Immortality — Like an Interactive Movie… But More Complex

From the guy who created “Her Story” and “Telling Lies”

Wow, what a week! I have been working on a project that isn’t going so smoothly; I went on vacation to the Netherlands where I visited the red-li… actually that’s a story for another time… In any case, I ‘ve been busy recently, and now I’m back, so here’s a story … This series of events happened before I went on vacation.

The last video game I played left me with a decent impression (if you can call it that). I played it two or something weeks ago, which means that some of the things I recall might no longer be relevant. In other words, it means that I more or less have forgotten the experience of what that game was about and that experience was really intense. I remember some details, but it’s no fun without the actual feeling, which is, right now, largely absent. Anyways, I’ll try my best.

The game is called Immortality, and it’s from the same guy that made the “games” Her Story and Telling Lies, the latter of which I already talked about once. The game is very similar in its design structure to the games mentioned before, and much like its predecessors, it’s a fun experience, if not an unconventional one. Anyways, this is how I played the game…

A story about… uh… I’m not sure

First of all, trying to understand the plot of the game is like searching for the other half of a sock pair after laundry; it’s annoying at first putting the pieces together, but after a while, you get the picture. Basically, the story is about the fictional actress Marissa Marcel and her short career which eventually led to her disappearance. The player’s task is to investigate the various videos that highlight the three films she produced throughout her career and speculate on what may have led to her disappearance. Holy hell, this “game” goes in so many random directions before you have a proper image of what actually is going on, and quite a lot is going on.

I’ll try to avoid spoilers as much as possible since this “game” is mostly plot-driven with a minimalist gameplay, but my experience with this game was quite suspenseful. You start out with nothing but isolated clips of this so-called “Marissa Marcel”. You are prompted to click on items in the videos (it can be an object; it can be a person; anything that’s practically clickable), and you do so because there’s nothing else to do. You then watch a different video from some point in the actress’s career. Since the story is told nonlinearly at the sole discretion of the player, you always end up watching some random video that you have absolutely no context for. Out of sheer boredom and no sense of direction, I started to rewind and fast-forward clips hoping to hear something interesting, mainly in the clips that involve nudity. Without even realizing it, I somehow triggered an enigmatic event that supposedly is a part of the narrative. I had no idea how I got it. A strange figure, not present in the original set of videos, appears in the clip out of nowhere. I couldn’t tell what I was looking at because it seemed so out of place, but then I realised, there is more than meets the eye… with this game. The music is suspenseful, and I finally found the true starting point of the game, and this is where it really gets interesting. As I continue to watch clip after clip, trying to understand what happened to the actress who disappeared, the mystery slowly unfolds, and then I just wanted to discover more of it… until there was nothing more left to be discovered.

This is as much as I can say without spoiling the game. People have to check this out for themselves since it’s quite a good experience, even though, to be frank, it’s not on par with its spiritual predecessors. But seriously, this is one game people should play for themselves instead of just reading the game’s summary on Wikipedia. It’s worth the few hours that it lasts.

Did you read Immortality’s summary over at Wi… nevermind

I swear, I did not read the summary on Wikipedia and I definitely played the game… not really, I did. But… did you?

In Conclusion…

I definitely enjoyed playing Immortality, even though to be frank, it was a bit bizarre with how the game was structured since it wasn’t a conventional game… if you can call it that. In any case, yes, you should try it.

Once again, I’m sorry I couldn’t write more. It’s a plot-heavy game and I didn’t know any better way to describe it. Best possible thing to do: just play the game yourself.

Anyways, I can’t wait for the next game by Sam Barlow. That guy makes some interesting games.