I’ve held an interest in this game ever since I found out about it. There’s something about surreal artwork that’s always fascinated me and this is no different.
I love that artists like Osamu Sato, the creator of this game, have had the opportunity to realize their unique visions and at one time had the ability to release these niche products in a physical medium. I’d imagine it was as difficult for them to find financial backing for their projects as it was for auteurs like David Lynch or Alejandro Jodorowsky in their burgeoning years.
I suppose I’ve mastered or performed a 100% run since I completed a full year of in-game days, but who's to say what a completist run looks like in this game? Around day 45, I happened to trigger every(?) cutscene in the game. I could have stopped there, but even as the days wore on, I kept finding new things–whether they be textures, models, or music.
Overall, though, I think the game is more interesting conceptually than it is to actually pick up and play. To finish a year feels like an endurance test after a while. Once I triggered those cutscenes, I didn’t know if it was even worth continuing at all. What does the game mean, anyway? I felt like I was able to make some vague, semiconscious connections to certain settings and models, but I didn’t know if I was right or not. Maybe that's the point.
We know that in our dreams, we experience the familiar with the unfamiliar. We also know that dreams have been open to interpretation since the time of the ancient Mesopotamians to the time of Freud. Scientists have worked hard to uncover the neuroscientific secrets of sleep and, while much has been accomplished in the field, very little can explain our dreams.
Maybe Sato wanted to animate those concepts through this game–allow his audience to play a game like one dreams, on an automatic subconscious level.
Either way, I can’t say it was a bad experience. It gave me time to think and that’s always a good thing.
I love that artists like Osamu Sato, the creator of this game, have had the opportunity to realize their unique visions and at one time had the ability to release these niche products in a physical medium. I’d imagine it was as difficult for them to find financial backing for their projects as it was for auteurs like David Lynch or Alejandro Jodorowsky in their burgeoning years.
I suppose I’ve mastered or performed a 100% run since I completed a full year of in-game days, but who's to say what a completist run looks like in this game? Around day 45, I happened to trigger every(?) cutscene in the game. I could have stopped there, but even as the days wore on, I kept finding new things–whether they be textures, models, or music.
Overall, though, I think the game is more interesting conceptually than it is to actually pick up and play. To finish a year feels like an endurance test after a while. Once I triggered those cutscenes, I didn’t know if it was even worth continuing at all. What does the game mean, anyway? I felt like I was able to make some vague, semiconscious connections to certain settings and models, but I didn’t know if I was right or not. Maybe that's the point.
We know that in our dreams, we experience the familiar with the unfamiliar. We also know that dreams have been open to interpretation since the time of the ancient Mesopotamians to the time of Freud. Scientists have worked hard to uncover the neuroscientific secrets of sleep and, while much has been accomplished in the field, very little can explain our dreams.
Maybe Sato wanted to animate those concepts through this game–allow his audience to play a game like one dreams, on an automatic subconscious level.
Either way, I can’t say it was a bad experience. It gave me time to think and that’s always a good thing.