Thoughts by LostInSpace (03 Oct 2024) – Interpreter (Z-Code)
Heavy traffic rolls through a major intersection in an American city. A physicist introduced in the prologue, who is on a short errand, waits for a green light on Elm Street. Although the name is probably not an allusion to the movie with Freddy Krueger: this is not a horror game. Traffic is not even a linear story in terms of time, but actually just a snapshot.
That sounds confusing at first. But it is based on a pop-science assumption that the fates of different people are quantum-entangled. This means that people in different situations (places) influence each other through their decisions. The game changer here is that, with the appropriate prior knowledge regarding the further development of the story, one outcome or another can be deliberately chosen. The main characters are random passers-by, a cab driver, a businessman, a schoolgirl, a baby in a stroller and even a dog. It is up to the player to decide from which perspective the story unfolds. A total of three different paths ultimately lead to the same ending.
The game is therefore about observing what happens, which in this case is very clear: you are fatally run over by a car directly at the intersection. In order to avoid this, you have to enter the consciousness of the people around you by observing them via parser commands or trying to interact with them. Sooner or later, you will end up back at the same starting point via winding paths. Unless, of course, you reach special key moments along the way that provide an entry point into a slightly different scenario the next time you repeat the game.
A funny thing was that you die a thousand and one deaths in the course of this exploration. However, if you try to escape the loop – in other words, to escape fate on your own – which in this case was a criminal act, I don’t die, but I go to prison: game over. What an irony. Another confusing aspect at the beginning is the score counter, which remains at 0. At first my thought was that you only get points as soon as you break the recurring deaths. This is not the case. The game starts and ends with 0 points. Whether this was intentional or simply a lack of time to catch up with the IFComp competition deadline, is unknown to me.
I liked the fact that the characters and locations can be explored quite extensively via the parser. You get a funny reaction to almost every action, no matter how absurd. And in addition to a certain amount of linguistic wit – the new Apple cell phone becomes the Pineapple 16XL – there are also some mood-enhancing inserts, such as people commenting on your own actions without being asked. So this is certainly not a scary game, but a pleasantly superficial detour into the realms of nerdy, physically twisted daydreams.
