A Dream Of Silence: Act 3

Adapted from an IFCOMP24 Review

I swear, this series confounds me. I played Act 1 (apparently before Act 2 was available in the download), then finished here. As previously observed, I am NOT the ideal audience. Six months on, I am no more familiar with Balder’s Gate 3, and no more disposed to High Fantasy. I really dug the gameplay in Act I, until it turned out to be NOT what I thought it was. Then I turned on it like an oily Brad Dourif character. I also begrudgingly respected what I perceived to be its thematic core. I have no idea if I’m selling the source material short here, but it FELT like it was aiming much higher than its inspiration.

Once again, I returned as a Rogue, and once again I opted to play its more difficult setting. So here’s something that was lost on me first time: my companion was ALSO A ROGUE. (Was that mentioned in part 1? I don’t remember.) He’s already an elf AND a vampire! Jeebus, leave some oxygen for other players, dude. The core mechanic of the first one, training yourself to exist(!) is still here, though as an echo of itself, now subordinate to more traditional Action point/HP mechanisms. The merging was pretty smoothly done, certainly the cockpit was well designed. The impulse to vary the formula was also well taken, I think, reflective of the evolution of the story. It’s always nice to see mechanics evolve within a game.

Thankfully, this time your companion is correspondingly more helpful and active. Actually, he kind of takes the lead in things. Your role is more to facilitate and buttress him than to drive the bus yourself, as it was last time. Again, a shift in formula is a nice way to keep things fresh. There was a gameplay choice that was kind of frustrating in the moment, but had a (probably intended) positive knockon effect. As an only semi-present being, we’ll just say ghost for convenience, you have 10 “Action Points” to spend doing things. You need to choose carefully because plenty of choices reward you with nothing. When they are gone, you need to recharge. This is structured as a series of encounters where if you recharge, you explore at the cost of MISSING THE ENTIRE SCENE. NPCs have story-relevant conversations and revelations YOU DON’T HEAR. You’re too busy rifling their bureau or whatever. Between the combination of uncertain payoffs and limited APs you are guaranteed to hear half or less of what is going on, and, unsurprisingly, unlikely to win first time through. Also, decidedly outside looking in.

But. That aggressive gameplay choice now opens you up to alter your toggle on replay, to tune into what you missed last time, and explore where you already know things! It was simultaneously confounding and irritating and encouraging of replay! It took me three times to get the full picture, and discover enough helpful items to play to closure, and that ended up being about perfect. Granted part of it was my expert gameplay, but it felt very precisely tuned to that experience, as a fourth run was probably too far down the diminishing returns ramp. Also, not for nothing, timed exactly to the judging limits of IFCOMP. Well done there.

Ok, so let’s talk the story this gameplay is in service of. If the first was an exploration of solitary confinement trauma, this was treading more traveled ground of abusive family trauma, especially amongst its victims’ stories. Again, props to the work for aiming well above (what I can only speculate is) its inspiration. This path, however, IS more heavily traveled. Well realized as this iteration was, I’m not sure it brought anything new to the discussion. The protagonist (your NPC companion, not you the player! you’re just along for the ride!) is reliving memories and relationships to (Spoiler - click to show)discover their symbolic unconscious exit. You’re just there to keep things going. In the first one, I found the companion character grating, particularly on replay and the further you got towards success. This one he was far less grating, but not really a whit more appealing. Nor were the details of the NPCs you met particularly compelling either, making all the drama between them kind of Not Your Business. It doesn’t help that, due to class overlap, he was bogarting ALL THE ROGUE WORK. I literally did nothing roguish my entire play, which, at that point, why bother making the option available? At least first time I got to pick a lock or two! Seriously, choose literally any other class to play is my advice.

So yeah, Sparks of respect in gameplay variation, the central ‘learning to exist’ conceit, thematically outstripping its inspiration (probably) and the neat trick with replayability. But by sidelining me in his journey (and not letting me ROGUE!) it was always going to be how invested I was in that story. And the answer is, not enough for engagement.

Played: 9/14/24
Playtime: 2h, 2 fails, 1 win
Artistic/Technical ratings: Sparks of Joy/Seamless
Would Play Again?: No, experience feels complete

Artistic scale: Bouncy, Mechanical, Sparks of Joy, Engaging, Transcendent
Technical scale: Unplayable, Intrusive, Notable (Bugginess), Mostly Seamless, Seamless