Epistemophilia by Mehmetcan Serinkaya
If you’ve ever been to Meow Wolf’s Convergence Station in Denver, you might have a good idea of what it feels like to play Epistemophilia. There’s a lot of wandering, not really understanding your surroundings, seeing that there is obviously some kind of lore, but you don’t know what exactly. And then there is often wanting to go back to something you saw previously, but not being able to find it anymore because you are very turned around and the space doesn’t make any sense. If that’s not a good analogy, maybe just imagine rummaging around in that junk drawer you have in your kitchen, but like, the entire kitchen is junk drawers.
I liked the sense of wonder the writing in this game evokes. There’s a lot of calmness to waking up in a strange world where you know general things, but no specific things. Whether it is mysterious little lights, a parrot(!?), a giant alien aquarium, a creepy robot janitor(?), or magic space skates, the reaction is always “Huh!” …Which is not how I would react to those situations personally, but it puts you in the protagonist’s shoes and certainly lowers the anxiety of your reality. From what I can tell, the game’s intentions are to gently prod your curiosity, and I think it does a pretty good job of that.
For me, the primary point of friction in the game was the inconsistency with what clicking a link might lead to. You are often met with an environment and links for a few different items around you. Some of them give you a short description and drop you immediately back to where you were. Some go into long threads of discovery, and then drop you back. Some take you away from your location, but give you the option to cancel out first (though sometimes, it is not particularly clear that you are about to leave and won’t be back). Some take you away from your location with no warning. Some kill you! None of which is obvious at the outset of clicking on something. I think there is something to be said for challenging a reader to predict something and placing surprises in a game, but I mostly felt like I didn’t have a real sense of control and was irritated. I didn’t really use the save feature. I probably should have (fwiw the mobile version doesn’t seem to offer this).
It’s kind of neat that the game was written by hand in notebooks first, and the author even has a cool little video on their website featuring these. I’m not sure if the transcribing process included a lot of editing and story shaping, but I think it might explain why some parts of the game feel loose, raw, or off the cuff. There are a significant number of typos, and I met game breaking bugs at least 2 times (maybe 3? I lost track of deaths vs bugs) in different places and had to start from scratch. Because I didn’t use the save feature, I got to know the opening options super well, and, while intriguing, gave strong junk drawer random-assembly-of-ideas vibes. The game boasts 24 endings. I think I probably encountered at least half of them, a lot of which were random deaths, a few of which were peaceful acceptance, and none of which were the seemingly desirable, most explanatory ending. There’s one area where you can choose to try to make contact with 1 of 3 things, all of which end with a “to be continued…” kind of closing text and an end game state, which I found strangely more annoying than a random death, because they really seemed like they were going to go somewhere. Anyway, I think the reason I decided to stop playing was because I felt like it was actually quite difficult to get to the complete ending, since I didn’t feel like I ever started to gain real control of the situation. The meandering never turned into anything directed or structured, and my momentum stalled out. That doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy myself while playing, and maybe this feedback is helpful if the author feels like doing another pass at the game.