act on them. There is nothing stopping you from saving your co-worker besides the invisible wall of an event scene. Even though the cure exists you can’t find it earlier. You can’t stay up all night working, you can’t take your family to work (even though the boss clearly is not against that). The only thing you can do is follow the paths the game provides you with. At this point I can’t take this kind of game seriously. But again cute and neat.
08/12/2010 at 01:53 SpinalJack says:
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
So I’m one of those people who have to see everything so I went with the save deletion and tried every route. Would have been a shame to miss the other endings.
My wife would hate this game, she cries at children’s movies
08/12/2010 at 01:56 bleeters says:
I was happy. Then I saw the banner picture again, and remembered.
Make more news posts, RPS types :(
08/12/2010 at 01:58 Rob says:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
I found one of the most powerful parts to be at the end, when I killed myself, as I stood on the railing, I was actually reflecting on my actions throughout the game, with real doubt and uncertainty at what I had done.
08/12/2010 at 02:01 gulag says:
Fuck this noise.
I punch cancer in the throat.
On the last day, we died together on the park bench.
08/12/2010 at 02:01 reginald says:
I already played this game, its called Every Day the Same Dream
http://www.molleindustria.org/everydaythesamedream/everydaythesamedream.html
this wasn’t especially moving or interesting because this format has already been explored. sure, there are choices I guess, but they’re not very deep. “will you sleep with your cooworker and maybe see an 8-bit minge, or do you go to your damn job ? “
08/12/2010 at 12:04 FhnuZoag says:
This game is kinda the opposite of Every Day the Same Dream, though. And I think the ‘you have one chance’ mechanic worked well.
Really, I think the best part of the game is the creeping sense of dread as to whether the game will let your succeed or not.
08/12/2010 at 02:15 Clovis says:
“With our best youlldied greedings to Pep
and Memmy and the old folkers below and
beyant, wishing them all very merry Incar-
nations in this land of the livvey and plenty
of preprosperousness through their coming
new yonks” – Finnegans Wake
So, something weird happened to me. I mainly screwed around unless I couldn’t find something else to do but work. By the 6th day I think my whole family was dead. On the last day the house was empty. I got the choice to go to the park or office.
I chose park. I swear that soon after entering the park a girl appeared behind one of the trees in the background. Like she popped out at a 45 degree angle, like in a cartoon or something and then disappeared. Then I walked some more, sat down, and died.
08/12/2010 at 02:22 wicked_sick says:
There’sprobablynorealspoilerThere’sprobablynorealspoilerThere’sprobablynorealspoilerThere’sprobablynorealspoilerThere’sprobablynorealspoilerThere’sprobablynorealspoilerThere’sprobablynorealspoiler
At first, I felt cheated by the game and then I felt compelled to replay it an ‘win’. I did, but I didn’t necessarily win, the ending I got was kind of a downer, too. The realization was, that there is nor real win-scenario, and your ‘chance’ every day is your chance to do something, anything really. You cannot defeat the virus, even if you find the cure, you do it only because you are determined and you do it at the expense of more time with your family, an inherently selfish act. So this game is about what you do, but not about the value of your actions. The consequences are all bad, but you get your personal flavour of bad.
I like it, though I think ‘Every Day The Same Dream’ worked better (apart from its ending), its mechanics seemed better integrated. ‘One Chance’ isn’t pretentious, but its mechanics are sometimes compromised for effect, wich is always a tightrope to walk, and in this case can be a bit aggravating (all the times it takes the control from me, most prominently when you find your wife, wich would, despite sad music, work better if you would find her yourself, or better yet, ignore the blood, knowing she is in there, but are free to check or chicken out. But even that you are not allowed to drive your car all the time annoys me and was done better by ‘Every Day The Same’. )
And ‘pretentious’ is an important word, as I really love the Prog-Rock of the 70s, but understand all too well why it had to die. The misuse of a word does not affect the word itself, or else we finally gave up the fight against the fascist ‘Political Correctness’ (I said fascist on RPS, weeeeeeee! =)
08/12/2010 at 12:07 FhnuZoag says:
I dunno, I’d argue that an aspect you are missing is the reason the player has for their actions. I kept working towards the end because I felt guilty for what I had done, and so it was a matter of responsibility to keep going whilst hope still exists, so as to at least save something. And in the end, I’ve save the life in the park, at least, so that’s something. I didn’t feel that going to work was selfishness.
08/12/2010 at 02:47 HeavyStorm says:
** SPOILER** SPOILER** SPOILER** SPOILER** SPOILER** SPOILER** SPOILER** SPOILER** SPOILER** SPOILER** SPOILER** SPOILER** SPOILER** SPOILER** SPOILER** SPOILER** SPOILER** SPOILER** SPOILER** SPOILER** SPOILER** SPOILER** SPOILER** SPOILER** SPOILER** SPOILER** SPOILER** SPOILER** SPOILER** SPOILER** SPOILER** SPOILER** SPOILER** SPOILER** SPOILER** SPOILER** SPOILER** SPOILER** SPOILER** SPOILER** SPOILER** SPOILER** SPOILER** SPOILER
Okay, enough. As far I read, I was the only SOB who skipped work on the first day to drink (hey, I just cured cancer! I deserved a break… and the girl was hot!), then I watched the suicide on the second. On the third, I agreed to go to work, but upon arriving there, I thought it was a lost cause, so I decided to go fuck the hot girl.
…
And then I arrived home and my dear wife was dead in the tube. I was painful. Next day, my daughter was asking about her dead mum, so I took her to the park. She died in my lap. I cried. Inside, like a man, of course. Then I went home. I knew I had screwed up.
The following day, my last on earth, I went to the lab. It felt right, to end where the ending began.
—-
I played it a bit sincere, a bit like a game — I read the title “In six days every… blah blah” and thought: okay, that was fucking absolute. So, the game is telling me that I have no chance of saving the world. But it also says that I have “One Chance”, so I was trying to figure out “one chance of what”? Maybe of having the girl of my dreams before it was all over? No idea. It was tense.
08/12/2010 at 02:55 Tinter says:
SPOILERS
And when the body finally starts to let go
let it all go at once
not piece by piece.
but like a whole bucket of stars
dumped into the universe.
SPOILERS
So, did the science thing, cure, alive in park, yadda yadda.
Because I am personally dead inside, I feel the need to try and realistically think about Life/human survival rates.
Is the cure airbourne? The happy trees at the end makes me say yes, after all the disease was apparently super airbourne. So…yeah. Obviously it takes sometime to travel the world, so it may only save life relatively close to our man, since it won’t have time to scatter elsewhere before everything dies. But at least life in the local area should make it.
Humans alive- well, very clearly those on the ISS, so thats 3 more. If the cures airbourne, sorted, if not, oh dear.
The rest, kind of unclear. I think some people in some government bunkers have to be. I mean, I suspect Russia/China/USA have permanently sealed bunkers, right?
Also, submarines, especially ICBM carrying ones. They have women on nowadays, too, which is kind of important.
Well, all in all, there is going to be other humans. It would be nice if he was trying to use a radio or something to tell them to come to his not-dead region rather than say in a park. But I guess its been a long week.
Other surviving stuffs: Well, sealed up seed banks, tinned food, anything without air exposure really should be fine, so thats some more organic stuff to eat/plant. I wonder how gas dispersion to deep sea trenches works? They might be OK.
Lots of aerobic stuff in rocks is defintly fine as well.
If the cures not airbourne, dude needs try and tell other humans on subs, space stations ect they need to get to him within a week of exposure. Theres shitloads of tinned/jarred food, so that will last a while.
Then he needs to work on treating and planting seeds.
In this scenario I think humanity is stuffed, but he can probably save the plants and maybe a couple of other things. So thats a plus.
So. Yeah. Earth goes on. Humans probably do as well, theres an inbreeding problem, but hey we have this genius science guy around. Maybe he can fix it.
Or he could just sit in a damn park. Like, seriously, I was so annoyed he kept going home. How about working nights at the office, friend? You did just destroy all life and all. Just saying.
08/12/2010 at 13:35 Utgaardsloke says:
This hit me as well – If I was responsible for makeing the WHOLE WORLD die in six days, I would bloody well stay and work the lab 24/7 with my co-workers, taking catnaps, litres of coffee and all drugs available to keep me awake and alert. When you have six days, you don’t waste hours sleeping and commuting.
08/12/2010 at 03:26 Adam T says:
Ugh. I play games to be happy. Enjoy your emotional impact, suckers. Next time I’m reading the spoilers instead.
08/12/2010 at 04:12 negativedge says:
affecting mournfulness mroe liek affected mournfulness
08/12/2010 at 04:16 OctaneHugo says:
Bloody hell that’s a lot of comments.
What a tremendous experience this was, though. I choose to think the daughter’s alive in the park: her eyes are closed but her color is good, a big improvement over the sickly green she was when you take her to work with you.
Like others I had to take a good long stare at “Park” or “Work” before making a decision: I chose work. I knew I could beat this disease, and I knew I could save my daughter. The only thing in the park would be dying trees and no wildlife, and that’s even more gloomy than the end, which is you’re alive, but there’s no one else on Earth. And animals are all dead as well.
Your time is short, and it’s to be spent in isolation, with your daughter.
08/12/2010 at 04:33 DethDonald says:
Felt kind of like the movie The Fountain. Maybe I should have given up trying to save everyone and enjoyed my time with them. :(
What a downer.
08/12/2010 at 04:37 Fox says:
SPOILERSPOILER
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The moral of the story is: curing cancer kills :(
For me, I went to work until my wife had killed herself. Then went to the park with Molly. Took my dying breath at work, gazing with sombre regret at the equipment I had used to erase the fruits of billions of years of evolution.
That officially falls under the category of “a bad way to go”.
08/12/2010 at 04:37 Wulf says:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Maecenas suscipit lorem eu quam aliquet a iaculis odio lacinia. Sed a pharetra massa. Vivamus eu turpis nisl. Curabitur pellentesque mi nec.
Disclaimer! This post may contain traces of spoil.
I sent my little holocaust-invoker down the acceptance route.
He simply took it as the way of things, that this was the end of a chapter, as all chapters must end, and eventually others will begin anew. He spent time with his family, considering those the best ways to spend his last moments, and when all but everyone had died, he wandered off to the park he’d wandered through so many times with his daughter (possibly!), set down on a bench, closed his eyes, and darkness fell.
Of course, this would leave Earth a barren rock for many eras to come, but the spark would strike again, life would forge anew, and perhaps they’d get it right. They’d get a head start based off what they could salvage from us, anyway. Which I guess makes us Ancients.
Doo dee doo. Oh my golly gosh, crikey o’reilly and gordon
freemanbennett, don’t I sound pretentious? >_>08/12/2010 at 05:00 lurk says:
Is there ever a videogame where the scientists are a) competent and b) ethical? Because this whole thing could have been avoided if that research team was minimally competent.
But videogame scientists are just nothing like real scientists.
08/12/2010 at 10:19 Wulf says:
It’s stereotypes, what do you expect? It’s what people are familiar with and its how things remain, because people are terrified of moving away from the familiar. Besides, if you removed the stereotypes and you had ethical scientists, friendly doombeasts (such as dragons), believable animals and so on, it would be less for the player or movie protagonist to kill and/or demonise. Let that say what it will about the average person amongst both the games playing and film watching audiences.
This is the same reason why people are so vulnerable to scaremongering in regards to the LHC or stem cell research, because they don’t have a clue, and they’ve been invariably taught by telly, cinema, and their gaming experiences that anyone learned and doing things go against the natural order (the goal posts for this get pushed back every year) is the bad guy. There can be no two ways about this, it’s the same with how anything that isn’t human is automatically evil, it’s horribly predictable and yet people love it, it’s what most want. The majority want to think of science as evil, and scientists as its malign cultists, because that’s fun for them.
Where the problem really arises though is that the majority are also unable to separate reality from fiction, and the outcries against many projects are proof of this. People think that the LHC is the end of the world just waiting to happen, rather than something that could teach us incredible, view changing things about the nature of the Universe. So blargh.
As it is for you with science, it is for me with animals. Try educating people on the true nature of various animals and it’s quite, quite impossible. Apparently the moment they step into nature, all those critters, big and small, are going to be focusing their efforts on trying to kill the human.
Sigh.
Most scientists have a good handle on ethics, and they fully understand the question of whether or not they should do something, but that wouldn’t make for a very entertaining storyline which had scientists as the bad guys for the sake of familiarity, would it? If humanity has any real enemy, it’s just familiarity, nothing else, and nothing more. In fact, that might be the single, greatest enemy and threat to our continued existence that we’ve ever faced.
Scientists being the bad guys isn’t real, no. But for many it’s familiar, and fighting familiar is damn near impossible. Though I never stop trying to fight it, because that familiarity for most people is my enemy. I suppose this is my quixotic side, but I’m never going to stop charging those windows.
We need to throw familiarity out of the window. No more bleeding comfort blankets. Let’s think in entirely new and interesting ways!
08/12/2010 at 10:33 Wulf says:
If we really want to do something like this and have it be familiar, just have the game set a few years in the future, where we run out of resources and political leaders start getting ego-maniacal over whom should live and whom should die, annexing other countries and using whatever caches of old weapons they have.
You know, this is one thing I loved about Fallout 1 and 2, they weren’t afraid to pull punches like this. In fact, one of the most memorable moments for gaming for me was Fallout 1, where America annexing Canada was shown, including a fictitious film clip of a US army man dragging an innocent Canadian out of his home, shooting him in the face, and then waving at the camera in a very ‘yes America, I’m doing your work and wiping this filthy vermin out for the good of us all’ way. That was one moment where cowardice was set aside, and they actually bothered to show the horror of war.
Gods I loved that. Where did that go? That moment, right there, wasn’t about cheesy mad scientists, it was just soldiers being pricks in the stead of vain nation leaders, which is fairly commonplace these days, as Wiki Leaks has proved so well. But punches like that are pulled, and the weavers of tales are cowards, instead they want us to look elsewhere for our evil, rather than at ourselves. It’s just moralistic, black & white bullshit really, riddled with binary thinking. Us is good, them is evil, and that is that, anything not depicting that is a monstrocity that should be ridiculed and then destroyed post-haste.
However, the familiarity of fiction at the moment is riddled with cheesy black & white stuff. It’s sad.
You know though, this is another thing I loved about New Vegas. It’s easy to assume that Caesar’s Legion are the good guys, and that the NCR are the bad, but once you’ve put in as many hours into that game as I have, you learn that the NCR are just barbarians and savages decorated in the trappings of civilisation. They look like a modern day army, and yet they’re savage, even brutal at times. There’s one absolutely fantastic moment where an NCR soldier shoots a guy in the face for making fun of his wife, and for no other reason. Where was that soldier’s hearing?
I actually love grey areas that don’t fall into moralistic, stereotypical slapstick. In New Vegas, neither the NCR are truly good or evil, and the only way that one could think that they are is by covering their ears and screaming ‘LA LA LA LA I CAN’T HEAR YOU’ when the game presents so much evidence to the contrary. In fact, the only real difference between Caesar’s Legion and the NCR is that Caesar’s Legion don’t white wash and try to hide their secret shame, they’re open and honest about everything, and all that they do is their burden. They’re not perfect either though, what with their brutality, slavery, and treatment of women.
That’s one truth in New Vegas though. No one is truly evil, but no one is perfect, either. People tend to be incredibly flawed, self-centred animals and the greatest danger to the world is likely you, the reader, and that all too often you can be a selfish, materialistic prick. Of course, no one wants to hear that from their entertainment, right? Soooo we get these evil scientists for our shiny heroes to destroy. Or we get these evil doombeasts for our shiny heroes to destroy.
It’s actually kind of depressing that so much is cowardly, and so few actually refuse to pull punches.
08/12/2010 at 10:38 Wulf says:
Last one, I swear! I’d actually love to see a game cover war, though. From the allied point of view, wherein you can pick a side, but regardless of which side you pick, the game plays out the same; you watch innocents being killed ‘accidentally’ (not so accidentally), and you even do a bit of it yourself for what you convince yourself are the right reasons, you watch people being tortured, and you do the same again, and at the end of the game, you snap and kill a bunch of your own people in an ‘accidental’ friendly fire incident. You live, of course, because the horrors you committed were necessary, unlike the horrors they committed, right? And as I said, the story plays out the same way regardless of which side you pick.
Someone should do that. :p I’d love to see the reactions. It’d be a bit of fun.
08/12/2010 at 12:41 Lambchops says:
A game based on competent science would be pretty dull wouldn’t it. One of the guys in my lab was at a Pfizer poster session the other day and ame back with a “medicinal chemistry game.” We booted it up out of curiosity and man was it uninspiring. Basically an interactive spreadsheet overly concerned with (unsuprisingly considering it was made by big pharma) costings. His response was “I was wanting a little guy jumping around collecting SARs.” Which would have been ratherr pointless but a hell of a lot less dull!
08/12/2010 at 12:52 Quasar says:
Damn, Wulf. You write a lot.
But that’s ok, because you make a lot of sense.
08/12/2010 at 05:31 Hulk Handsome says:
This game felt very forced. Maybe I have a heart of ice, but I laughed when that sad music started playing, possibly because of the vocals. I hope games can do a lot better than this sort of basic manipulation to stir emotions. It just felt cheap.
08/12/2010 at 05:51 Cargo Cult says:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. In venenatis tempus tellus eget laoreet. Praesent eleifend lectus eget mi luctus in rutrum ligula elementum. Aenean sed tristique neque. In feugiat.
I worked overtime on the first and second days, found the cure with my colleagues and saved the world with only 15% of the world’s population dead. Then ditched the wife and daughter and ran off with the floozy from the office.
EASY.
08/12/2010 at 06:57 Mr. Justice K. says:
Not all of us have the advantage of dear MINERVA’s intellect to crunch through the science, though…
08/12/2010 at 06:34 malkav11 says:
Very artistically done. I didn’t ever feel like I had a real choice, though, and not because of the very limited scope of action in the game – that’s just scenario setting, essentially, and not that unusual for a mood piece. But really. If you’re a grocery store shelf stocker or a race car driver or a gardener or some unrelated profession where you’re just going to get it no matter what you personally do, it makes perfect sense to use the few days you have to be with the people you love.
But if you have the potential capacity to fix things, -especially- if you caused them in the first place, then however terrible it may make you feel to go off and spend the remainder of your time working frantically to make it right again, it’s your damn responsibility to do it. Screw spending a couple days with your family before their tragic demise when there’s a chance, even if it’s an outside chance, that you can keep them from dying at all.
08/12/2010 at 06:35 drewski says:
35 words of spoiler, 35 words of spoiler, 35 words of spoiler, 35 words of spoiler, 35 words of spoiler, 35 words of spoiler, 35 words of spoiler, 35 words of spoiler, 35 words of spoiler, 35 words of spoiler,
Went to work every day until the last. At that point, what did it matter if I spent it with my daughter in the park? Humanity was finished, life was finishing, it would have been utterly pyrrhic to cure the disease after everyone and everything was deat.
So I went to the park. We’re dead, together, on the bench. The music is lovely. I am sad.
It should really be called No Chance. But I guess that would ruin it.
08/12/2010 at 06:36 drewski says:
35 words of spoiler, 35 words of spoiler, 35 words of spoiler, 35 words of spoiler, 35 words of spoiler, 35 words of spoiler, 35 words of spoiler, 35 words of spoiler, 35 words of spoiler, 35 words of spoiler.
I kinda wished I’d banged my assistant after I came home to my wife’s corpse, though.
09/12/2010 at 08:47 Lightbulb says:
The way I see it if you had gone to work on that last day you survived, your daughter survived. The trees are green so the world survived. I presumed before reading here that other people survived.
By going to the park you killed yourself, your daughter and the world.
The problem with the game is that its unclear WHAT happened. Since the whole point is to regret ones actions it would kinda help if the outcome was clear once you’d made your choice.
08/12/2010 at 06:38 Muzman says:
On the bright side, if this thing kills every living cell and you survive. No more troublesome lab coat B.O
08/12/2010 at 06:52 FGDSFDS says:
I thought it was rubbish myself.
The narrative was poor, the game thinks it’s so much more than it is, the dramatic music, the tired “everyone you hold dear will die LOL take that” theme for cheap emotional impact.
What does this game actually do? If we criticise it as a piece of art (I have no qualms about calling it art… though lots and lots of art is utter appalling horse manure), what is it saying? What is the point? It doesn’t seem to be saying anything about the human condition, it’s not making any headway in determining what we know, it’s just a cheap popcorn browser game.
Then simpletons come along and fall for its cheap tricks and say OH MY GOD.
THIS IS SO PROFOUND. GIVE THIS GUY A MEDAL.
08/12/2010 at 06:59 Flatfingers says:
I won’t dismiss this game by asserting that it’s just someone being pretentious. Maybe so, maybe no.
The more interesting question is, who creates something like this? This game tells me nothing about myself, but it practically shouts, “Dance for me, puppets! I have a Great Secret, but you will never find it, ha ha ha!”
How is that “fun,” in any sense of that word, for anyone but the developer? What kind of person makes a game that’s deliberately intended to piss people off?
I do feel a certain schadenfreude at the likely irritation of the Achiever gamers who “know” that every game has to be winnable, and who consider it an insult that the developer made it hard to replay the game enough times in order to stumble onto a solution (of any kind) through sheer bullheaded repetition. Not every game has to winnable; that’s fine as a metaphysical argument (if rather counterproductive as gameplay).
But this game goes beyond that bit of sophomoric philosophy, beyond even the usual heavyhanded emotional string-pulling (“Where’s mummy, daddy?”), to intentional manipulation of the player by dangling the possibility of “winning” with no intention of actually delivering on that promise. And that’s just being rude.
Of course in a sense all storytelling is manipulative — you’re leading the listener/reader/player through a predefined set of experiences intended to evoke a response of some kind. But in good storytelling, that interaction is fair. The creator promises to reveal something fun/interesting/useful to the consumer, and the consumer agrees to consume on the basis of that reasonable expectation of a positive reward for time (and/or money) invested.
That doesn’t happen here. The exchange isn’t reciprocal; I don’t get anything of value for playing this game. A gameplay mechanic of having “One Chance” is equivalent to absolute randomness, which is completely the opposite of what the uniquely interactive nature of computer games is all about. In fact, this game offers no chance to experience anything other than annoyance with a creator drunk on manipulative power.
If I want that, I can just go to work. There, I at least get paid to take abuse.
08/12/2010 at 07:20 dadioflex says:
Is it only me, or ever since Quintin’s story about his multiple attempts to get accepted on a certain gaming forum, have there been a lot of over-blown comments like the one above appearing on here?
George Orwell’s writing advice, rule 2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
http://www.writingclasses.com/InformationPages/index.php/PageID/300
08/12/2010 at 08:17 Lambchops says:
“to intentional manipulation of the player by dangling the possibility of “winning” with no intention of actually delivering on that promise. And that’s just being rude.”
Wouldn’t say it’s particularly rude, although it’s obviously not the norm in games. Guess this kind of response comes from being trained that games are there for the “winning.”
There are certainly lots of things in life that dangle seeming possibilities that can never be achieved, it isn’t rude it’s just the way of things.
08/12/2010 at 09:18 Flatfingers says:
dadioflex, you thought my comments were overblown? Interesting. Have you not spent much time reading comments on various online forums?
I thought One Chance was manipulative, and I tried to analyze why. That was partly for my own benefit, but also to try to contribute some useful ideas to this conversation, a practice I happily recommend to anyone.
As for long words, I take my Strunk and White seriously. Shorter words are better, but when there’s a concept that’s neatly expressed in a longish word for which no monosyllabic grunt is a good substitute, then readers can damned well get off their asses and crack open a dictionary. The virtue of simplicity in communication is not an excuse for laziness.
And @Lambchops, I get what you’re saying but I don’t think it applies to One Chance. I thought it was rude because it made a promise (“this is a game”) that it didn’t keep, not because I personally am the kind of person who always expects to win. (I thought I made it clear I wasn’t an Achiever-type.)
I stand by what I said. Being abusive doesn’t make something art.
08/12/2010 at 14:50 oceanclub says:
“Is it only me, or ever since Quintin’s story about his multiple attempts to get accepted on a certain gaming forum…”
Which one? Any link to his story?
08/12/2010 at 14:58 Kieron Gillen says:
http://videosgames.wordpress.com/2010/02/16/my-secret-origin/
08/12/2010 at 16:11 Berzee says:
@dadioflex:
“Is it just me, or since Quinn’s tale about his lots of tries to get in this one game board, have there been a lot of long talks like that one up there?
George’s word tips, rule 2. Do not use a long word where a short one will do.”
Fixed for you.
09/12/2010 at 08:49 Lightbulb says:
One chance = randomness.
That’s what I was trying to say.
It took me 1000 words to get that over. :)
08/12/2010 at 07:16 dadioflex says:
Meh. Nice idea that you can’t replay it, but it was by the numbers otherwise.
08/12/2010 at 07:19 MrEvilGuy says:
Since I knew the world was coming to an end, I worked on my first day because I knew things were going to get bad.
Second day I watched my friend commit suicide.
Third day I tried a desperate attempt to work.
Fourth day is when I realized “The World is Going to End in 2 days” was a factual statement, not simply a possibility, so the “You Have One Chance” clearly meant I have one chance to enjoy my last days on Earth, so even though a group of coworkers came to get me I declined and stayed home.
Fifth day my wife and daughter disappeared (presumably dead), so I really had nothing to do but work.
Sixth day I went to the park by myself and enjoyed peaceful death, no cure.
I am quite happy with my ending.
08/12/2010 at 07:23 Sagan says:
Wow, so many comments on this. This is awesome. As for the game: I got one of the saddest endings. Didn’t work the first day, and worked all others. But it was for nothing, so now I just have a dad man sitting in the lab, and I didn’t even spend time with my family.
08/12/2010 at 07:24 DargleBargle says:
Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler
I can’t believe so many people didn’t pick up on the daughter being dead in the “best” ending
08/12/2010 at 16:43 Bret says:
But
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
She didn’t. In the ending, she was looking healthy. Eyes closed, sure, but dead tissue doesn’t start looking healthy again. Even in zombie flicks it stays cold and grey.
08/12/2010 at 07:33 Jetsetlemming says:
I *thought* it was going to be pretentious. I’d argue that the setup of “do sentimental stuff or try to save the world? YOU HAVE ONE CHANCE” is a bit. But the payoff for working every day that I could, even after that message changed to “HAD”, was worth it. I saw people arguing earlier that the daughter wasn’t alive in the park, but the sick people had a grey tint to them and she no longer looked grey.
Still, the other 99.9999% of the world dying kinda blows. Maybe there’s a story branch where you fuck off with the woman from work where it turns out she’s a time traveler and takes you back to stop the magic acid cancer cure from being released.
08/12/2010 at 07:36 InferiorBeing says:
Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler
That was kind of meh, lame and slightly obnoxious.
08/12/2010 at 07:46 Tyndareus says:
I fear we’re getting way too many “games” like these. I thought Today I Die was a far superior effort in this genre, and at least it was not billed as a “game”.
Anyway, I am not entirely sure whether that is a good thing for “us indie gamers”. First of all because I am not entirely sure whether this is, by any stretch of the definition, a “game” and second because I am not entirely sure whether it is any good, as a “game” (again, assuming it does fall in this category).
I did play One Chance, but it doesn’t matter what I did because clearly the designer of this “game” wants to provoke “deep” feelings (read: make people feel miserable and compound the feeling by the most “ungamey” choice of all, i.e. deny you the opportunity to replay the “game” -workarounds notwithstanding). I feel the “game” would have been better had it been possible to have anything but a miserable (in different flavors) end. Better, that is, if it were, actually, a game.
A game [not an (insert adjective of choice and beware the resident RPS linguists)] that is good, in my book, is one that lets you succeed or fail on the choices you make. You can win or lose, you can get better (or worse) at it, you can have fun or an entirely horrid time with it (anyone remember “Paradise Cracked”?). Admittedly, a game, any game forces a framework upon the gamer, but there is the possibility to experience something more that the feeling of utter helplessness or deep thought or whatever the game’s designer was having a go at (or any single feeling, for that matter, joyous or sad). “Every choice matters”. Right. Well, it doesn’t, if the result is predetermined, now, does it?)
But then, the entire situation this game attempts to depict is so surreal, or nightmarish, or plain silly (blame my working as a translator and my having translated more “doomsday thrillers” than I care to remember for that last adjective, again with apologies to the resident RPS linguists).
In any event, I wish Mr Gillen’s friend, Rob, best of luck in his future endeavors.
P.S. The girl is probably dead. But if you could save her, that would defeat the point of this “game”, wouldn’t it?
08/12/2010 at 07:52 Ondrej says:
I gave it not one, but several chances to load, but it never did, the loading bar got stuck and nothing helped. So I guess I’m skipping this, unvoluntarily and unfortunately :/
08/12/2010 at 07:58 Scorpi says:
No one ever died wishing they’d spent more time at the office…
08/12/2010 at 08:27 Robochocobo says:
It seems to me that the real significance is establishing the painful ambiguity regarding the potential consequences of your actions. I can’t help but linger on the final scene as I sat there on the Bench, and wondered if I had succeeded, and what exactly defined success.
08/12/2010 at 08:29 Matt says:
Okay, that is NOT cool. Just as it tells me that today every living cell will day and I had one chance, I get a blue screen. Come on. Quit fucking with me.
08/12/2010 at 08:38 Tacroy says:
I’m not spoilering this because it happens in the first couple of moments:
The plot of the game just absolutely blew any sense of immersion I might have had out of the water. It was absolute bullshit.
1. “Cancer” is not one disease. Curing cancer is like curing the flu, or violence, or football – there’s a million billion different variations of it, lymphoma is not the same disease as breast cancer is not the same disease as brain cancer and even between people they’re not the same diseases, as cancer is, in a very real sense, as unique as its victim. You can’t just cure “cancer”, no matter what the tabloids of your choice say!
2. You can’t just wipe out life on earth like that. That’s just stupid. No. Screw you; sense of immersion = gone, right there. Life is really hardy, and really fucking good at killing other life – and even better at not getting killed. I could maybe, just maybe, buy “all humans will die” – but nothing, absolutely nothing humans are capable of doing is going to wipe out “every living cell on the planet”. I would have been willing to overlook it if that phrasing had shown up in the in-game newspaper, but having to sit through a title screen that said exactly that (and was exactly wrong!) for every single in-game day just killed it for me.
I mean, just think about it! If it was at all possible to create something that would kill any living cell, some cells would have harnessed it already. In fact, they did! What do you think penicillin is, after all? Or those poison dart frogs? Or monarch butterflies (hint: they’re made of arsenic!)? Life is nothing if not adaptive, and claiming that some human-made bullshit is going to kill “every cell” is flat out wrong.
So basically, no. It was a good game, a relatively emotional experience, but the author couldn’t be buggered to do even a little bit of, if not fact-checking, then believability-checking on his story, and made me sit through the same ridiculous, overblown and simply impossible-to-be-true statement every in-game day. I’m more pissed off about the sorry state of science education now than I am about that stupid doll dying. (wait I guess that was a spoiler)
08/12/2010 at 09:06 Kieron Gillen says:
Tacroy: They’re not the problems of the game setting. They’re the assumptions of the game. If these two things happen, this will happen. You’re basically doing a “FTL travel is impossible! Aliens could not come to earth in such a way” argument. As in, being a bit overliteral. Yeah, we know cancers are unique. But what if that was bullshit. What if someone *did* find an underlying mechanism.
If you accept the assumptions of the plot, the problem is that as the creators of the thing which killed humanity you’d be torn apart by a mob of angry humans before day 2.
KG
08/12/2010 at 09:08 DeepSleeper says:
CANCER?! DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHAT A CANCER IS?!
CANCER IS A SMALL PIECE OF DEATH THAT SLOWLY TAKES OVER A BODY!
WHEN I WAS YOUNG I SAW IT HAPPEN!
A CANCER TOOK MY FATHER AND TURNED HIM TO DEATH!!
IF HE WAS HERE TODAY I WOULDN’T LET HAPPEN!
…But yeah, it was emotional but not really… believable. In any sense.
Also when I played people just kept vanishing. My wife vanished, no suicide, no blood, I checked all the rooms. Then my daughter apparently teleports away. I suppose they died offscreen? Made it really hard to care.
Still, I went to the office and died there like a good movie scientist. Never allowed to fix your mistake, never allowed to learn that man is a feeling creature and because of it the greatest etc.
08/12/2010 at 09:15 dethtoll says:
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHGLKGJSLKJFDL:KFJSDLFJ:S:DLJKFLD:FSKJLDFJ:FLKJFLKFJ OH MY GOD I NEED A HUG
that theme song is going to haunt my dreams i swear
Worked every day, even through the wife’s suicide. By day six I realized I was hosed and just took the daughter to the park.
08/12/2010 at 09:36 Out Reach says:
Due to an accidental aggressive use of space to interact with things at the start I somehow ended up at a bar >< Because of this I failed to find a cure. This really annoys me because I didn't choose the path I ended up taking.
08/12/2010 at 09:43 Barman1942 says:
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
Just played through, and instead of going to work on the second to last day I took my daughter to the park, and died in the lab the day after working on a cure. Even so, considering the world will be dead anyway it reminded me of “The Road”. So bleak.
08/12/2010 at 10:06 Longrat says:
The main reason I consider this game pretentious is because it has no replay button. It tries too hard to mimic a real life course of events despite the fact that it IS still a game and it is just a railroad down to several predetermined endings. The creator thinks he made something more than a game, which is pretentious of him and so this game is pretentious.
It isn’t a terrible form of expression by any means, it’s just way too fucking simple to be as good as it thinks it is. If the game wasn’t so railroad and actually gave you a chance to do more things than “stay at home” “boink hottie from work” “commit suicide” “work” “take daughter to park” THEN it would’ve been interesting. As it is, it’s just an interactive atmosphere generator.
08/12/2010 at 10:46 roryok says:
You’re pretentious.
08/12/2010 at 13:36 Little Tohya says:
Simply being in Flash and allowing user input doesn’t necessarily make it a “game”. It has “ending conditions”, but they don’t match to any pre-set “win condition” or “win state”.
It’s a story.
08/12/2010 at 10:19 JiminyJickers says:
I’m too lazy to look if this has been said. I’m using IE8 and am able to replay as many times as I like. Just open the page again and you’re good to go for another round.
Still quite a chilling tale, I don’t usually like these arty things but for some reason this one drew me in.
08/12/2010 at 10:28 Sinomatic says:
spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler
Perhaps the most significant thing to come from playing this is realising how many people see games as strict win/fail scenarios that they must have absolute control over. Is there no room in the medium for expansion into something different? Something where the journey is just as, if not more, important than the outcome?
I’m not saying is the greatest gaming experience that there will ever be, far from it, but I do appreciate that in a sea of games with happy endings where I saved the country/planet/galaxy/universe, that there are games where I can essentially fail no matter what I do. Games where my choices in the face of probable death are about the value in those choices, and not what happens at the end. The Kobayashi Maru experiences. Because you can watch those kind of experiences on Star Trek, or in films, or in books, but you can’t experience them. In ‘games’ (or interactive experiences, if you prefer), you can.
08/12/2010 at 10:48 DeepSleeper says:
I remember a game several years back that was on one of those Big Bundle O’ Shareware And Stuff We Ripped From BBSes CDs. It was basically a little CGA Enterprise, fighting some aliens in top-down shooter style. You’d shoot some Klingons, and then you’d shoot some Romulans, and then the Borg Cube showed up and nothing you did worked against it and you died.
Then the game displayed a quote about futility or how the only winning move was not to play, and dumped you back to DOS.
I hated that game.
I don’t feel as strongly about this one, because years of the same basic idea in indie games have dulled me to the experience. Every third indie flash game is about death nowadays, after all. But to me, if you’ve made a game that the player cannot win, then you may be quite clever and you may have a decent point about life and moving on and acceptance and atmosphere, but:
Here’s the thing: I do not want to play your game and I quite often think you’re a jackass for having made it.
Curiously, I don’t think the author of this one is a jackass. He/she clearly had something they wanted to say, a real point they wanted to make, and — here’s the thing — you can only play it once. So there’s no trying and hammering at changing the course of a predefined failure. Your only choice IS to accept what you’ve gotten and move on. For some reason that dulls the irritation for me.
I would in fact prefer a win condition though. It’s common courtesy in interactive entertainment. I don’t want to play Stephen King’s The Mist The Movie The Game.
08/12/2010 at 12:07 Tyndareus says:
Absolute control, perhaps not; yet absolute is quite different, I feel, from “none” or “theoretical”.
An example, if I may, from a recent experience I had with Blood Bowl, Legendary Edition: In the second half of a match (my team, Humans, against an AI controlled team, Necromantic) I am 1-0 up and have my catcher, with the ball, within scoring range. Instead of playing it safe and score a safe try, I decided to focus on another part of the pitch and throw a tackle again an opponent: I had 2 dice plus a reroll, so I though I was safe. My player also had the “block” skill, which means that in a “both down situation”, it’s a tie without a turnover.
Of course, the idea of “safety” in a game where dices play a part is somewhat problematic; indeed, lo and behold, Murphy’s law rears it’s ugly head and I roll 4 skulls in a row: tackle fails, turnover declared, my fast but weak catcher is left exposed, tantalizingly close to the touchdown line. The AI opponent promptly surrounds and tackles my player, causing him to lose possession of the ball and, worse, permanently lose 1 point in Armor, hence making him every more prone to suffer a serious injury in the future.
I get to win the game, but it’s a bitter victory. It’s not just the stupid mistake I made, since I was so confident I’d score that I provided no cover for my catcher before attempting to throw that accursed tackle, it’s the fact that I actually thought it was safe and now my level-5 catcher is permanently crippled (in fact he didn’t stay crippled long, the next match or the one he was killed, 6 AC in Blood Bowl is next to naked in terms of damage resistance…)
Now, I submit to you that this was a far more important gaming experience, richer in emotions and layers, than “caring” for a “family” and a “protagonist” who has no choice right from the start. In the scenario I described, I actually had a choice: I could have scored and kept my star player safe. I chose not to, in order to inflict a possible casualty and eventually, though I technically “won” that game, that decision came back to haunt me, costing my a star player who I had actually named, nurtured and cared through several tournaments. In other words, cared for and at that point was a product of my decisions, poor or wise.
My point is that you don’t need those “deep”, “existential”, artsy “games” to get a meaningful experience, one which perhaps says a lot more about you, as a player and a human being, that moving a character left-right-space in a story with a predetermined conclusion. Blood Bowl (or Deus Ex, I remember an excellent article by Mr Walker, I believe, about the entirely different experience he had from that game compared to that of a fellow journalist) can offer you a much better experience, without .
So, games don’t have to be “feel-good”, “action-hero-saves-the-day” affairs, but they need, in my view, to offer something of an actual choice, if the effect of that choice is to be viewed as anything other than an artificial imposition of intellectual “depth”.
08/12/2010 at 14:40 Sinomatic says:
Tyndareus, was that meant to be a response to me? Because I don’t recall where I said that games have to be ‘artsy’ to be meaningful. Or indeed that a five minute browser flash game would (or even could) compare to a game experience you had involving months of play. Or to the epic that is Deus Ex.
All I was trying to say is that I don’t see why there can’t be room under the great umbrella of games for games like this which focus your attention on the decisions during the story rather than the outcome at the end. They may not be to everyone’s tastes, but I (and clearly many others) don’t see them as a total waste of time simply because they lack a ‘win’-condition.
You argument of ‘actual’ choice confused me though. There were choices to be made. Emotionally driven choices. If you were someone who could engage with the game, those choices meant something. Maybe not to the eventual outcome (of course, there *were* different endings, though none were what most would call ‘win’), but they meant something nonetheless. People played and came back to see what other people did and share their own decisions. Why? If those choices were totally meaningless because of the ending, what does it matter?
I will happily concede however, that to those people who didn’t find any connection with the situation, that the game would fall utterly flat.
This game is not the most deep and meaningful thing in the universe. Its not particularly original in concept, but with what it has (a few minutes, simple graphics, a little text, good audio, simple choices) it does remarkably well.
I simply think we could stand a few more games like this (both short and longform); games that examine the value of the decisions we make on their own merit and not on their effect on the endgame.
09/12/2010 at 07:11 Tyndareus says:
“Tyndareus, was that meant to be a response to me? Because I don’t recall where I said that games have to be ‘artsy’ to be meaningful. Or indeed that a five minute browser flash game would (or even could) compare to a game experience you had involving months of play. Or to the epic that is Deus Ex.
”
I don’t recall ever saying that you said those things. I took my queue from your views on “absolute” control, here: “Perhaps the most significant thing to come from playing this is realizing how many people see games as strict win/fail scenarios that they must have absolute control over.”
In response to that, I argued (or at least tried to) that choices are much more meaningful when there is the possibility of more than one outcome. It is not about “absolute” control, it is about the possibility to shape the result of a game instead of being treated to what is, at best, an interactive storyline. Precisely because, in my view, it is not about absolute, I mentioned a pc game with dice involved in its game mechanics.
09/12/2010 at 09:17 Bret says:
Did you try entering your name as James T Kirk for that little DOS game?
Because if I’ve learned one thing from Star Trek, it’s that Kirk can get away with anything.
08/12/2010 at 10:43 roryok says:
Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.
We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.
We passed the school, where children strove
At recess, in the ring;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.
Or rather, he passed us;
The dews grew quivering and chill,
For only gossamer my gown,
My tippet only tulle.
We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.
Since then ’tis centuries, and yet each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses’ heads
Were toward eternity.
</spoiler>
I skipped work on the first day, then worked every day to the last until I brought my daughter to the park and we both died. Overwhelming guilt over skipping that first day, feel like its entirely my fault! What a game. No. What a story! What an experience?
08/12/2010 at 11:01 terry says:
I saw this on the twitters and was most enticed by its melancholy nostalgia. However I was rapidly dismayed by the linearity of the narrative, and stricken by my limited options. Forsooth. (30)
Well that was distressing.
08/12/2010 at 11:11 psycho7005 says:
played yesterday and got the ‘sitting on park bench with (dead?) daughter ending. Went back today to check whether her eyes are different like some people used as evidence of death…
…instead i got a scene of the same park bench but….empty. Guess everyone died after all…
08/12/2010 at 11:25 Anonymous says:
SPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILER
I always tend to come down on the what you get out of games is what you put in side of things.
Kicking out any thoughts of “I can see where the seams are in the form of key decision moments here, and here”, it presented me with a situation, some choices, and asked me to act. And yeah, that provided me with a little piece of personal revelation. In this instance, I decided that if the lives of people I loved were at stake, then I could never give up in good conscience. So I kept working, every day, taking my daughter to work on my back to remind me why I was there in the first place. The point wasn’t that, as the comments reveal, there isn’t a happy ending scenario, it was that i) you don’t know that thats going to happen when you decide, and ii) you can still make the decision to try even knowing that it MIGHT be for nothing.
The reason I won’t be replaying this is that the experience was made significant the first time round by not knowing how any of my actions were going to turn out. Understanding how I would react placed in that situation is enough for me to come away from this having understood something extra.
In Philosophy essays I fully plan to make use of the example of a moral decision where you have no idea what the results of your actions might be. Not knowing is what makes this game interesting, far more so than “do you sacrifice your family to help millions” or whatever.
08/12/2010 at 11:35 Theory says:
I gave up on the third day, bored. Then I came here and confirmed all my assumptions about what happens if you persist. The only reason I’m even bothering to make this comment is to ironically express my astonishment at how many people think this thing is worth discussing. Are you really all so manipulable?
08/12/2010 at 11:58 Hejme says:
The song with vocals is Tautou by Brand New in case anyone is wondering.
08/12/2010 at 12:48 Hazelnut says:
Well now I have to write some rubbish here apparently so that if you wanna play this you get the full effect..
Well now I have to write some rubbish here apparently so that if you wanna play this you get the full effect..
Well now I have to write some rubbish here apparently so that if you wanna play this you get the full effect..
Made me cry at the end, even though I was happy with my choices given the premise. Probably because of the fact I have a daughter that age, and was really imagining what I would do and how sad it would be to not be able to save her. I worked until the last day and then took daughter to park. The animation of her leaning into her dad and then passing away was heart crushingly lovely.
I think you get out of this game what you put in. For me it made me think how much we stop appreciating the life around us sometimes, caught up in day to day life. I went to give my daughter another kiss before I went to bed.
08/12/2010 at 13:02 Tom OBedlam says:
Hot summer streets
And the pavements are burning, I sit around
Trying to smile
But the air is so heavy and dry
Strange voices are saying
What did they say
Things I can’t understand
It’s too close for comfort
This heat has got right out of hand
It’s a cruel, cruel summer
Leaving me here on my own
It’s a cruel, cruel summer
Now you’ve gone
Did anyone else notice how similar to everyday the same dream this game is? Right up to events like rooftop suicide and the day ending once you begin work?
08/12/2010 at 13:15 DuckSauce says:
Game doesn’t fupping work!
I thought it was the intention, except comments tell me differently…
If I try to click play, another play button shows up, can’t click it and it just seems to fast forward through the game, not letting me do anything… and then I can do it again! Nothing works except the ads-.-
Anyone have this?
08/12/2010 at 13:36 oceanclub says:
I’m wondering am I missing something; I went to the lab every day that I could. On the last day, my character ends up sitting down, and now while the music is looping, the screen stays the same. I have no idea if this is a bug or does the game end like this?
P.
08/12/2010 at 14:11 Jackalope says:
I went on the razz, watched my friend commit suicide, did one day of work, had sex with the female co-worker, (or was it the other way around?) went home to find my wife dead, took my daughter to the park for one last day. then I went to die in my lab alone. I’m pretty much the worst person ever.
08/12/2010 at 14:25 Baggypants says:
I think cinema does this sort of thing better. worth a try though.
08/12/2010 at 14:28 Langman says:
The people in this thread laying into others for labelling the game pretentious are being pretty lame tbh.
It’s not an unreasonable comment to make in this instance (compared to other indie games that get labelled pretentious incorrectly).
But anyway, it was totally pointless either way. 5 minutes I’ll never get back. And no, I’m not ‘dead inside’, etc..
08/12/2010 at 14:39 DK says:
“All things devours” is better in my eyes – mostly because it’s far more realistic which gives it much more impact. Plus it doesn’t blame the player (as much) for what happens.
08/12/2010 at 15:02 espy says:
By the way, the simplest way to get to play this multiple times is to play it in your browser’s porn/privacy mode.
08/12/2010 at 15:27 Relax says:
* SPOILER*
* SPOILER*
* SPOILER*
* SPOILER*
Isn’t this basically the story of the movie The Fontaine?
You can spend the last days with your family OR find the cure. You can’t have both.
08/12/2010 at 16:47 Nogo says:
It’s worth noting that a refresh after reaching the end will show you an updated version of your final screen.
IF YOU’VE READ THIS FAR AND HAVEN’T PLAYED IT YET, YEESH.
SPOILAGE
SPOILER
AIRFOIL
TOASTER
When I found the cure the park is green and vibrant, absent of you or your daughter. So, hope?
08/12/2010 at 17:02 negativedge says:
if you’re worried about “spoiling” it, it isn’t worth experiencing in the first place.
08/12/2010 at 17:53 a.simons613 says:
Good game.
I went the route of working everyday. Though I can’t say I’d make the same decision if I were a parent.
I doubt however, that ANYONE “went nuts” and did anything other than spend time with the family or worked. Just attests to the emotional connection the game is able to establish with players.
08/12/2010 at 18:08 Nadir says:
What a load of tedious pretentious bollocks.
08/12/2010 at 18:51 Kefren says:
I played it, then clicked the link again, and it started at the beginning. I do have some privacy software that deletes Flash Cookies, so maybe that is why.
08/12/2010 at 19:10 Pod says:
A dull, boring game. I can’t believe everyone is writing so much about it. It was the most obvious game I’ve ever played.
edit: Ok so not the most obvious game I’ve ‘ever’ played, but it was very predictable when it appeared to be trying not to be.
08/12/2010 at 19:29 Anonymous says:
-Poorly written story.
-QTE out of nowhere.
-Way too slow.
08/12/2010 at 19:36 Anonymous says:
What a fancy avatar I have! :D
08/12/2010 at 21:03 Baggypants says:
I tried just not leaving the bedroom at the start. Very boring, but I felt it was very boring when I played it through.
08/12/2010 at 21:47 dragon_hunter21 says:
I did exactly what I’d do in the real world: I’d save the world.
Not out of any kind of heroic leanings, mind you- but the game made it abundantly clear that the world was dying because of you. Your actions caused the death of everything. In the real world, if I took the girl’s offer to go on a date instead of working towards a cure, I would have spent the entire date wondering if the work I’d done that day could have done it- if I’d spent that time there instead of slacking off, I might have saved the world. Yeah, it sucked that the wife committed suicide, and yeah, it sucked that the entire research team offed themselves/had themselves offed, but the ends justified the means.
I saved the world.
08/12/2010 at 23:14 MikoSquiz says:
I’m not sure exactly what I want from a game, but this isn’t it. For me, this isn’t ‘bad’ in the sense of ‘not good’, it’s ‘bad’ in the sense of ‘the opposite of good’. -10 our of 10.
I suppose this is the exact opposite of unimaginative pandering schlock like Codblops; where one is the equivalent of freezing your bollocks off, the other is being scalded. Can has comfortable medium, please.
09/12/2010 at 00:06 Emperor_Jimmu says:
I was completely detached from this game by the terribly shaky biology limited interactions. Does this take palace in a world without peer review?
I also saw no reason to do anything other than work on a cure. There is in my eyes no moral ambiguity regarding the decision to spend time with ones family or attempting so save their lives along with the rest of humanity.
09/12/2010 at 00:56 madhaha says:
If anyone is looking to clear their save, it’s under:
%AppData%\Roaming\Macromedia\Flash Player\#SharedObjects\
There will be a folder or several folders with unique random characters depending on your setup. In there look for \uploads.ungrounded.net\555181_One_Chance_NEWGROUND.swf
09/12/2010 at 01:16 eightiesmullet says:
I just played this and died alone. In a park.
:(
09/12/2010 at 01:52 Indred says:
Went to work everyday.
Looked for the cure as hard as i could, no matter watching my colleagues die, and my wife.
I saved my daughter and whatever remnant of close society.
I will never accomplish that much in real life.
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14/12/2010 at 00:53 HeavyStorm says:
What the fuck?
09/12/2010 at 05:07 A-Scale says:
This is secretly a game about father/daughter incest.
09/12/2010 at 13:14 fuggles says:
I can’t even get it to load, it gets to about 4/5 of the loading bar for presumably the title screen and then stops. Boo!
09/12/2010 at 13:56 adonf says:
(Dexter’s wife is murdered by the Trinity killer, Dumbledore had Snapes kill him because he was dying, the Force is caused by particles called midi-chlorians, really, and this is a thirty-word sentence to prevent spoilers)
So the scientist doesn’t save humanity but he saves life, that’s all that matters ! And in a few million years the salamanders-like beings that dominate the Earth will find strange artifacts from an old civilization and will be all OMG this is like woah
09/12/2010 at 17:11 Joshua says:
To be honest… I liked ‘But that was [Yesterday]‘ much better,
09/12/2010 at 17:14 ForTheLulz says:
SPOILERS
Amazing game! But I found the secret happy ending!!! On the second day when you go to the roof, walk left…
You can walk left forever off the roof and away from this terrible crumbling world and never have to see your coworker’s suicide.
10/12/2010 at 08:20 SamFromHell says:
“In six days every single living cell in the world will die. You have one chance.”
Nowhere a mention to save world and stuff. I tooked a one chance to spend a last night with the wife and daughter. You must badly think that nothing ever really dies to spend the last days of your life working…
Some interesting music that develloped the atmosphere, but… Everyday the same dream was beautiful, this one is uggly.
10/12/2010 at 17:27 D says:
I’d take a 0.000001% percent chance to save the entirety of humanity and earth over any great amount of happy-feel-good last-day-on-earth sentimentalism.
10/12/2010 at 23:38 SamFromHell says:
@ D : That’s honorable. I’m still not sure that the riddle in the game implies that there’s a way to save the world, or at least, that’s how I perceived it from my “fatalogical” point of view. Let me know if you found a way.
11/12/2010 at 08:44 BonusWavePilot says:
Spoiley spoilers spoil unspoiled spoilables. Spoiley spoilers spoil unspoiled spoilables. Spoiley spoilers spoil unspoiled spoilables. Spoiley spoilers spoil unspoiled spoilables. Spoiley spoilers spoil unspoiled spoilables.
I had intended to work on the 1st day, but hit space when the dude suggested a run to the pub (so much like real life… bloody drinking reflex).
2nd day, saw the guy jump from the roof when I went up there to explore.
3rd day I agonised a bit over bunking off to go shagging, but ended up working instead. Dead wife in bath at the end of the day…
4th day I hovered my mouse back and forth over work and park for a long while before going to work.
Last day, I ‘had’ one chance, so we went to (and died in) the park.
Still running in the other tab, snow falling on our lifeless bodies.
12/12/2010 at 01:02 Ben says:
I wasn’t bothered by the lo-fi graphics until the very end, where it looked like my fellow’s reward for his choices was having his hair fused with a tree. This wouldn’t have been noticed in normal play, but I got that ending that everyone’s compelled to eye closely, so to speak.
12/12/2010 at 01:17 Seixo says:
SPOLIER SPOLIER SPOLIER SPOLIER SPOLIER SPOLIER SPOLIER SPOLIER SPOLIER SPOLIER SPOLIER SPOLIER SPOLIER SPOLIER SPOLIER SPOLIER SPOLIER SPOLIER SPOLIER SPOLIER SPOLIER SPOLIER SPOLIER SPOLIER
This game was sad. But I treated it like a game…
Had drinks, saw the co worker commit suicide, had sex in the , wife died, child died, I died.
Now, I’m very sorry for all of those decisions :S
13/12/2010 at 20:40 Azarea says:
This is definitely the most moving game I’ve ever played. I can’t get to close the tab… I can’t let them go into oblivion, can I ?
15/12/2010 at 01:51 blitzkreeeg says:
WORDS WORDS WORDS WORDS WORDS WORDS WORDS WORDS WORDS WORDS WORDS WORDS WORDS WORDS WORDS WORDS WORDS WORDS WORDS WORDS WORDS WORDS WORDS WORDS WORDS WORDS WORDS WORDS WORDS WORDS WORDS WORDS WORDS WORDS WORDS WORDS WORDS WORDS WORDS WORDS
Would it be fair to say that the clue is in the opening screen? In 6 days, everything *WILL* die. Not ‘you can stop everything from dying if you try stuff’, but WILL die. So to me, it’s an experience in finding what you would do if you KNEW everything ended. Whether you worked hard or not, it’s all doomed. So I boozed up, then hung with my family (I went into the lab one day, to check what it was like in there, though).
What a wonderful, simple and elegant concept this game is!
17/12/2010 at 15:03 Xephyr says:
I finished and everyone died. When I turned off the computer and saw my reflection in the screen, I’d been crying, and I hadn’t realised.
No game even got close to this before now.
09/11/2012 at 05:23 Scuzzball says:
So I went back after finding the cure, and the park was green, but empty. You cured it, and spread the cure. But your wife and child are still dead.
Your co workers are dead.
Over half the world is dead.