Creatures Such As We

This game is about someone living on the Moon who spends most of their time playing video games and is responsible for making sure their new tour group, who are the creators of the game, have a great time while on the Moon. A lot of people seem to really love this game, and I'm not saying I hated it. There were lots of things about it that I liked, like the fact that your character is customizable, and the character interactions. But I don't really understand what the message is supposed to be. Maybe I'm just too stupid to get it? I don't know. But overall whatever the game was trying to convey was just kind of lost on me; I played it to the end several times and was still confused. It does raise some interesting questions, but ultimately, I mostly just found it difficult to understand. Nice atmosphere and fun character interactions though, so there's that.

This game is richly multilayered, weaving together many different fascinating narrative and aesthetic threads, while remaining incredibly fun to play and engaging to read. Throughout a relatable story about a person struggling to find meaning while working a draining job, Glasser balances a romance plot, thought-provoking meditations on games as art, and a game within the game that the player interacts with along with the protagonist. These all work seamlessly together to prompt the player to reflect not only on this game but games more broadly and the various meanings they have in our lives: the social interactions and communities they foster, the aesthetic experiences they engender, the philosophical questions they raise, and the escape they provide.

The underlying story of the game is deceptively simple albeit with a scifi twist. You play as a tour guide on the moon, a well-paying but ultimately dead-end job, and you play games in your spare time. The designers of your favorite game happen to be the latest tour group, and it's up to you to smooth out some issues -- both major and minor -- that interrupt a potentially pivotal business retreat for the indie game studio. While the scifi elements are relatively subdued, the game posits a depressing -- but probably pretty likely -- scenario for the future of space travel: the moon will become a tourist resort for the wealthy. Some of the themes dealt with here remind me of Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars trilogy if on a smaller, more personal scale. Humanity's first inclination will be to pave paradise.

Integral to this main story are the threads mentioned above. The player character begins the game engrossed in the fictional game-within-the-game called Creatures Such as We, a scifi game of its own though more bombastic and action-packed. While I first found the sequences of applying the Choice of Games mechanics to choose my way through the fictional immersive 3D game played by the protagonist to be kind of detached, I got more and more into what Glasser was doing with these passages. These functioned almost like an autopsy of a game, using the choice-based game mechanic native to ChoiceScript to break down a 3D action game into discrete decisions. This has some weird effects with time, sometimes glossing over long stretches of playtime and other times allowing the player to linger over a decision that protagonist would need to make in a split-second.

In the interactions with the game designer tourists, the protagonist has the opportunity to engage in deep and wide-reaching conversations about game design and the aesthetics of games as art. Far from retreading worn out arguments about whether games should be considered as art or not, these sections of the game play out as interactive Socratic dialogues almost, with the interlocutors pushing you on your points and asking you to refine and clarify what you mean. While these decisions have essentially no stakes for the well-being of your characters, (Spoiler - click to show)in stark contrast to the nail-biting sequence at the end of the game in which the protagonist has to safely guide the tourists through an emergency evacuation of the base, I actually found these decision-points to be the ones I pondered and sweated over the most! These conversations really forced me to examine some of my own positions and beliefs on deep questions about why we play games and what they mean in our lives.

Finally, the player can choose to pursue a romance with one of the designers, the choices made in this most game-like aspect of the game for the real player immediately resonating with the philosophical discussions you have with the fictional game designers. I do not know the extent of possible outcomes with the romance aspect of Creatures(Spoiler - click to show) (in my playthrough romancing Diana, we shared mutual affection but also mutual recognition that the romance wouldn't come to anything as she left the moon base), but the romance seems designed to further the character development of the player character, providing prompts for self-reflection about what they're doing with their life and what life decisions they should make next. The game we're all playing...

The end I arrived at (Spoiler - click to show), on the moonbase, playing an updated version of Creatures online with Diana, was especially illuminating of the social role that games play in our lives, and did so in a genuine, moving way that somehow wasn't corny: we can be separated by countless miles but still connect over a great game.

tldr: An enjoyable IF despite a bit of rail-roading.

I love space and seeing this setting made me think of something that could quite actually happen in the near future. It was very enjoyable. Playing as someone in the service industry, and all the ups and downs that go with it, resonated with me. My favorite aspect of the game, however, was the game within a game. Following along with the story in a story was really enjoyable and, if it weren't a Choice of Games game, I would definitely go back and tool around some more.

My least favorite part of the game was when I was given a choice that was no choice. There were a couple, really, but the second time the lack of choice felt more like it was played for laughs. The first time really got under my skin, however: (Spoiler - click to show)When asked how competent the protagonist is in a rather stressful situation, I decided to go with the more optimistic route. I decided that I was prepared to deal with the situation at hand. However, the narrative second-guessed me and then grayed out that option. As there were other options similar to my initial choice, again I chose to see the protagonist as more on the competent side. Again the game second-guessed me. I did this until there was only one option left, the option that the game wanted for me and not the option that I wanted. It was very frustrating to say the least.

IF games already tend to be linear (some more than others) and taking away what little player agency I thought I had left a bitter taste in my mind. I was able to keep playing, but that keeps me from wanting to go back and play a second time to explore other avenues.

I'm not sure how intentional this was as the game in the game seemed to shadow another game: (Spoiler - click to show)The Mass Effect Trilogy, where the ending didn't seem to take into any serious account what the players had done throughout the game.

All in all, I would recommend playing through this game at least once.