Sometimes, you may cross paths with a game that makes you think. Makes you reflect. Makes you feel things you didn't think you could feel, and makes you have thoughts that may terrify you, revealing secrets to you that maybe you thought were better locked away.
This time, that game is You are THE SWOOORD.
The game manages to evoke several questions during it's playtime that further enrich the mysterious story that develops as the game progresses. At first, seeming like some sort of Rock or Plant Simulator, the game expertly subverts your expectations when you allow yourself to play it like the developer intended, by allowing yourself to become one with the sword. To be the sword yourself.
You can't help but ask yourself questions about the fascinating universe presented in the game as you allow yourself to be engrossed in your duty as a sword.
How did the sword get in there in the first place? Is this a barren wasteland, or a simple representation of what the sword imagines to be its location? Did the sword have an owner? Or was it there ever since the beginning of time?
What would you, as a sword, feel? Of course, as a sword, you possess no nerve endings.
What would you hear? Of course, as a sword, you have no ears.
What would you smell? Of course, as a sword, you have no nose.
But say that, for example, you were turned into the sword by a witch. Would that entail you losing your conscience as well? If you were to be stuck in a heavy, sharp, metallic husk, with your abilities to sense, hear, smell, see, taste and touch completely stripped away from you, what would you be left with?
Would you suffer an existance in agony, yearning to one day be released from this piercing prison made of iron and forged in fire? Would you live reflecting on your mistakes? On your successes? On your loved ones?
Would you live reflecting on yourself?
In truth, the secret to beating this enrapturing experience has been discussed by scholars over the past few days. But if you want my personal opinion, I believe the secret to win the game... is to simply not think.
The game only asks of you to become the sword. To let yourself be immersed in the role and position of the sword. And as the sword forever glimmers in the sunlight, unfazed by all things happening in the game, you must follow suit.
To beat You are THE SWOOORD is to become the sword. But that's just my opinion, of course.
Beautiful game, Progz.