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espurr12 rated To Do List (LudumDare 38)

espurr12 rated a game 3 years ago
A browser game made in HTML5.

A dark game set in a dystopian world that offers a unique take on the traditional "last person on earth" trope. 

It starts off fairly innocuous, with the player assuming control of an unnamed boy and completing the objectives on the boy's to do list each day. The tasks start off fairly normal; water the garden, make dinner, paint a picture, and so on. This, combined with the bright, lush green atmosphere of the secluded island and the upbeat music, lulls us (the player) into a false sense of security, which makes the slowly encroaching descent into madness all the more terrifying. Gradually, the tasks begin to get less and less benign, and more and more... disturbing, for lack of a better word. At one point, we are tasked with visiting our "friend," who turns out to be a rotting skeleton under the grave we dig up. And all the while, the young boy we play as remains the same...

The darkest things though, in my opinion, are the boy's musings at the end of every day after going to bed. The boy ponders about life before the disaster and oftentimes questions or makes remarks on what could be considered philosophical matters. At one point, he says something along the lines of "Sometimes I forget my dreams. It's a little sad. Sometimes I remember what I dreamed. This is also sad," which infers that he does in fact have some recollection of life before the disaster. What makes this so sad is that he is actually making an objective statement about how ignorance and reminiscence are both tragedies; in the end, they both bring pain to those afflicted which, to a certain extent, is absolutely correct and remains true even in real life and modern day society. Perhaps the most heartbreaking of all though, is the indifference he shows while making such deep statements. I find that prospect terrifying and miserable beyond all reason.

I think that overall, this game does a really good job of portraying the dark, hypothetical reality of what would actually happen if humanity went extinct save for a single person. Humans are social creatures by nature and, although we'd like to think living a solitary life to be possible, it wouldn't; not while maintaining our sanity, at least.