Third game: Messages From The Universe Graveyard by Kanderwund
This is the first game in my run that I actually never had played before, and probably wouldn’t have if not for this Great Play Marathon. In the beginning I got lost and unsure of what to do - combined with other activities in my personal life I went on a break for a few weeks. I picked it up again today, and I really got drawn in this time, and explored much more of the game. In this game, you explore a dead MMO. Parts of the game are glitching (on purpose), not all text is readable. There is music in this game adding to the atmosphere, but the most impactful part is the messages left behind on a lot of the places in this world; not only fictitious messages, but messages by other players, including some I recognize from intfiction.org. But I wasn’t always sure which were real and which weren’t. These messages can give hints on what to do, but can also be profound in other ways, touching you as player. And I’ve left my own messages, messages that one day may be read by others, maybe impact others.
I’ve been thinking about what elements from this game I could take to incorporate in my own, which was challenging, because it is likely to be so different from what I would make. But some thoughts still:
- Incorporating a sense of adventure and mystery in my game, via exploration of an exotic place, where not everything you see is explained
- Doing something similar to the ‘messages’ to get to know other NPCs better - like diary entries, or something else. Or even from persons who are dead in the game itself, as a background story.
This game will stay with me for a while. But now, onwards, to the next one!