Fugue in Void


Jul 20, 2020

Fugue in Void

Oooh, an arty game! I have heard of such creations.

The soul is the weariest part of the body

This project took me over 6 months and is the result of my creative chaos.

It is my all and everything.

I can smell the art already! No, I can feel it. Feel that art.

Enough snark. Yes, this is a "walking simulator". I'm not really fond of that term, but it seems like it's been sort of re-claimed and not inherently derogatory these days, since I see some games proudly wearing the genre. You walk around, and check stuff out, there's not much to it. There's buttons I pressed to open doors. Before getting to the practical side of things, allow me to try putting on an Art Hat for a sec:

The environments - and this appears to be the developer's big thing - are brutalist architecture with minimal decor. The building itself was frightening and anxiety-inducing even though nothing was really happening. Brutalist buildings can be described as dehumanizing already, but the droning noises and music, along with lighting choices that frequently have me walking directly into pitch black, were outright antagonistic. I am not welcome here, or at the most generous, nothing was designed with my presence in mind. I jump into a pitch-black hole, to get unceremoniously coughed out into another oppressive interior, not so much a cubicle farm, but a cubicle maze of stone chambers and hallways.

And now, for the practical side of things: This piece opens with an actual 8-10 minute intro. Really, I kept track, it's a very long sequence of no interaction showing abstract environments and light shows. I started browsing my phone near the end of it before realizing I finally entered "the game". As interesting as the environments are, and what they managed to evoke in me, ultimately it was a linear trip without much to truly explore, and even some annoying moments of the darkness not helping at all to know where to go. I decided I had enough after about 30 minutes of play... well, 20 minutes of play if we don't count that intro.

I checked a video for what I missed, and it seems like I gave up right before some of the more interesting moments and a major break-away from what I was experiencing up to that point. Which is a real shame, but if I wasn't interested in continuing, I wasn't interested in continuing. Video game or art display, you still need to spark something in the audience to see it through, and the experience and curiosity I had wasn't enough to get past the rest.

I enjoyed moments, but was mostly bored. I don't think it's relevant if it is a "good game" or not, but Fugue in Void may be a hard sell for your time.