Elegy for a Dead World Review (PC)

I like concept art, because it shows something that is pure, a sort of raw concept of something, before its full realization, and before straight lines and well-defined contours limit its potential and give it an unambiguous form.

I like concept art because it shows something that exists and doesn't exist at the same time, something that has an identity but still has the potential to grow into something else. Loving art in general helps.

Games in general are spoiled in this sense, they usually have immensely talented individuals working hard to make them as beautiful as possible, and we have become spoiled because of this, and we want everything to be pretty and perfect.

Elegy for a Dead World, a quirky game from Dejobaan Games, attempts to do this and more. The title has you exploring alien landscapes on distant worlds, creating stories about their long-lost denizens. Or about you. Or anything else you can imagine.

It's a game that has even less conventional gameplay than a walking simulator, and that is as niche a title as it gets. It's basically a game about walking around and writing and reading, and that's pretty much it.

If you thought that the concept of fan fiction should get its own game, then this is it.

It helps a lot if you're into the A-Team

Gameplay

You control an astronaut, a member of an expedition venturing into three portals, to uncover the mysteries of three different planets. You explore the surface and underbelly of the three uncharted realms and attempt to craft the story of their long-gone inhabitants, by rummaging through their stuff and reverse-engineering their lives.

The three worlds are loosely based on the creations of Byron, Keats, and Shelley, the famous British romantic poets, and every time you embark on a mission, you can select from a variety of different templates to use.

“Some of the templates include a more straightforward theme, others a more subtle or demanding one, and you also have the option to write your own thing, without relying on the game to provide the prompts and doing it entirely your way.”

The way things work is that each of the templates has some pre-determined points of access, so to say, where you will be able to enter your text or continue based on the pattern presented to you, filling in the blanks as you deem fit.

You simply walk around the alien worlds, immersed in their otherworldly beauty, and from time to time, you jot something down, at points that seem relevant to what might have happened.

You have to observe the terrain and the remnants of the former civilization and use your imagination, fleshing out their lives or the impact on your own pretend life, or whatever else crosses your mind.

When you reach the end of your journey, you have the option to revise your narrative, maybe introduce some slight alterations or complete it, and then share it with other players or read it yourself.

Reading stuff is unfortunately less compelling than it could have been, due to the fact that you can't see the entire vistas that inspired people, but only small portions of them, which means that you have to strain your memory to remember many of the missing details, and on occasion, the entire thing.

That sounds just kingly enough to work

You can look stuff up by date or by the number of upvotes, and reading other players' works is a pretty big part of Elegy for a Dead World's gameplay.

It's sort of a deconstruction of the usual way things are done when writing the story of a civilization. You make plans, harvest resources, go to war, expand, and then succumb. This game enables you to play archaeologist and put together the somewhat interlocking puzzle pieces in order to create a mosaic representing a possibly lost alien civilization.

It plays on your imagination and your need to write, and it helps you do that by nudging you in the right direction, based on a selection of basic scenarios.

If you don't need to write, then it's difficult to appreciate the game. If you do need to write and find it difficult to start, these nudges will provide you with a stepping stone toward what you're trying to achieve.

However, the game is also very, very short, as each of the three sections can be navigated in a couple of minutes, making the "game" lack extensive replay value.

Putting my general dislike for fan fiction (or any kind of bad fiction, from childish "Star Trek" novellas to the horribly trite and contrived "The Hunger Games," which is still light-years ahead of the "Twilight" series) aside, some of the texts you'll be running into are genuinely worth the read.

Unfortunately, the way they are presented is severely lacking, and this, together with the fact that there is just so little to explore, makes me think that Elegy for a Dead World might not be as appealing an experience as it could be.

This scene is the proper amount of trippy

Visuals and sound

Being so devoid of interaction, the game relies on your own writing gusto and on its sound and art direction to capture you.

The art is really good, and the alien landscapes use strong colors and interesting shapes, that, complete with parallax scrolling, transport you into the distant realms, especially if you're cooperating with the game and trying to decipher the details and get inspired to write something creative.

Some of the shapes are easily recognizable and provide a well-grounded context for your free-roaming thoughts, while others are more alien in design, strange patterns and formations meant to stimulate your creativity.

The color palettes are purposefully chosen to have a strong impact, with powerful colors racing to trigger memories and to spark imaginative scenarios.

The sounds are also great, a haunting orchestra of wind, chimes and the occasional energy buzz accompanying you throughout your journey, further enhancing the idea of a desolate planet that used to be teeming with life and activity.

The Good

The Bad

Conclusion