Released in 2014, the indie developed
The Fall suffered from a lack of promotion, but recovered
after a number of prominent gaming publications discovered it during
a subsequent Steam Sale's Daily Deals (remember those).
The Fall Wikipedia's page
describes it as a side-scrolling platformer, a member of the
metroidvania genre, and an action-adventure game, but it's platformer
with only five jumps, an adventure game with limited action, and
Metroid but without the collectible upgrades. The Fall is
closer to the modern Telltale series, or (though I haven't played
them) the catalog of the revered LucasArts, like The Secret of
Monkey Island.
The Fall begins with exactly
that: a combat suit, like those popularized by Starship Troopers
crashes on an unknown planet. The setup: the suit includes an
localized AI, while the human soldier inside is unconscious.
Suffering from the robot version of amnesia, A.R.I.D. (Autonomous
Robotic Interface Device) reviews her three operating parameters: I
must not misrepresent reality, I must be obedient, and I must protect
active pilot.
Like the three Laws of Robotics it's
clear any logical implementation requires a hierarchy in the order,
and while ARID demonstrates the priority by emphasizing the third
parameter, it becomes clear her devotion to rescuing the pilot
generates irrevocable inconsistencies.
Thankfully, though ARID has fallen into
a serious of connected underground caverns, she has her trusty
flashlight! And though this may seem silly, the use of the
flashlight is the core gameplay mechanic. Using the keyboard, or a
joystick, the player aims the flashlight around the darkened chambers
and rooms ARID explores. In hand it can illuminate activatable
objects or items to be picked up. Rubbing the correct item against
the preapproved object is the method by which the player solves
puzzles or creates new items, with which to solve those puzzles. But
it's not that simple. The game plays a few nasty tricks with its
point-and-click mechanic. First, its easy to miss these objects: the
symbol indicating the location is gray, about as small as the comma
on your keyboard, and The Fall employs only gloomy settings.
Another difficulty is the game offers no method to check the
inventory except to activate a nearby object. Worse, some items
aren't there the first time. Instead, the player is made to continue
until they reach an impassable obstacle. Upon backtracking the
needed object will now be available. The designers use this
contrivance to extend the suspense and create the illusion of an
expansion and reactive world.
For instance, after discovering a
computer motherboard hidden near a coffee table, dropped by
scavengers, and submerged beneath three feet of water, ARID is forced
to travel through four rooms, before arriving at another flooded
floor, which contains an escaped, alien, fishlike life form capable
of biting through metal. Only upon backtracking through the rooms
ARID just explored will a jar be found. But for the jar to serve its
purpose, it's necessary to fill it with an unidentified fluid from a
vending machine, which can then be brought back to the room with the
fish. Once there ARID needs, only, to combine the jar with a cluster
of fireflies in the air, and then place the jar on a wooden board,
which causes the alien to attack it, allowing ARID to shoot it in mid
jump.
And if that last paragraph didn't
highlight the crucial problem nothing will. The puzzles, combining
objects with items, is both incredibly obtuse and also requires
significant backtracking. This obtuseness could be highlighting the
theme of dysfunction and madness which pervades the unknown planet
and engulfs ARID, or it could be a mistake by the developers.
Beyond puzzles, The Fall
includes small stretches of combat. Within the first hour of play,
ARID recovers a pistol and uses it sparingly. The Fall
utilizes a cover-based system, where ARID hides behind columns or
barriers, and fire at enemy droids. There are only three types of
enemies, and the lack of diversity limits the variety of situations,
but because it is limited it works. The player quickly learns a few
truths of combat. ARID has shields and health. Shields return
slowly, while health comes back as quickly as it would take for a
dripping faucet to fill a bathtub. While one reviewer recommended
making a sandwich between rounds of combat, its quicker to keep
fighting until ARID dies. Death has no sting in The Fall, as
the game every room. Upon resurrection ARID returns to full health
and shields regardless of her condition when the save was made.
Second, while the pistol is capable of semi-automatic fire, slowing
down to land headshots produces better results than reckless
exuberance. And later ARID obtains a sort of camo, where she avoid
being hit by activating a stationary invisibility. It replaces using
cover, which was clunky to activate anyway.
After ARID escapes the caverns, she
finds herself in a decrepit robot recommissioning facility where
domestic robots with difficulties are rehabilitated or scrapped.
Long abandoned, her only companions in the dark shadows of decay are
the Administrator, a AI who'se managed to develop sentience though
he's still constrained by his programming, and the Caretaker, a robot
whose psychotic vision has determined everyone (human and AI alike)
require a particularly brutal reprogramming. To advance, and save
her pilot, ARID is forced to prove herself through a series of
everyday domestic tasks, made insane and obscene by the juxtaposition
of decades of deterioration amid the darkness.
The strength of the game is in the
atmosphere, the dialogue, and the tension inherent in ARID's quest to
rescue her pilot while obeying her operating parameters. The
Fall appears to offer choice in dialogue, but this is a
deception, there is only one solution. Yet this supports the theme
of The Fall and places the player in a position of stress. More than
once the brutality of what was offered had me searching fruitlessly
for an alternative possibility which didn't exist.
Though this article won't spoil too
much, there are a few conclusions about the story. For one, after
everything ARID see's during her quest to access a medical facility,
she's much too surprised by the final outcome. In her situation it
seems incredibly naive. And as the game progresses ARID suffers a
number of internal difficulties. These conflicts allow her to push
the boundaries, unlocking abilities and altering her parameters. But
the game does not allow access to all the listed abilities, and the
conclusion rushes her final development by not allowing all pieces to
come together slowly. ARID's HAL like dedication to preserve her
pilot (for those who have seen 2001 and not read the book: HAL
tries to kills the crew because he was informed of the expedition's
true purpose, while the human crew was told a lie, and HAL saw his
human companions as compromising the secret mission), and her
subsequent deterioration are rushed by the short span of the game.
ARID and her situation can best be compared to as if a cockroach woke
up as a human, who thought it was a cockroach.
And yet it is a short gem, with two
sequels, of which the first is planned for a 2017 release.
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