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Video game lets you do nothing in particular in a suburban Russian tower block
- bitwize 6y agoThink I'll pass on this and wait for the "northeastern USA" map expansion to drop in a month or two. It'll be called "my life right now".
- sp332 6y agoIt's a bit more midwestern, but Adios is coming out soon. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1271400/Adios/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1271400/Adios/
- tpmx 6y agoSame genre, sort of: I love the concept of this game: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Summer_Car https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Summer_Car > My Summer Car is set in rural Finland during the summer of 1995, where the 18-year-old player character has the family home to himself while his parents are on holiday in Tenerife. The player has to assemble, restore and upgrade his father's dilapidated Satsuma AMP (modeled after the Datsun 100A) using the car parts scattered inside the garage, as well as by purchasing new parts. > To earn money for parts, the player can perform various countryside chores for neighbours such as delivering firewood on a tractor-pulled trailer, using a vacuum truck to empty their septic tanks, making kilju (Finnish homebrew sugar wine) and selling it to an alcoholic neighbor, and picking up the aforementioned neighbor from the town pub in the early morning in exchange for a small sum of money. >After passing the Satsuma at the vehicle inspection office and installing the appropriate aftermarket parts (which can be obtained by mailing an order form to a parts dealer), the player's car is eligible to enter a weekly amateur rallying event for a chance to win a trophy and prize money. .. Writing for Rock, Paper, Shotgun, Brendan Caldwell called the game "Funny, detailed and thoroughly confusing"; while writing for Kotaku, Nathan Grayson called the game "Janky and weird as fuck, but fun". :-) Having grown up in the Swedish countryside - all of this seems very authentic.
- movedx 6y agoWhat a wonderful game. Something to contrast today's shooters filled with violence and horror with simple, wholesome game to relax to.
- sp332 6y agoThere are some shooters, but they are hard/expensive to make and not that common among indie games.
- movedx 6y agoI wish this wasn't the case. In order to be able to play a decent shooter with a decent amount of online players, I have to download 250GB of assets (I'm looking at you: Warzone) and play in US time zones. Is there an indie scene for online FPS?
- sp332 6y agoI'm not sure, but I would ask @docsquiddy on Twitter. He's a champion of FPS games and an indie developer. He has not yet released an FPS but I know he had one in development at one point.
- bozzcl 6y agoI would say shooters have become less violent and bloody over time, TBH. Gotta keep those games in the Teen rating!
- vanderZwan 6y agoIt's kind of weird how Doom 2016 is such a stark contrast to every other AAA game of the time, because if you were to ask the average person who played it, it is probably how their 90's version imagined Doom to be like twenty years in the future.
- bozzcl 6y ago
- supernova87a 6y agoI think I'll give it a try right after I'm finished playing with my "My Dinner with Andre" action figures!
- xwdv 6y agoThese sort of games are not really for the general public. They are made for streamers and content creators to do something funny while their audience watches. It’s a spectator game. Imagination not included. Guaranteed there will be some Let’s Play video called something like “Let’s do nothing in particular inside a Russian tower block.” I always wanted someone to recreate my childhood game “Funeral” where you lay in a box being dead while people come pay their last respects.
- clankyclanker 6y agoYour pessimism seems unwarranted in this case, per the article, it’s actually one part of a five part art piece: http://iliamazo.ru/itswinter http://iliamazo.ru/itswinter > The game has been released as a part of a larger project by poet Ilia Mazo, which also includes a book, a play, a short film, and a musical album (turn on the radio in the game to listen to the music). Getting the translations of the other four pieces would be fascinating.
- xwdv 6y agoWhat is the object of the game?
- npteljes 6y agoTo immerse you in an experience.
- xwdv 6y agoA game must be more than that.
- clankyclanker 6y agoWhy?
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- dt123 6y agoi thought games were supposed to be an 'escape' from real life lel
- chadcmulligan 6y agoThey are if you don't live in a Russian tower block. I live where the sun nearly always shines, I enjoy having on a series of YouTube videos of trains driving through the snow while I work and turning the air con up sometimes :-).
- wyldfire 6y agoReminds me of Militsioner [1]. [1] https://store.steampowered.com/app/1373530/Militsioner/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1373530/Militsioner/
- at_a_remove 6y ago4chan has, for years now, had these threads in /b/ wherein everyone pretends to live in some giant tower block with a vaguely Soviet feel. People complain that the water is out on certain levels, or other segments have malfunctioning food extruders. It's all quite dystopian. I think this comes from a similar impulse.
- sbuttgereit 6y agoDesert Bus is the same sort of thing from 1995: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penn_%26_Teller's_Smoke_and_Mirrors#Desert_Bus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penn_%26_Teller's_Smoke_and_Mi...
- Timpy 6y agoI lived in a tower block in Moscow for a year. This brings back a melancholy feeling that I'm not really fond of. Eating kolbasa and eggs in my concrete cage while the snowy dark winter taps on my window was very much the experience I had. If the purpose of art is to move something inside the audience, this looks quite successful to me. I think I won't be playing the game though.
- OpticalWindows 6y agoWhat was your favorite and least favorite part about that experience?
- tluyben2 6y agoI had this experience in a small city in Ukraine in winter; I liked the daytime working in the office, but at night in those concrete (quite decrepit) buildings, I only wanted to go back home. This building in the game looks much better but the feeling when I watch it indeed is the same.
- tF73d78kq8t3R6n 6y agoI grew up in a building constructed as part of the series that just barely preceded the infamous Khruschevkas. This game feels quite real. That said, I’ve lived most of my life in a dilapidated building in New York. The models and textures would have been different, but the feeling remains the same. I’ve certainly had enough of cold, dark winters for one lifetime.
- andreygrehov 6y agoI'm originally from Ukraine, Odessa. It indeed brings a lot of memories (mostly from childhood), but I have a slightly different perspective on it. When I moved to New York, ~8 years ago, my budget for rent was around $2,000. I checked 20+ different apartments, worked with a ton of agencies. I couldn't believe my eyes – so many people in NYC (Manhattan specifically, the place I always wanted to live in) live like rats, an order magnitude worse than what you can get in Odessa for $300-400. I ended up getting a decent studio for abysmal $2,700. I moved to Brooklyn since then and live at a much better place now, but a ton of people still live in conditions, IMO, way worse than the ones shown in the game, paying $2000 a month ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- joe_the_user 6y agoHow hard is it to go from a bunch of photos to a game like this? Would it be possible to have a multiplayer version of something like this which essentially was a glorified chat room? Does something like this exist already? I never tried Second Life but it seems like a sad, edgy Second Life actually might have more of a chance.
- kroltan 6y agoThe "modern" Second Life is VRChat, which despite the name supports flatscreens too. There are a bunch of mildly eerie/sad maps available, as well as a bunch other varied stuff.
- Gravyness 6y agoDo 'nothing in particular'? What the hell? The trailer of the game shows a man eating a full packet of a meds and getting into a filling bathtub, that's quite a lot of freedom!
- booleandilemma 6y agoThings like this make me believe we’re in a super-advanced universe-sized mmorpg created by aliens who reached type III on the kardashev scale and just got bored.
- newsbinator 6y agoSurely if you reach type III you can also control for boredom?
- 0b01 6y agoReminds me of the movie The Death of Mr. Lazarescu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_Mr._Lazarescu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_Mr._Lazarescu
- wruza 6y agoIt has a sequel, with more "action", but the article probably missed the most important part: for some the game evokes memories, and for some – their purified reality. It will be completely alien and boring to outsiders, like this¹ game which is "a bit too real" for Jon from UK. ¹ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IMXsIW56sIA https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IMXsIW56sIA 7:54
- romanhn 6y agoAs someone who has spent his childhood in one of these, I would download a VR version of this in no time. Could be a "fun" way to keep nostalgia in check :)
- 8bitsrule 6y ago"You ... see the courtyard covered in snow, illuminated by street lamps and the cold neon glare of store fronts. You turn on the light switch ... a new immersive game made by developer Alexander Ignatov and poet Ilia Mazo ... despite the game having no clear plot or mission." Sounds more like art than a game to me. (Good news - I like art at least as much as games! - looked at but never actually played 'Myst' )
- joveian 6y agoI recently played Rainy Season (梅雨の日) that is a similar game where you play a day from the author's childhood that involves exploring the house (Gone Home style, this one looks more advanced). It is short and has some (non-gamebreaking) bugs but is still one of my favorites. https://inasa.itch.io/rainy-season https://inasa.itch.io/rainy-season It is also currently in the Humble Trove. Unfortunately it looks like this one (It's Winter) isn't available DRM-free :(.
- doomlaser 6y agoThe genre term for this type of game, lacking in explicit goals or win-state, is Walking Simulator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_game#Walking_simulators https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_game#Walking_simulat...
- jereees 6y agoIf you’re into this genre checkout this one made by an Indie Argentinian dev https://store.steampowered.com/app/1345370/Promesa/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1345370/Promesa/
- doomlaser 6y agoAnother famous one is called Proteus https://store.steampowered.com/app/219680/Proteus/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/219680/Proteus/ A recent one that many love is called A Short Hike https://store.steampowered.com/app/1055540/A_Short_Hike/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1055540/A_Short_Hike/
- joveian 6y agoA Short Hike is a great game and another one of my favorites, but I wouldn't call it a walking simulator since there are challenges. I'd call it a parkour-inspired game.
- txmachinery 6y agoPossibly qualifying - a game called Everything: https://store.steampowered.com/app/582270/Everything/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/582270/Everything/
- rozab 6y agoMany walking simulators are very linear and railroad you into doing specific things and going to specific places. An example of this is Firewatch. IMO the defining feature of a walking simulator is that they have no actual mechanics. Many games tell stories through exploration, finding audiologs etc., but they usually have other gameplay mechanics like shooting, puzzles, survival, whatever. Most gamers see gameplay as pretty essential to the medium. A walking simulator strips all that away and leaves only the most basic possible mechanic: walking around. Most don't even let you interact with the world or with characters. I think this precludes this game from being a 'sandbox' as the article suggests.
- MrBuddyCasino 6y agoNow we can supplement the heavy blanket of bleak wintertime isolation provided by COVID19 lockdowns with the heavy blanket of bleak wintertime isolation provided by a soviet-era concrete tower block simulator. Now if only Dismaland would re-open again...
- publicola1990 6y agoHas Dismaland ever reopened or was it only a one time event?
- coold 6y agoFYI After USSR was destroyed many factories were selled as a scrap metal (you know - fast money), but it`s had some side effect - many cities were built around and for that factories. So people there slowly dying without any reason to live. Also I know something similar happened in USA when factories were moved to Asia. But this game show some post-soviet specific.
- CraneWorm 6y ago> FYI After USSR was destroyed that's an odd choice of words; I believe most people would say it dissolved
- coold 6y agoWell, actually it was a choice of bureaucracy to destroy USSR, without active resistance from other side of government. People voted to keep USSR, but bureaucracy wanted to have private property. > most people would say it dissolved Thats what propaganda told us, because you need somehow legitimate your property ;)
- sireat 6y agoThis looks great! Not doing anything in particular was also a lot of fun in GTA games. Also I am reminded of the Onion's modern warfare simulator video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuTkgi7scKo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuTkgi7scKo
- sam_lowry_ 6y agoEverlasting Summer [1] is pretty much in the same vein culturally, but it is a visual novel, not 3D. It'the only game I played in the last years. The story of its development by 2ch members is also fascinating. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everlasting_Summer https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everlasting_Summer
- Tade0 6y agoI love how the game catches one often overlooked aspect of living in a panel block: (at least during my childhood) those places were really badly lit - probably to save on electricity.
- masteranza 6y agoRoutine Feat? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZExWeqHajLg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZExWeqHajLg
- samirillian 6y agoThe more games I see like this, the more I think we're finally ready to adapt Ubik. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubik https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubik
- krapp 6y agoI've never really gotten into 'walking simulator' type games but I do think they might be better suited to VR than a monitor.
- mercer 6y agoI've found them hit or miss, because they rely so much more on good storytelling (and sometimes visuals). I quite liked Firewatch though. Pretty art-style, great writing and setting.
- sershe 6y agoI still have nostalgic feelings from my teens and early 20ies in Russia towards these windows lit up in darkness and cold of the winter night. It's a really nice time to be an introvert, chatting away on some IRC channel or playing video games in your brightly lit, warm flat, looking out into darkness and cold and seeing the dozens, or hundreds (or a few if it's really late), of the windows lit up - every one a person or a family. You have a strange sense of connection and an extra cozy, safe feeling.