As in life, we are all connected and our hearts offer, through time and distance, the necessary strength in order to overcome every moment and situation presented. But my purpose with this writing is not to perform the nth essay focused on the Kingdom Hearts series. Instead, I would like to carry out a representation of our lives and how are you making many efforts to be reflected from screens that can fit in the palms of our hands.
Because, how much time do we spend a day looking at our mobile? Are we not hyperconnected with the people we love, even if they are far from our side? In fact, we almost seem to devote time to the outskirts than to what we have around us. In the long run, mobile devices have become our weapons companions, in our entertainment, an inexhaustible source of information, in our world … SIMULACRA represents that world where we inhabit much of the day.
A world that, in the case at hand, does not take long to become the center of an investigation. In this case, a disappearance that entails the disappearance of a person.
Technical section
Today, mobile devices are the communication technology with more users around the globe. They have as a maximum to offer a user-friendly experience. This must be user friendly and intuitive. Show a result with the minimum amount of interactions possible thanks to the development of an interface that advocates simplicity. SIMULACRA uses the latest market trends to offer us an appearance not very different from what our own device could hold. Even the applications that it has under its belt, a social reflection of our habits, comply with this maxim. The rest of the packaging is a conglomerate of recordings and images that are worth the participation of people of flesh and blood in order to reinforce a kind of reality.
However, this familiarity gives a twist when we make the helmets with the purpose of immersing ourselves in the proposal offered by the game. In fact, before even starting the game we are already urged to plug the headphones into our controls to offer a greater degree of immersion. Titles like Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice are sheltered in this singularity and SIMULACRA also gloats over bother us when you want to give effect strokes argumentally speaking. There are few experiences that we live throughout the game that manage to be unpleasant, and all this thanks to a wide variety of sounds, many of them metallic, that get out of the norm.
Playability
You never get to know people and when you think you do, the situation takes a complete turn. Now, what would happen if from one moment to another we became the new owner of a mobile that seems to have been lost? Would we completely disregard or advocate delving into its content? Would we be able to impersonate another person, with their relevant friends, and play a game that would shake the very foundations of their relationships? Luckily, here we will not play God, although many of these issues may be present throughout an adventure that seeks emulate the concept of the social.
SIMULACRA puts us in the following situation: a video that seems to indicate that the legitimate owner of the mobile is in serious danger. As champions of justice, we will be soaked in all the data contained in our day-to-day instrument so that we can rescue her from her captivity. This means knowing the life of a person. A life built with photos, videos, conversations that will give us clues about how Anna's day to day has been until her relevant disappearance, a capital part of this mystery, as well as social networks that will inevitably remind us of Twitter or Tinder.
All the pieces are there. Pieces that, although scattered throughout the menu, also they represent the mechanical part of the game, because our mission is to collaborate with the people around Anna, although they may not be to our liking. All this through an ecosystem that perfectly emulates the operation of a mobile device. And it may be so if we decide to bet on the mobile version, or in a lower instance for the PC version, but not in the case at hand. Simplicity is the key to feeling that we are mobile travelers. A few keystrokes with our yolks and we will soon be part of this world: the world of mobile. A mobile within a mobile.
Instead, if we get in command, that mirage is broken. Yes, our desire to remove the veil that conceals the truth by solving puzzles after puzzles is still present, but not so much the ambience that tries to infuse us Kaigan Games With his offspring.
Duration
Rejugability, that quality that has a title to be completed again, is the winning trick of SIMULACRA. A trick that even forces us to complete it several times, since the actions we are taking make us responsible for everything that happens afterwards. Actions that vary depending on human relationships. Relations that, in turn, degenerate or improve from the answers we give to our closest ones. So, depending on how we interpret our role as the new owner of the mobile device and if we are convincing enough, the outcome may be different.
Because this commitment to terror, with knowledge of the cause and all the puzzles to be solved, can be completed in less than an hour. On the other hand, if we embrace the rejugability that the aforementioned gives us, this unit of time goes up many integers.
conclusion
Although the concept of being constantly connected is present in the console version, I think the experience of Kaigan Games through our mobile device, the original base throughout its development, it would win many more integers, since therein lies the true immediacy; The real dive. Be that as it may, SIMULACRA is a good exercise on how experiment with all the possibilities offered by these communication devices.
An exercise that, thanks to mechanics and pure narrative, invites us to meet the owner of the lost mobile in order to foster their relationships with our interests.
* Thanks to Wales Interactive for providing us with the necessary material for the analysis.
