"In six days every single living cell in the world will die. You have one chance to save the world."

December 7, 2010 2:42 PM

"In six days every single living cell in the world will die. You have one chance to save the world." This is a short adventure game. Use arrow keys to move around and the space bar to interact. If you want to play this, avoid reading the thread. You do not want it spoiled. It is not a twisty game, but in this journey it is better to not know what lies ahead.
posted by Kattullus (109 comments total)

SPOILER ALERT
posted by griphus at 2:44 PM on December 7, 2010 [19 favorites]

Take the five minutes out and play it. Warning! Art!
posted by josher71 at 2:45 PM on December 7, 2010

Via Rock Paper Shotgun.

The last day it was clear that everyone but me and my daughter were dead. Instead of going to work, I went to the park where she and I died, sitting on a park bench while the snow fell. I thought about forcing a replay, but I decided that this particular ending was perfect.
posted by Kattullus at 2:45 PM on December 7, 2010 [4 favorites]

Exact same ending for me.
posted by josher71 at 2:46 PM on December 7, 2010

RPS comment, probably better read afterwards
posted by Artw at 2:47 PM on December 7, 2010 [6 favorites]

spoiler
posted by juv3nal at 2:48 PM on December 7, 2010

So there's more to this game than a screen entirely blank except for the word "PLAY"?
posted by kenko at 2:55 PM on December 7, 2010

Can't you click it? Maybe the clickable area is a bit off-center.
posted by Kattullus at 2:56 PM on December 7, 2010

SPOILER

From my run through and reading other comments, it seems that you get the best outcome by going to work every day. You can at least save yourself and your daughter. Don't think you can do better than that.
posted by auto-correct at 2:57 PM on December 7, 2010

This game owes a lot to Every Day the Same Dream. It owes so much, in fact, that I'm tempted to call it a shameless ripoff.
posted by mr_roboto at 2:59 PM on December 7, 2010 [17 favorites]

I can click the initial newgrounds loading screen with a "play" button, but the white text PLAY on black background, nuthin.

(Ah ok I tabbed to find the clickable areas: only the letters, not the entire rectangle enclosing the word. That's a pretty narrow space.)
posted by kenko at 2:59 PM on December 7, 2010

SPOILER ALERT

Does that make a 5-string bass Cthulhu?
posted by ob at 3:05 PM on December 7, 2010

I cheated on my wife and then committed suicide with one day left to go.
posted by Gator at 3:05 PM on December 7, 2010

I ended up dying alone on a park bench. My biggest regret in life was turning down that offer of a drink from the office party-girl on day 1...
posted by afx237vi at 3:05 PM on December 7, 2010

Hey, I went to the bar with a woman wearing a short black dress. That's how it all ended.
posted by KokuRyu at 3:05 PM on December 7, 2010

I got Kattullus' outcome.

The game tells you at the outset that no matter what you do, everyone will die, but I tried to play as I thought the main character, who does not have that information, would act.
posted by kenko at 3:12 PM on December 7, 2010

SPOILER

Yeah so uh, I played it and got the park ending, then looked through what some other people wrote . . . am I missing something or is the whole point of this "work of art" to remind us that we should never take days off work? Because I think that's kind of dumb.
posted by chaff at 3:15 PM on December 7, 2010 [7 favorites]

But even though it told me there was no hope, I am so conditioned by games that I had to keep trying.
I ended up dying with the daughter in the park too. I guess that's the best ending? Better than suicide or dying alone.

Cheery diversion. Thanks.

I need a drink now.
posted by CunningLinguist at 3:17 PM on December 7, 2010 [3 favorites]

Nice.

SPOILER

Quibble: I wish that there was some indication that the game ended. I sat there in the park with my daughter...waiting...waiting...furiously clicking at anything wondering, "well...?"
posted by The ____ of Justice at 3:17 PM on December 7, 2010 [4 favorites]

am I missing something or is the whole point of this "work of art" to remind us that we should never take days off work? Because I think that's kind of dumb.

Well, not to be a jerk, but what do you think?
posted by josher71 at 3:18 PM on December 7, 2010

I found this game dull and unplayable.
posted by grouse at 3:19 PM on December 7, 2010 [1 favorite]

I wish that there was some indication that the game ended.

Yeah, after I jumped off the roof, nothing happened, the music kept playing. And of course, the creator spoke true -- you don't get another chance (no replay button), so when I go back to the game, I still see the empty rooftop, now being dusted with a light coating of snow.

I never once entered the lab. Not once did I do a lick of work. Even my extramarital dalliance took place out in my car.
posted by Gator at 3:21 PM on December 7, 2010

I only made it to two days left... skipped work until I couldn't figure out how to interact with the fam anymore, and when I went back in Jim stabbed me. Not too happy with that ending!
posted by biochemist at 3:23 PM on December 7, 2010

Oh I should add, wife was in bed and daughter nowhere to be found. Maybe they'd both died?
posted by biochemist at 3:27 PM on December 7, 2010

well, one chance per flash cookie.
posted by striatic at 3:29 PM on December 7, 2010

I hypothesize that the interstitials and the music are responsible for 100% of the praise this game is getting.
posted by kenko at 3:32 PM on December 7, 2010 [1 favorite]

As striatic suggets, you can right click within the game, go to settings, and slide "local storage" to 0k. Then you can play again.

This approach to saving the world will not teach you how to lose gracefully, but it may win you a commendation from Starfleet Academy, for original thinking.
posted by condour75 at 3:34 PM on December 7, 2010 [6 favorites]

SPOILER ALERT

Hey! I use that exact same bass! But red...
posted by sourwookie at 3:35 PM on December 7, 2010

There's that feeling of depressive helplessness I was looking for his evening...
posted by SNWidget at 3:36 PM on December 7, 2010 [4 favorites]

I got the park bench ending. I kept thinking that the game wanted me to spend time with my family, but if I'm John, and I'm responsible for the destruction of humanity, I figure I am pretty much obligated to go into the office every day to try and correct it.

So, there's no magic elixir found?
posted by pineapple at 3:41 PM on December 7, 2010

Well, not to be a jerk, but what do you think?

I think maybe it has something to do with keeping faith in hard science and hard work, even when things are scary and hopeless? And . . . don't cheat on your wife I guess? I'm honestly mystified. I don't mean to crap on it, the art and music are pleasing enough, and it does evoke real feelings of desolation and despair, but so would any game that said "here's your young family; now they are dead."

Maybe I'm just a bad fit for these meditative non-game games.
posted by chaff at 3:46 PM on December 7, 2010 [1 favorite]

Yeah, it was bleak, but do we really expect contemporary end-of-the-world narratives to be uplifting?
posted by treepour at 3:53 PM on December 7, 2010

I didn't understand why they didn't just, you know, not release the gas.
posted by kenko at 3:58 PM on December 7, 2010 [4 favorites]

Or how they could possibly have tested and confirmed its cancer-killing properties without learning about its everything-killing properties.
posted by kenko at 3:59 PM on December 7, 2010 [7 favorites]

Aw, man, I refreshed the site to play again and I was still dead on the bench. Harsh.

Reminds of of The Graveyard, where if you die, and return to the game later, you're still dead.
posted by notmydesk at 4:04 PM on December 7, 2010

This is a ridiculously shallow, simple-minded, manipulative game/art/whatever (and as mr_roboto points out, completely derivative).

The pixel-art-on-canvas-textured-background aesthetic was nice enough, though.
posted by Casuistry at 4:04 PM on December 7, 2010 [1 favorite]

I hypothesize that the interstitials and the music are responsible for 100% of the praise this game is getting.

Agreed. It's not even really a game. It's a movie that you have to work for.
posted by gjc at 4:12 PM on December 7, 2010 [3 favorites]

Nah, that's Call of Duty.
posted by Artw at 4:15 PM on December 7, 2010

Spoiler alert:

It's possible to save yourself and your daughter, however to get there, you have to go through the "abandoned wife commits suicide" arc, ignore any sort of emotion from anybody, and just keep working. This is the "best" ending, which I'm kind of disappointed by.

The ending that disappointed me most though was the spend time with your family arc. Instead of dying gracefully together, my family was murdered by a deranged lunatic. Lame.

I agree that the park bench death is the best story. It's seems to be the most human.
posted by yeolcoatl at 4:15 PM on December 7, 2010

SPOILER:


I also got the suicidal wife, saved myself and my daughter in the nick of time. It's... yeah. Just... yeah. I was hoping for something more! Especially when you look at the future, and the pair are probably going to be dead of something or other... or at the very least, will have to resort to incest to repopulate the Earth...
posted by Stormfeather at 4:24 PM on December 7, 2010

I got stabbed by one of the other scientists.
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 4:26 PM on December 7, 2010

Uh... I went to the park with my daughter and I ended up being trapped in a limbo of white linen. Either this art game is buggy or the art is way over my head.
posted by Solon and Thanks at 4:32 PM on December 7, 2010

The Great Big Mulp: I got stabbed by one of the other scientists.

And then you played the game?
posted by Kattullus at 4:41 PM on December 7, 2010 [2 favorites]

So if you save yourself and your daughter, where do you end up? In the park but alive?
posted by CunningLinguist at 4:46 PM on December 7, 2010

Yep
posted by yeolcoatl at 4:48 PM on December 7, 2010

Humph. Rather be dead. Because you know the zombies are coming next.
posted by CunningLinguist at 4:52 PM on December 7, 2010 [1 favorite]

The wife offed herself in the bathtub, but the daughter and I survived and lived happily ever after, alone, in the park.
posted by x_3mta3 at 4:59 PM on December 7, 2010

The wife was dead in the tub on day 3, and the daughter died on day 4 after she wasn't feeling well in the park. I died alone in the lab on day 5. That's what I get for putting off work...
posted by Pruitt-Igoe at 5:00 PM on December 7, 2010

Yeah, maybe it's a commentary on those people who say things like, "Nobody ever goes to their deathbed wishing they'd spent more time at the office." But if I had spent one more day at the office, I could have saved the world!
posted by Gator at 5:06 PM on December 7, 2010 [2 favorites]

So, those of you who got the they-live ending, how'd you manage that? I went to work every day, I thought, and at the end even though it was past tense I opted to take the kid into work again because I didn't think it made sense to just give up, and died sitting on the floor in the lab. Or did I click on something somewhere I shouldn't have?

In the end, it didn't feel as meaningful as Every Day the Same Dream, especially given that the interface is just so... well, it's not very obvious what you can and can't and should and shouldn't interact with. If the game is supposed to be about making meaningful decisions because you only have one chance, it doesn't totally make sense to me that the only thing you can do is just hit space bar repeatedly hoping you can interact with something. Unless the message here is supposed to be something about the futility and pointlessness of life.

Which I guess is possible, but, yeah, I wasn't really a fan.
posted by gracedissolved at 5:14 PM on December 7, 2010 [1 favorite]

For a less grave take on this idea, see You Only Live Once.
posted by Rhaomi at 5:14 PM on December 7, 2010 [2 favorites]

am I missing something or is the whole point of this "work of art" to remind us that we should never take days off work? Because I think that's kind of dumb.

I think the point of this game begins with the introductory text. You do indeed have one "chance" to save the world, but there is no ambiguity in "In six days every single living cell in the world will die." There is no "unless" there.

So where does that leave us? Do we accept fate as is, or do we try our best to change the course of destiny, even if we know that our efforts will prove futile? In this case, our hero of course does not change destiny - as we're told quite plainly in the introduction - but his efforts do at least give him the best possible outcome considering the circumstances.

That is, maybe you won't be able to prevent catastrophe, but your efforts to stave it off may let you face it with a peaceful heart, and possibly not alone.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 5:19 PM on December 7, 2010 [2 favorites]

I choose not to believe that, after trying for 5 days with no sign of success, and witnessing the unexpected suicide of my wife, somehow on the 7th day I would have ended up curing it. I took my daughter to the park when it seemed clear there was no reason to hope, and that I was better off seeing her through her last hours. I died on the bench knowing I had done the right thing (tinged with regret about not having been with my wife during her crisis -- why didn't she warn me??), and if God had in those last moments whispered to me, you know, if you had taken your daughter to the lab that last day and worked another 20 hours, she wouldn't have died on the office couch while your back was turned but would have lived -- I would have said, why the hell should I have expected that? I did the best I could with what I knew; if You chose to make the universe ironic and unbayesian, that's your problem. Then I would listen to the snow for as long as I had left.
posted by chortly at 5:25 PM on December 7, 2010 [8 favorites]

This game is badly designed. I kept trying to have sex with the wife, and it wouldn't let me. And it's not because she was saying no, 'cause I tried to have sex with her body in the tub and still no joy.

But the music sure is catchy.
posted by Simon Barclay at 5:28 PM on December 7, 2010 [1 favorite]

I think these non-games would be less irritating if I had some way of telling whether I was failing because of their crappy interface, or failing because that's the point of the game.
posted by Joe in Australia at 5:30 PM on December 7, 2010 [5 favorites]

Will not load for me. Gets to 80% and stalls out.
posted by charlie don't surf at 5:37 PM on December 7, 2010

Dammit, on further reflection, God was right -- again : ( Even if 99% of the world was dead already, and even if it meant having my daughter die in the lab while my back was turned, and even if I thought the chance of a breakthrough on the last day was minuscule -- that tiny chance to save the millions who remained probably means I should have done my duty in the office, miserable death for me and my daughter though it would probably have meant. Maybe I could at least open the lab window that last day, and listen to the snow fall through it as I hopelessly worked.
posted by chortly at 5:46 PM on December 7, 2010 [2 favorites]

After cheating, I determined that the first day the going out thing was actually something I did accidentally and not something required, which changes the ending, although not the word 'had'. Odd.
posted by gracedissolved at 6:43 PM on December 7, 2010

Yes, it was emotionally manipulative, but I enjoyed it. It was often a bit difficult to work out what you could and couldn't do, however.

I got the you-and-your-daughter-live ending, mostly because I figured if I was partly responsible for the end of the world, I should do whatever it took to try and fix it. I can see how you'd end up with the you-and-your-daughter-dead-in-the-park ending though – the game certainly suggests that any further effort is pointless.
posted by damonism at 7:09 PM on December 7, 2010

I hate that "deep" games like these are always littered with spelling errors.

'Its', not 'it's'. 'Were', not 'where'.

Grar.
posted by painquale at 7:10 PM on December 7, 2010 [2 favorites]

I have tried to play this damned game in all three major Mac browsers, and I cannot move at all; it hasn't responded once to keyboard input.

Christ, how annoying.
posted by ChrisR at 7:19 PM on December 7, 2010

I'm not sure if anyone else experienced this but: Went to work until the wife suicided and then decided to take my daughter to the park. She's on your back the whoe time. She dies that night and the next (last) day I go into work. When I get there, my little girl appears on my back! I turn and she disappears... spooky!
posted by skest at 7:20 PM on December 7, 2010 [1 favorite]

skest, I had that happen too! Thought it was a bug but maybe it's a ghost-type thing.
posted by biochemist at 7:39 PM on December 7, 2010

My beautiful bride points out that this is the flash / art version of the Kobayashi Maru

There is no way to win.
posted by MikeWarot at 8:17 PM on December 7, 2010 [2 favorites]

SPOILER

I have to say it really bothers me that the disease is a gas, but the antidote is injected. With that delivery method, finding the antidote is still completely pointless. The man and his daughter survive, but no other cell on earth does. Big whoop.
posted by yeolcoatl at 8:31 PM on December 7, 2010

I thought both the daughter and the wife were dead on day 3 because there was no feedback from standing next to their beds. I thought there was some interesting irony when the scientists standing outside said "We understand if you want to spend the day with your family," given that they were unresponsive. This made the suicide just a little surprising.

"Press SPACE to interact" makes it sound like doing so would do a lot more than go through doors and choose the end-of-day activity. Like confirming whether or not the two most important NPCs were breathing.
posted by lumensimus at 8:58 PM on December 7, 2010

Also, on the second-to-last day, "Two" was mysteriously capitalized.
posted by lumensimus at 9:04 PM on December 7, 2010 [1 favorite]

The man and his daughter survive, but no other cell on earth does. Big whoop.

Meaning no plants, no other animals, no nothing. IOW, they're going to starve to death.
posted by kenko at 9:28 PM on December 7, 2010

That was underwhelming. And I say that in the nicest way possible.
posted by Michael Roberts at 9:37 PM on December 7, 2010

chaff: "am I missing something or is the whole point of this "work of art" to remind us that we should never take days off work? Because I think that's kind of dumb."

Only to the extent to which that ending is any sort of win over the others. So you and your daughter (and maybe not even that since it's ambiguous whether she survives even the Maximum Work ending) slog grimly through the rest of your brief, tortuous, and lonely lives amid the death of virtually every other living thing? Maybe it's better to have a nice day in the park and be done with it.

Also, an amazing comment on that RPS thread linked above.
posted by Copronymus at 9:49 PM on December 7, 2010 [5 favorites]

The man and his daughter survive, but no other cell on earth does. Big whoop.

Now we know what happened to the planet in The Road!
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 9:50 PM on December 7, 2010

yeolcoatl, kenko: Did you reload the page?
posted by KChasm at 10:38 PM on December 7, 2010

The wife kills herself even if you don't cheat on her. I did nothing but work, right until the end, and he manages to save himself and his daughter and they go sit, alive and alone, on the park bench.
posted by Nattie at 10:59 PM on December 7, 2010

This game is so unrealistic.

Everyone knows that Madagascar will be fine.
posted by Deathalicious at 10:59 PM on December 7, 2010 [16 favorites]

How the hell to you get out of the house? All I could do was walk back and forth, over and over.
posted by bowline at 11:15 PM on December 7, 2010

Shit. I got the ending where a co-worker kills the daughter and t'wife.
posted by ACair at 11:48 PM on December 7, 2010

When they're all bowling, does it matter whether he buys another beer?
posted by pracowity at 12:36 AM on December 8, 2010 [1 favorite]

Every single cell? With that premise I expected a gamma ray burst.
posted by BrotherCaine at 1:32 AM on December 8, 2010

-"In the nick of time"
-"When they're all bowling, does it matter whether he buys another beer?"
-"I got stabbed by one of the other scientists."
-"Press SPACE to interact"

What the hell game were you all playing? All I could do was slowly walk right.
posted by doublehappy at 1:37 AM on December 8, 2010 [1 favorite]

I first got the ending where wife kills self, kid dies in park after not feeling well, and dad dies in lab on the last day.

Then I got the ending where wife kills self, dad finds cure on last day and goes to park with daughter. I can't tell if daughter is alive or not. And why are there no end cues? Grr.
posted by Night_owl at 1:42 AM on December 8, 2010

I got the version where the daily newspaper seemed to be written by a ten-year-old for whom English is a second language, which kind of ruined the mood for me.
posted by Mooseli at 2:06 AM on December 8, 2010

Wait, how do you get the option to go bowling?
posted by biochemist at 2:36 AM on December 8, 2010

How do you get around the no replay limit? I tried clearing my browser history and cookies for today but I guess that isn't enough.
posted by pracowity at 2:56 AM on December 8, 2010

pracowity: "How do you get around the no replay limit? I tried clearing my browser history and cookies for today but I guess that isn't enough"

You clear your Flash cookies. Barring that, the game is available at other locations.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 3:06 AM on December 8, 2010

Thanks.
posted by pracowity at 3:19 AM on December 8, 2010

And I'm sorry about the bowling comment. There is no bowling. The answer is bowling in the wind.
posted by pracowity at 3:31 AM on December 8, 2010 [4 favorites]

OK, to play:
1. Click Play.
2. It loads.
3. Click Play again after it loads.
4. Use the left and right arrows to move.
5. Use the space bar to do something when there is something to do -- this will be indicated with a caption about a room or going to work or whatever. To go through a door, for example, position yourself in front of the door and press the space bar.
6. When there is that Work or Park option, I think you need to click the mouse on one or the other. I couldn't select it with arrow keys and space bar.
7. To play more than once, you need to clear your Flash cookies so the site doesn't know you've already played.
Something like that.
posted by pracowity at 3:52 AM on December 8, 2010 [1 favorite]

My end of the world would have more opportunities for desperate sex.
posted by BrotherCaine at 4:19 AM on December 8, 2010

Another way to replay is to right click, go to settings, and set local storage to 0KB.
posted by biochemist at 4:43 AM on December 8, 2010

From looking at the RPS thread, the jury is out on whether or not the daughter survives if you do manage to make the antidote, but the general thought seems to be that she doesn't. I didn't get that ending myself, but I guess the little lines that make up her eyes are horizontal in the last scene, indicating dead? And therefore your time spent working has been a waste.

Myself, I took the first day off work (figuring that the character doesn't know anything is wrong, and it's perfectly reasonable that he'd go off to celebrate with the folks from the office), and died in the lab after working constantly the rest of the week.

I guess the author's intent is that you're supposed to spend the last few days with your family, but seeing as I'm one of the handful of people in the world who have a chance of curing this problem I myself created, that strikes me as irredeemably selfish. In fact, what the fuck was I doing going home in the evenings? I should have been working round the fucking clock!
posted by rifflesby at 4:46 AM on December 8, 2010 [3 favorites]

I threw myself off the building right away. WIN!
5 stars! *****
posted by Theta States at 5:59 AM on December 8, 2010

I guess I'm in the minority here, but I love things like this. They might not be "games" in the strictest sense of the word, but they're engaging and I admire the thought and effort that go into them.

That said, the typos and grammar mistakes drive me nuts. If you're going to put that aforementioned effort into it, have someone proofread the copy!
posted by jbickers at 7:21 AM on December 8, 2010 [1 favorite]

This game is stupid.

It wouldn't even let me pee before I had to go to work KNOWING THE WORLD WAS GOING TO END.
posted by Threeway Handshake at 7:48 AM on December 8, 2010

Every choice struck me as phony and unrealistic, the story is emotionally manipulative and (honestly) stupid, and there's no 'game' to speak of. It looks sort of cool, but nothing that hasn't been done before.
posted by codacorolla at 8:54 AM on December 8, 2010 [2 favorites]

Really liked that. Inasmuch as someone could really "like" watching everything die.

I ended up with suicidal wife, daughter dead in the park, me sitting catatonic on the lab floor for eternity.
posted by eyeballkid at 10:18 AM on December 8, 2010

This game owes a lot to Every Day the Same Dream. It owes so much, in fact, that I'm tempted to call it a shameless ripoff.

Every Day the Same Dream + I Am Legend.

I suppose the original invention here is the non-replayability.
posted by mrgrimm at 10:36 AM on December 8, 2010

She dies that night and the next (last) day I go into work. When I get there, my little girl appears on my back! I turn and she disappears... spooky!

Clearly it's a metaphor about the death of your child weighing in on your conscious. Yeah, that's it.

I think the most interesting part of the game is how different people interpret "You have one chance."
posted by Solon and Thanks at 10:47 AM on December 8, 2010

Metafilter: Well, if it isn't the fucking savior.
posted by kimota at 10:52 AM on December 8, 2010

I think the point of the game is to provide an asterisk to the expression "No one ever died wishing they'd spent more time at the office".
posted by condour75 at 10:59 AM on December 8, 2010 [2 favorites]

Gee, I wish I had said that.
posted by Gator at 11:05 AM on December 8, 2010 [3 favorites]

I think the most interesting part of the game is how different people interpret "You have one chance."

Right on. Even the post link and title appended "...to save the world." Which the game never actually says. It just says "You have one chance" and we each seem to finish the thought as we like.
posted by pineapple at 11:50 AM on December 8, 2010

Oops. What Gator said.
posted by condour75 at 11:51 AM on December 8, 2010

And just in time, somebody posts an answer to all the art-torture suicide-sim games: Johnny in an art game?
posted by Strange Interlude at 3:42 PM on December 8, 2010 [4 favorites]

Mooseli: "I got the version where the daily newspaper seemed to be written by a ten-year-old for whom English is a second language, which kind of ruined the mood for me"

The copy-editors were the first victims of the gas.
posted by the latin mouse at 3:52 PM on December 8, 2010 [1 favorite]

As someone who's interested in game design, I find the commentary about the control scheme sucking to be pretty important. Essentially, reading through all the comments, it seems like a lot of people had technical/control issues that prevented them from fully enjoying the game, and then, on top of that, people had issues with the way that the narrative was presented, in that it feels like people think it was a bit rushed, perhaps? Specifically, it looks like there's more than a few comments that see the Big Idea the game was presenting, but feel disappointed that the designers didn't do as much to make sure all the underlying details worked (bad newspaper writing, logic in the antidote, etc).

Personally, I played it through twice, once getting the 'good' ending and once dying alone in the lab. Reading through the comments, it looks like there's probably 5-6 endings, given the various decision choices you're given (success, fail in lab, fail in park, suicide, get killed by coworker, ?). As for the message behind it, I think the strength of these more philosophical art games is that there can be some sort of debate at all about a message existing - even if it's as heavyhanded and simplistic as the way this game structures things). Certainly a step ahead of, say, Halo?

Also, there is something warm and fuzzy inside me about so many on the Blue knowing about indie games like Every Day the Same Dream.
posted by Han Tzu at 4:49 AM on December 9, 2010 [1 favorite]

it seems like a lot of people had technical/control issues that prevented them from fully enjoying the game, and then, on top of that, people had issues with the way that the narrative was presented, in that it feels like people think it was a bit rushed, perhaps?

I think the whole concept of one-time play is flawed, particularly if it's a game where your choices are based on absolutely nothing. Going out for a drink with your colleagues instead of working gets you ... dead all alone in a lab? I don't know for sure.

>> technical/control issues

Perhaps. I wasn't aware you could stay home for the day. I explored all the rooms each day, but figured I had to drive to work to advance the story.

Anyway, if you have a "Choose Door A or Door B" game and don't let the player see the result of both options, at the very least, by playing the game again, that's cheap. Imagine a choose-your-own-adventure book that locks out the alternate paths. Ridiculous.

Gimmicky is what is felt like. And yeah, again, a ripoff creatively. /haterz
posted by mrgrimm at 7:58 AM on December 9, 2010

I think the whole concept of one-time play is flawed, particularly if it's a game where your choices are based on absolutely nothing. Going out for a drink with your colleagues instead of working gets you ... dead all alone in a lab? I don't know for sure.

Anyway, if you have a "Choose Door A or Door B" game and don't let the player see the result of both options, at the very least, by playing the game again, that's cheap. Imagine a choose-your-own-adventure book that locks out the alternate paths. Ridiculous.

I thought the game was OK, not great, but the one thing I really liked was the single playthrough. Video games in general have gotten bogged down in notions like concrete, abstract goals (explore all the areas, defeat the boss) and scoring points that, while useful and fun in many contexts, are also completely arbitrary, so it's interesting to see them completely pulled away. In this case, we expect video games to have infinite replayability and to explain the ramifications of your choices before you make them, but that's not how most things work. I've spent my whole life making decisions with no idea what results they would have and without the opportunity to try them again.

I wouldn't want every game (or even more games than this one) to pull that trick, but I think it's fairly interesting for the world of pretentious "art" flash games.
posted by Copronymus at 2:05 PM on December 9, 2010 [2 favorites]

The copy-editors were where the first victims of the gas.

FTFY.
posted by albrecht at 6:54 PM on December 9, 2010

Interview with Dean Moynihan, the guy who made One Chance.
posted by Kattullus at 10:10 AM on December 13, 2010