Depict1

[Flash game: Play here]

Ever since I discovered games like this existed, I’ve wanted to see one that completely destroyed all the rules. Something that took what the player thought they knew, something that seemed cliché, yet ended up flipping the entire clichéd notion of a game on its head. Depict1 is that game. It takes all the basic rules that gaming has taught us, such as ‘spikes are bad’, ‘shiny things are good’, ‘falling off the map kills you,’ and inverts them. Now spikes help you, the gems kill you, and falling off the map is the only way to proceed on in some cases. This is a game that lies to you every time text is displayed on-screen.

It doesn’t only lie to you about basic game mechanics, either. From the very beginning, even the controls it gives you are wrong. “To move, press the arrow keys.” Seems reasonable enough. But it’s wrong. There are actually two ways to move: One is given to you on the first screen of the game, the other is very common to FPS gamers. Throughout the rest of the ‘learning the controls’ phase, everything you are told will likely get you killed.

It becomes apparent very quickly that you can never trust what you are told. On top of that, since what you are told coincides with what you expect to be told, you can no longer trust what you know. Had the commands not been lies, it would all be very logical, yes, but that’s the interesting part: Logic is flawed. The ‘logical’ thing to do is to repeat something, because that’s the way it has always been. Jumping up will always result in coming back down. Holding your breath will always result in feeling light-headed. The ‘logical’ assumption is that the things that have happened a specific way a series of times will always happen that way. When logic is spelled out that way, it just feels wrong, doesn’t it? It sounds stubborn. Unwilling to change. And it is. When something extraordinary happens, we usually dismiss it as “impossible.” It isn’t ‘logical’ for something like that to happen. The Earth isn’t flat, but round. Nonsense; blasphemy; illogical. The Earth isn’t the center of the universe. Impossible; delusional; illogical. ‘Logic’ is simply humanity’s way of coping with the concept that we aren’t as important as we wish we were. “You’re crazy. Out of your mind. Illogical.” The “logical” thing to do would be to prevent ourselves from ending up trapped by patterns and assumptions, such as ‘logic.’

The game essentially points out everything that is wrong in the human mind, all rolled up under the umbrella definition of ‘logic.’ The player won’t instantly feel that logic is wrong, of course. They will feel cheated, as if something else is wrong outside of the game. Or, like me, they’ll be completely astonished by the fact that someone was brave enough to tear apart common logic. More emotional players may argue with the game, saying that things shouldn’t work this way. Well, why not? Because they haven’t in the past? Change is a commonly rejected thing.

As the game progresses, amidst the lies and falsehoods and deception, there is a sense of discovery every time the player figures out how to advance. To directly contradict what you are told to achieve what you want gives a guilty pleasure of disobedience. Every action in the game, after the player gets sick of the lies, becomes a way to spite the ominous voice. Winning the game becomes an action of personal vendetta against the misleading of the mechanics. To complete the game is to put an end to the “illogical” mechanics and irritating lies.

I do not like giving gameplay advice, but I will here: There are two endings. One is cyclical, with the underlying meaning that lies lead us in circles. The contradiction of lies (the player’s actions) leads us in circles. At the end of everything, all that is left to do is start over. The only safe decision is to do nothing. Towards the beginning of the game, you come across a “caged” creature. The voice talks about him, later. What is he doing? He’s probably still in his cage. While he is safe, he is unmoving. No progress. Yet, where we have to start over, he is still in his cage. The only safe action is inaction, but where is the fun in that? Take a risk.

The second ending is the confrontation of the alter-ego. Confrontation of everything we don’t like about ourselves, confrontation of the things we want to destroy. In place of truth: lies. In place of trust: suspicion. Once these attributes of us are destroyed, once we overcome them, we are free of the loop that is our lives. This could mean that we only live as long as we are misguiding ourselves, or that the very definition of ‘life’ is ‘to be led astray.’ We live our lives until we realize that we can escape, and then we die.

Also, an interesting note: “Depict one” is an anagram for “deception” and “poetic end.” Both of these relate to the game, and to life. We live lives of deception, living on because we are still deceived. The end of life, the end of such repetition and lies, would indeed be a poetic one, because, in the context of this philosophy, there is only peace in death.

This game is cryptic, foreign, ominous, and very disorienting. Any game that can flip common principles on their head like this is a well-made game. I applaud this game, and its blatant disregard for what we humans call “logic.”