1000xRESIST

Only finished chapter 1 but I can already see this is going to be a brilliant game. The pacing, the structure, the storytelling - everything unfolds just right. Every detail has meaning and every meaning has importance for the world. It's a commentary on our current circumstances, on being young, on feeling like an outsider. And all of this without being annoying or over explaining. For the devs: thank you for making this game and being so true to your vision! It's hard work.

For me this is one more of these indies that super commits to their view and tries to convey the story in a very specific and unique way. Is necessary to explicit that this is a walking sim that reward you when you curiously explore its world - not necessarily with gameplay rewards or nothing gamefied, but regarding its world, its narrative, its reflections. Surprising in many ways, my favorite feeling with this experience its the frequent change of 'type of narrative', or when they use a miscellaneous of tools to enhance a specific feeling, message or point of view. I personally don't think is for everyone out there, because is a narrative game about a character called Watcher - so you will be walking a lot and trying to understand a lot in your own. The character is NOT passive, can talk with everyone and do things - I just want to be clear that is a walking simulator that the situations, enviroment, ambience, how the characters behave; all of this IS the story. To not spoil anything I will only spoke this: if you like narrative, to be pensive about issues, to reflect about what you perceiving, and to explore A LOT in the levels. This game is for you to enjoy, to allow yourself to the experience. In a final comment, this game for me had a vibe of Kentucky Route Zero regarging ambience and presentation, and surprisingly the eeriness of solitude presented on Signalis (but not its horror nor dread).

Even though this is definitely a low budget game, the people behind it really put everything into it. Definitely give it a try if you like Nier: Automata, anime or sci-fi in general and don't mind walking sims.

1000xResist (“One Thousand Times Resist”) is a mix of a walking simulator and a kinetic visual novel. There are one puzzle (unless one counts the “interact with everything” objective as a puzzle), one timed action sequence, and one choice that matters, with the previous 10 hours being the context to make it. The story takes place in a post-apocalyptic sci-fi setting, where humanity died from the extraterrestrial invasion and a plague, with only one human and her clones remaining. The human, Iris, the All-Mother, is worshipped by her clones as a goddess. The protagonist, the Watcher, is a clone whose duty is to observe the All-Mother’s memories. The story is focused on the topics of revolution (the Hong Kong Umbrella Revolution, in particular) and generational trauma. The game is as artistic as it can get. The visual and the sound design are reasonably simple and expressive. All dialogues are voiced and there are very few facial animations. In terms of gameplay, the only possible challenge is to navigate the labyrinthine locations to interact with the next objective, but the exploration never feels rewarding. Only the main hub has a map, which becomes unavailable at some point. Occasionally, the story presentation becomes less straightforward and more abstract and invocative, but just walking forward solves it. The choices in the dialogues throughout the game affect nothing and it was frustrating to see the protagonist do or say unwise things automatically. For the technical part, the controls are not rebindable, though they are not uncomfortable. The visual settings are lacking, so I was stuck with the post-effects and the game was trying to heat up my GPU a few times. There are 10 save slots, with one of them being the auto-save, and it is possible to replay the unlocked chapters. Overall, I think that games like 1000xResist should be celebrated, but the technical and gameplay flaws make it less appealing, thus, I would recommend it with at least 50% discount.

The story was amazing though map needs to be better