Cacophony

The opening sections of this game I found extremely evocative. The player is in a dreamlike environment full of unnerving scenery that can't be real. That's been done plenty of times already, but Parish's surreal vision is more menacing than most -- not for the bloodstained room in which the game starts, but for the way even seemingly harmless and everyday objects take on personality and voice.

Unfortunately, there's not a lot of direction about what you're supposed to be doing in this nightmarescape, and after a little wandering around and feeling creeped out, I had to admit to myself that I was just stuck. So I went to the walkthroughs for a clue, and the things they suggested were so surprising and (as far as I could tell) arbitrary that instead of trying to play further I just followed the walkthroughs word for word.

There does appear to be a kind of logic behind some of the surreal features, and I gather that some players have finished the game (by giving it a lot of playtime and working as a group to figure out its stranger bits). So perhaps I was wrong to give up so quickly on solving it on my own. The problem is that the game doesn't do a lot to foster the player's trust in its own fairness. On the contrary, important entities appear and disappear apparently capriciously; descriptions don't always lead the eye to the most important items in the room; rigorous searching and examination is required throughout.

I still don't think I understand the story, though I've been through all the recommended steps. I have the vague outline of an idea of what it might be all about, but it's pretty messy. (Spoiler - click to show)Like, I might be a human, but all of humanity's been caused/invented by some huge alien experiment gone wrong. Or some other lifeform entirely, and the people experimenting are human. Or I might be an awakened AI and the machine of which the researchers speak is some kind of computer model or internet. I'm pretty sure it's one of those, unless it isn't.

At the end I came away with the feeling that Parish's starting premise was to make a lot of creepy stuff happen and then come up with an explanation for it later. That's the same starting premise I think they had for Lost and The X-Files, so he's in good company. (Or, well, he's in some company.) But I'm bewildered enough that I don't even have the conviction to say the game doesn't make sense. Maybe it does, and I just didn't get it, or I played it wrong.

I do think that the game would've been a lot stronger with a clear goal for the player at the outset and stronger hints about where to direct one's attention and efforts. That doesn't have to mean spoon-feeding, exactly; just more to keep the player from being wholly lost.