“But not the life that fears death and only protects itself from destruction, but the one that endures it and is preserved in it, is the life of the spirit. He achieves his truth only by finding himself in absolute fragmentation.”
Introduction
Every gamer has his own top favorite games. I have it too. And if you ask me why I like them, I will answer: “Immersion. I love these games because of the immersion". And this applies to every game from my top. Mor is no exception. And if you think that I just blatantly equated Pestilence with other games, just because it immerses the player so well, then you are mistaken. Since each game immerses the player in its own, maybe even unique ways. And now I will try to explain why Pestilence is in my top list, and how it immerses the player.
Dive
As I said earlier, Pestilence immerses the player using its own methods, or rather, the method of high (barely bearable) complexity. Why do I highlight difficulty as an important aspect for player immersion in the game?? Let’s look at the beginning of the game.
We play as a doctor in a plague-stricken city. The player’s task is to find a panacea in difficult conditions. How can these difficult conditions be felt by the player who is in a comfortable chair, and outside the window the sun is shining and the birds are singing?? Try to immerse the player in this atmosphere headlong. Graphics? Partly, but it’s still not enough. Interesting characters you care about? Yes, but this is also in books and films, and we are playing a game, so we need to turn to the gameplay itself. How to do it? It’s simple. Our doctor is an ordinary person who, like all people, has his own needs: hunger, sleep, thirst, etc. d. In addition to the fact that our hero is a man, he is also a doctor, which means he must fulfill his duties: go to people, treat them, carry out instructions for a variety of characters and, of course, look for a panacea for the infection. Now add here the real threat of the plague and the possibility of becoming infected from it. With all this, for each death you acquire negative debuffs to health, hunger and other needs that last until the end of the game. Welcome to Mor.
Why is it so difficult and what does the bone house have to do with it??
The developers of Mora are not exactly ordinary developers. For them, a game is not entertainment, it is not a place where people can relax peacefully. The game is a kind of bone house.
I accidentally changed the trajectory of my life. This world has a strange power that inevitably affects everyone who touches it. Playing with it is a challenge, creating it is an even greater challenge.
I can’t say whether I made an irreparable mistake by going here without knowing the ford.The constructor at the https://davincisgold.co.uk/games/ end of "Pestilence"
In ancient times, boys, in order to become men capable of feeding their tribe, passed through a house of bones. That is, this is a kind of initiation rite, where terrible tests are carried out on a boy, through which he seems to grow up and change. And thus, entering the bone house as boys, they came out as men. IPL wants to make games like Bone House. They believe that games can become training grounds for people to evaluate their values and worldview. And by going through such games people can be more adapted to real life.
Did they manage to make a bone house, if we are talking about “Sea”? Now we’ll find out.
The player is more important than the hero
It’s clear from what I said earlier, when making Pestilence the developers tried to create a kind of testing ground for the player in which he would change and become stronger. Otherwise for IPL it’s just a waste of time.
Therefore, this breaking of the fourth wall is understandable. This is a play in which the player plays one of the important roles and must play it as authentically as possible. Therefore, the director of this play made it as dangerous as possible, as in reality for authenticity. In it, the actors die and replace each other.
You will say, if the game itself recognizes the artificiality of what is happening, then where can immersion for the player come from?? Firstly, this does not negatively affect immersion in any way. Secondly, it immerses you even more. How? Well, for example, when playing a big game, there is a chance of meeting characters whose models will match. This just interferes with immersion. “Pestilence” is no exception, but within the framework of the game this “flaw” is due to. Since what happens in the game is only a play, it means there are actors in it. The cast is not large, since the play is specific (this is my invention), therefore, meeting the same person in the grocery store, in the pharmacy and on the street, this does not push me out of the immersion (remember the film “The Truman Show”). It’s just one actor. It immerses me even more because you feel like an actor just like them.
The task of the dive, in my opinion, was more than accomplished. Now the player experiences losses, events in the game, threats, almost like real ones. The Bone House is ready, but what will the challenges be for the player??
Tests
In any difficult life situations, we have to sacrifice something, choose, make maximum bets and lose them… and move on, move with what you have, dragging behind you both defeats and victories, but more defeats than victories.
As the game progresses, more and more responsibilities and tasks fall on the player’s shoulders. He can safely skip them and purely focus on his own survival. No one is stopping him from doing that. But there is that same “immersion”, because of which some events, such as the banal duty of healing people, or helping your childhood friends, or saving children from the list of a deceased father, feel like real. And it is the player’s personal interest to carry them out. And therefore, the player can logically justify the failure to complete these tasks, as if they were real.
Conclusion
So, we have difficult conditions for passing the game for the player, which are determined by the plot itself (plague in the city), as well as by a crazy director who stages this play so that it is deadly for the actors. There are also tasks for the player that are in his interests to carry out or not to carry out in these difficult conditions. And what’s the end result?? The developers, I’m sure, also don’t know what will be in the player’s head after going through this bone room, just as we can only guess what was going on in the hedgehog’s head at the end of the cartoon “Hedgehog in the Fog”. But like the hedgehog, the player, I think, will no longer be the same, something will change inside, or maybe not.
Personal experience
These difficult conditions, due to which you have to make difficult choices among options that do not have one exactly right, only get worse due to player errors. And having made a mistake on the wrong option, worsening an already difficult situation, you don’t load into an early save (because it’s almost pointless), but move on, look for solutions, already taking into account that painful experience, and then… and then catharsis.
The game teaches you to choose, teaches you to get up after defeat and move on, teaches you that even after so many losses and defeats, victory can loom ahead. You just have to not give up. What is not a training ground for real life??
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