Hey everyone. lets talk awesome. yeah I know, the word gets used a fair bit, but today we are going to be talking about "Memory of a broken dimension prototype" or MOBD for short. And so we will be talking in the true sense of AWE-some. An excellent short experience that has no explanation, and is better off for that fact (unfortunately I couldn't get a hold of the finished product, so we will be talking about the version 2 prototype).
MOBD is a 20 minute unity based game which essentially has two parts, the first being a constantly mutating DOS screen that sets a dark and mysterious one. Only after inputting the correct sequence of codes can the player access the second phase of the game. Here the game gives the player control of an unseen character who can walk, jump and piece the world around them back together. Which becomes the main focus of the game. In the prototype when you finish fixing as much of the level as you can (although are you really fixing anything? Are you just trying to escape?), and cross what I can only describe as an event horizon (which has been hovering over you for most of the game, warping space around you), the game cuts to a simulated "blue screen of death", before restarting from the top.
MOBD is based around exploration, discovery, and a truly deep sense of the uncanny. From the point at which it loads, MOBD drags the player down into a world where they know nothing, and have only implication to go off. Words like space, satellite and shutdown spring out of the code to give the player only the roughest of ideas as to what has actually happened. This ties in with the games overall atmosphere which is downright creepy. From the untimely mutating code, which you can't escape from, (seriously, if you press escape it just tells you "there is no escape" or if you type "exit" it tells you" you can not exit") to the static and glitching world you inhabit during the games second stage. Overall the effect on the player, is similar to that found in Slender: the 8 pages. You know something is there, or is it? how much is just you being scared, and how much is the game?
As I mentioned before, the code in the game's first section constantly mutates. from single digits to whole words being added or warped. It is at the least off putting, as the player is never certain why it's happening, whether it is intentionally random, or supposed to be another entity inside the same system. The best part is you will never know. As we move into the second part the game has more elements to work with, from a black and white visual layout to an environment the player can now interact with. The screen itself begins to become covered in pseudo-random static, and players surroundings, although being based on geometric lines, shift and warp, keeping the player constantly disorientated. Overall the game is well planned and executed, and while it isn't scary in the conventional sense, it is something much more fulfilling, there are no jump scares, and your beating heart will not run at supersonic speeds. But it will fill every corner of your mind with a concoction of unsettling intrigue. And the best part is, you will want to see more by the end.
Expect an experience, not so much of a game in the traditional sense. Expect to turn off the lights, put in your best headphones/speaker set, and then soon wonder if you are actually alone in the room.
Expect to be left with questions, and slow answers that will trickle into your mind the next night when you are lying in bed.
Expect the true feeling of being in awe, amazed at the art style, the technical aspects used to bring that style to life. The uncomfortable feeling of standing in a world with some thing much greater than yourself, something unknown. Maybe awesome, maybe awful. Either way an awe inspiring entity which is in no certain way, certainly expressed through MOBD's gameplay.