Picked this up last night and so far it's a very interesting thing.
The presentation is fabulous, with art style, animation, UI, music and simple grunting voices working perfectly together.
Right from the off the sad stylised tones of God Save the Queen set against a broken, dirty London skyline immediately made me sit up and take notice. From there at every turn I've continued to sigh, grimace and smile wryly as the game makes me confront both direct disgust from your Integration Officer and the more subtle and oddly cheerful xenophobia from your employers.
Whether it is the creator's intent or not, it's made me think even more about how easy it is to create and assert an underclass simply through the propagation of stereotypes. Even in it's presentation of other effected residents of the relocation blocks it made me think hard about my own filters. When I was introduced to Mylarna, her casual descriptions of [I presume] her husband Viklav as a drunk made me question if this was playing to the perceptions amongst made Brits of Eastern Europeans or if I had simply presumed that due to the slight broken English. Given my background in the game, perhaps Mylarna was native to nowhere further than Cornwall! Should I look for her husbands name on the IDs of folk I am checking at the door of the King's Head? Should I? Names move really fast. Easier to just do my job. Can I even remember his name? Would I have done if it were Dave?...
The way it presents itself pushes me to consider everything from "the grand scheme of things", state housing, the general undertone of xenophobia etc etc right through to the smaller, more banal aspects of how we, for want of a better way of putting it, obey or strike back. I found myself inwardly annoyed when I accidentally let in an underage punter but outwardly annoyed when I got a warning for not caring about expired IDs.
Which leads to the gameplay itself, which though is ultimately simple, entirely supports the premise of the game. It's pretty fast paced and has a certain challenge to it once you are checking multiple aspects of an ID. Whether it holds up throughout the game I'll see but so far it's all good stuff.
One negative point though, and this may change as I unlock later locations, in a game that is so strongly politicised and so strongly attempts to push back against the status quo STILL no-one who has a stick or uses a wheelchair ever goes to a pub or club....
It's just a small and somewhat personal moan though and shouldn't take away from the fact that what I have played so far is a great game with a thoughtful message from a very small team. Just the sort of thing I want to be spending my money on at full price at or around launch (or rather at 10% off given the generous launch week discount!).
I hope the folk at PanicBarn and No More Robots have had a good week and the launch has been a success! Have a great Sunday all I'm off to check some IDs!