Words. They are the foundation of our civilisation. In the early days they allowed for more complex communications beyond the grunts of cavemen, while today they inspire and enthrall. Our age, more than any other, has come to rely on the written word through reading, advertising, and most importantly, social media and the Internet, which has given rise not only to a whole host of new words and terms, but ways of using them. For this alone, Elegy For A Dead World may be one of the most important games of the decade.
Platforms: PC (Windows, Mac, Linux)
Publisher: Dejobaan Games
Developer: Dejobaan Games, Popcannibal Games
Genre: Side-Scrolling Literary Exploration
Release Date: December 10, 2014
ESRB Rating: Unrated
In the early days of computer games, it was not the graphics on the bulky old monitors that propelled the narrative, but the text. Titles such as Oregon Trail, Zork, and Colossal Cave Adventure inspired a generation of game players with their stories. Now, however, the reverse is almost always true. Graphics push a game, while the story is a secondary requirement. Elegy For A Dead World seeks the best of both worlds, and mostly succeeds.
Players take control of an explorer, traveling through voids to distant worlds, deserted long ago by the creatures that inhabited them. Although the game looks like a side-scrolling platformer, there are no puzzles to solve or secret platforms to reach. There is only the world, and the words you choose to describe them, and it is a deceptively simple concept. The worlds themselves are beautifully rendered, like painted alien landscapes. As you explore the different environments, you can leave notes about what you observe and thoughts on what has happened, be it what these worlds were once like, or something entirely random. You can write as little or as much as you like, and that is both the beauty and the burden of the game.
The closest example that springs to mind is the upcoming No Man’s Sky, where the emphasis is expected to be on exploration and sharing your findings with players. In both, players are intergalactic explorers where the end results are infinite. Just as No Man’s Sky promises no two worlds alike, Elegy For A Dead World offers a chance to read countless narratives based on a single point of inspiration; players are able to read countless takes on the planets scribbled down by their peers. As a creative writer, this type of collective experiment is truly invigorating.
There is a certain beauty in a game that requires nothing but an inquisitive mind and a wish to write. It has a haunting presence that remains with you for days after playing, wondering about the landscapes you glanced at and the histories behind them. This open-ended idea makes exploring other people’s writing all the more exciting, like comparing theories on the plot of your favourite TV show or upcoming movie. Big studios that sacrifice storytelling or leave it as a mere afterthought could learn a lot from this type of inferred narrative.
Writing endless streams of prose comes easier to some than others. Developer Dejobann Games has catered to those who perhaps struggle with free-form writing, offering formats in the style of the writers the planets are named after, three poets of the Romantic period: Shelley, Byron, and Keats. English Lit grads might groan at this trio, but they are solid choices; each is well-known and used an accessible, easy to understand format with styles that are simple enough to imitate.
While there is not be much replay factor in rewriting your own stories of these dead worlds glimpsed within the game, the attraction of reading other takes on the same plains is nothing short of inspiring. Dejobaan also has the option to add hundreds of new worlds in the future based on other writers. If it is able to expand into these near-infinite possibilities, it could see the game become a centerpiece for a new genre of video game, a resurrection and resurgence of text-based games. As well as the potential to give rise to new storytelling modes and mediums, the game could also be used as a non-intrusive educational device, and if it can shift a generation away from illiteracy and text-speak, then this world will be a lot better off exploring fictional dead ones.
Review Disclosure: A review copy of Elegy For A Dead World was provided by Dejobaan Games for the purposes of this review.
