Game review: Esoteric Ebb
Esoteric Ebb by Christoffer Bodegård.
This is a game that will kill you for being too masculine.
You start the game building essentially a Dungeons and Dragons character. It doesn't matter so much which stats you pick out at first, you character will be very weak. You don't know anything, you don't have any gear and you certainly aren't strong. Any action that could constitute hubris or over-confidence (especially in front of women) will have you taken down a notch.
As the game progresses you and your character will explore politics, gender and city of Norvik. Your choices are guided by 6 inner monologues corresponding to the stats Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma. The quality of their advice depends on how strong you are in each of those traits. They have their own personalities (with political stances) and often riff off each other.
You'll receive damage in all kinds of ways; my character once died from admitting that he lives with his mother. I have messed up equally by walking into traps and by saying the wrong thing whilst flirting. It would have been nice to be able to flirt with the men too but ah well.
I started this game with the demo which allows you to play the first day out of five of the game. I was immediately hooked by the writing and the visuals - you are dropped straight away into the mystery of your own death in the approach to an election. Everything is perfectly paced.
The writing is excellent. Love has been poured into the world building for the world that is the Esoteric Coast. The characters have tonnes of personality and the humour is excellent. I certainly hope you like reading because there's a lot of writing here. The approach to building the world through your dialogue choices is wonderful.
All in all I completed (as far as I know) all of my quest lines in 23 hours.
My computer struggled to handle some of the busier scenes towards the end of the game. I expect this came from limitations of the game engine. I'll be checking out Ink, the scripting language used for this game. It is made by the same people who made The Game Narrative Kaleidoscope.
I really loved Esoteric Ebb, I would be comfortable placing it in my top five games of all time (I should write that list); certainly the best writing I've ever seen. The game helped me understand my own thoughts on politics (I'm probably a communist now) and how I like to interact with people (apparently chaotic good). I look forward to more games to come in this world setting.
For more on the exploration of manhood in this game I can recommend the article by Zoë Hannah in Mothership. Luke Plunkett has also written about the gorgeous artwork.
Thank you for reading.
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