![]() Each character is little more than a silhouette with eyes, distinguishable from one another by little more than their size and shape. The art style of the game is dark and grim. Beholder is a game about oppression – and you are the oppressor. All things considered, it was the best outcome – for me.īeholder is a Papers, Please-reminiscent point and click adventure that casts the player in the role of Carl Stein, landlord-turned-spy, who is tasked with collecting information on his tenants, reporting their crimes to the government, and collecting rewards for doing so. I call the Ministry to report my success and collect my cash. In her misery, his wife packs her belongings and leaves. On my third attempt, the police arrive, beat the daylights out of Klaus as he and his wife cry, and take him away. The next play through, Karl shoots me just outside his apartment. She dies because I couldn’t complete my task of getting rid of Schimmer quickly enough. Unfortunately, my daughter’s health has been deteriorating, and I can’t afford the spectacularly expensive medication needed to save her life. I do everything in my power to help him escape instead of facing imprisonment. By all accounts, they seem like decent people. Schimmer lives in Apartment 1 with his wife, and doesn’t appear to have committed any real “crimes.” Sure he’s in possession of some banned books – but books? Come on. Suddenly, I’m tasked with evicting the very stubborn Klaus Schimmer. The originals – like it being illegal to harbor a criminal or create drugs – make sense. Every day, new government directives come through. It is you, who fill those shapes with the content, through you own feelings and emotions.Ī follow-up, Beholder 2, has been announced, and is scheduled for release in the second half of this year.My next task is less clear. It is you, who decide if a character is good or bad, happy or sad, based on what you eventually learn about them rather than what you see when you meet them for the first time. As you move through the game, you meet the characters and get to know them better. We only provide form and let players decide on the substance themselves. Any game character has form and substance. On the other hand, the art style has a figurative meaning. Moreover, the dark depressing life under a totalitarian regime drains the color from the world around, All you can see is impersonal crowds of citizens. On the one hand, the art style adds value to the setting: there is no place for a person in a totalitarian state. Can you talk a bit about how the striking visual style, how it affected the game’s design? One of its most distinctive features is its art style it’s interesting that it makes all the people look similar to one another, draining them of colour. And we will keep amplifying the level of absurdity! Yes, it may be dark, depressing and gloomy, but we did not want to make it 100% serious. We intentionally introduced those creepy jokes and situations to let Beholder be an entertainment. ![]() No matter how deep we get into a dystopian world, it is still just a game. One of the things I didn’t see coming was the game’s black humour was it to avoid getting too dark, or to encourage devilish play? As long as this game touches your feelings, we have every reason to be satisfied with the result. ![]() We wanted to make something different, bring some new game experience in. This is indeed a rare example in the modern world of games were a player should always win. A moral choice is rarely a pleasant thing but often is a choice of two evils. Politics – as well as beauty – is still in the eye of a Beholder.īeholder’s subject matter is dark, and a lot of the situations don’t have ‘winnable’ outcomes What made you craft the story arcs in this way?įrom the very beginning we saw Beholder as a game of moral choices. It is worth mentioning that we received tons of political feedback from our players, but users from different countries saw different messages, which proves that we’ve managed to remain neutral. Of course, a totalitarian setting of the game is much obliging, but we tried to exaggerate rather than to communicate anything political. How interested were you in communicating a political message? Speaking about games, This War of Mine and Papers, Please come to mind. However, Beholder is a story-driven game the story was inspired by dystopian works of Orwell and Huxley, and satirical works of many writers. Names like Orwell and Bradbury spring to mind when I think about the game, but who do you see as your main video game influences with Beholder? It’s a devilish mix of strategy, puzzle, and survival, with a satirical streak. We spoke with Evgeny Kapustin, head of midcore marketing at publisher Alawar Entertainment, about Beholder, which was released on consoles with a Complete Edition late last year. Beholder casts you in the role of a state-installed landlord in a totalitarian regime, having you conduct surveillance on your tenants.
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