Indie showcase

DEVELOPER Deconstructeam PRICE $28.95 AVAILABILITY Released WEBSITE https://essaysonempathy.com/

AAA developers aren’t always good about sharing aspects of their process, sometimes even years after their game has shipped. Indie developers vary. Many are secretive until release, others are extremely generous when offering ideas and insight, especially to other developers, if not always with press. Essays on Empathy is a rare treat. Each of these tiny games has a neat, detailed interview with three Deconstructeam developers. Everything is on the table for discussion, including art, music, design, even the wider social context in which they are creating.

A quick scan of coverage suggests many game reviewers similarly appreciate this collection, while a number of players don’t. Most of these games were made for game jams, including Ludum Dare, and there are legitimate criticisms to be made about the lack of polish, and the bugs. If you want ten games, there’s a bundle for you elsewhere. This is for players more interested in process, artistry and stories. I ( personally) love how small scope games can focus clearly on one, limited aspect of play or context, so that’s another positive for me, too.

The first thing I did, on opening the collection, was to skim through all of the blurbs to find what I wanted to play first. Behind Every Great One is described as “the toughest game” because of the way it depicts (in the developers’ words) “abusive relationship dynamics”. The accompanying video explains that this is personal content for developers, based on lived experiences. I was curious to see why they spoke about the game so sadly. It’s not that they were reluctant to share it, more that they regretted its very existence. It’s certainly honest.

I’m not sure if Behind Every Great One is an “empathy game”. It is a tale of a married couple. Certainly, I wouldn’t tolerate Gabriel’s behaviour, as a mature adult. He’s a moody visual artist. But I did tolerate this kind of thing in my first few relationships. I suppose you’d say that it’s not always clear what distinguishes a thoughtless comment from verbal abuse. The story combines sweeter moments with criticism. The quality of your housework is often under fire. Sometimes you want to “make love”, other times there is undue pressure. It’s quite exhausting.

Tensions rise when Gabriel is injured and his parents come to stay. I wouldn’t generally describe myself as a spiteful person, but smoking in front of a disapproving mother-in-law made me smile. I think my enduring impression of Behind Every Great One is that I’m glad my (real) husband does a lot of housework. I didn’t experience the kind of horror the designers suggested players might, but I get it. Boundaries and expectations in relationships are confusing. It’s not OK to be mean. Extended family should never visit, because they make everything worse.

Several games in the bundle centre around family and relationships. Engolasters is about being embroiled in an alien conspiracy, while your family quietly implodes without you (if you actually try to spend ten minutes investigating, not to mention avoid bleeding to death). For goodness sakes, people, talk to each other and (I don’t know) maybe do some housework? The Bookshelf Limbo, by contrast, is a relaxing experience in which you choose a comic for your dad’s birthday. You don’t meet your dad, but you learn a lot about him by rejecting reading material.

I was expecting to just sample each tiny game, but I ended

up playing several quite thoroughly. I’m sure I’ll go and find the developers’ other games soon, too. In the accompanying interviews, they often refer to The Red Strings Club, built from ideas explored in several of the collection, including Supercontinent Ltd. This time, you’re a freelance cyberpunk hacker (in sneakers) confronted with a landline telephone. But don’t worry, you’re given instructions on how to push buttons to make a call, and the ability to impersonate people.

These elements frame a mystery that feels very rewarding to solve. You’ll unravel subversive plots, undermine democracy, save victims of kidnapping, or at least do some of these things and pretend to do others, all with your feet comfortably resting on the executive’s desk. It’s not clear what your role in events is, or who you’re working for, but you’re definitely a hacker, stealing passwords and fudging security questions in a way that is logically woven into the story. I’m impressed by how simple, yet elegant, these puzzles are. The ending is really clever, too.

Another game, 11:45 A Vivid Life, generates endings based on your interpretation of the objects you find inside your body. You’re a teenager who has stolen an X-ray machine and an array of surgical implements. Some pretty strange things have happened to you and you need to decide, not so much discover, why. I wouldn’t generally call myself squeamish, but the warning about self-mutilation is on point. In this particular case, I enjoyed playing multiple times and then looking at the design documents to see how my choices led to each divergent ending.

I would have liked to see something similar for Del Tres Al Cuarto (three for a quarter, or something of little value), because it’s a card-game, comedy show which only pretends to be complex. You choose dialogue and play cards that lead to half decent jokes, or obviously bad jokes. It’s stressful to be a mediocre comedian, especially when you notice no-one is laughing and the audience is talking over you. You’re also sad, between shows, and I loved how the developers mentioned that the best jokes were meant to happen between characters in private.

It’s cool to note features of these games and then have the developers explain exactly what you noticed in more detail. I didn’t always experience the games precisely the way they were expecting players to, but I certainly felt emotionally connected, in the way they were striving for. In the final video, the developers mentioned they have created 33 games altogether. It’s a great reminder of the value of jamming, especially because they are able to so clearly link systems, art, diegetic sound and story to successful aspects of their larger games, and overall process.

I’ve been trying to think of a way to concisely summarise Essays on Empathy and I can’t shake the word, “pretentious”. It has such a negative connotation. If something is pretentious, it’s trying to seem more important than it is. With the interviews, assets and curatorial presentation, I’d say Essays on Empathy only seems at all “pretentious’’ because these games have been given the rare and special treatment (I think) all games deserve. I suspect this collection won’t be for everyone, but it was definitely for me, and for people who appreciate insight into the games that move them.