This week, I’ll be keeping it brief. To be honest, I bought myself a B list gore-fest game that I can only recommend to a small number of people and it’s been monopolizing a lot of my time recently. In the spirit of keeping it short, I’ve found a game that takes up as much time as you need it to; weather its five minutes or a lifetime.
Subversive Italian game developer Molleindustria has brought forth another thought provoking video game, this time in the form of every day life. Every Day the Same Dream is a monochromatic loop that takes you through the daily routine of an average pencil pusher. Your duties as the player are limited to small choices (turning the television on and off or remembering to get dressed) and moving from left to right across the letterbox window. There aren’t any instructions but it doesn’t really inhibit game play. You’ll quickly learn what you can interact with in the environment since all of the objects that respond to the tap of the spacebar will let you know when you walk past. Also, you’ll have plenty of chances to try out different choices since they have made it all too easy to start again and again. In fact, you can play through as many days as you want without stopping at any pesky loading or options screens. One day flows seamlessly into the next which adds to the overall theme of repetition and monotony in the every day human experience.
Visually, it’s reminiscent of the opening sequence of a 1960’s sitcom or a black and white version of the old pink panther cartoons. Part of me would like to see this game with a classic jazz soundtrack instead of the darker trance melody it comes with because of the 1960’s cartoon feel. The color scheme in limited to monochromatic tones and all of the objects and characters are derived from geometric shapes. The minimalist ascetic these qualities create contribute to the feeling of gloom the standard, sad, repetitive, office life your character inhabits daily.
I don’t know if you could actually call Every Day the Same Dream “fun” in any traditional sense but it is definitely interesting. After reading Molleindustria’s mission statement, that may very well be what they were going for in the first place. Despite its simple design, Every Day the Same Dream gets deep and will really make you think about the big questions in life while also opening up the definition of a video games little further.
To play Every Day the Same Dream and check out Molleindustria’s super awesome website (really, it’s great and you should all go to it) visit http://www.molleindustria.org.
…And incase you were wondering, the game I’ve been distracted by is Splatterhouse which is great in its own non-cerebral, very bloody and special way.