Sunset

Sir Rahka · 28 Dec 2016

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/taleoftales/sunset-a-first-person-videogame-thriller

Sunset
What is it:
As described by Tale of Tales,

Sunset is a narrative-driven first-person videogame that takes place in a single apartment in a fictional South American city in the early 1970s. You play a housekeeper called Angela Burnes. Every week, an hour before sunset, you visit the swanky bachelor pad of Gabriel Ortega. You are given a number of tasks to do, but the temptation to go through his stuff is irresistible. As you get to know your mysterious employer better, you are sucked into a rebellious plot against a notorious dictator Generalísimo Ricardo Miraflores.

Sunset is a first person exploration game in the vein of Gone Home and Dear Esther. As in those, playing centers on the discovery of story clues. In Sunset, however, you play while the events unfold (rather than uncovering a story that happened in the past).

The other inspiration for Sunset is military action games. We always wondered what life would be like for the extras in such games, the people who are not the heroes, the ones on the sidelines – like most of us. How does it feel to be one of the many victims of war, instead of the hero? How does it feel when war is the backdrop for your day-to-day life?

Sunset is divided into play sessions that each take a fictional hour: until the sun sets. Each time you are presented with a list of housekeeping tasks, as that is your job. However, there will be other activities, such as going through the owner's possessions in search of information for the revolutionaries! Or simply making your presence felt in his life by changing his radio station or having your own fun interacting with his 1970s-era high-tech gadgets.

Next to the story progression, you have the opportunity to develop your relationship with the absent Gabriel Ortega. For each task in the apartment there is more than one way of performing it: a neutral way or a naughty, funny way or flirty way. Gabriel will respond through small notes and other actions. It is up to you to decide how intimate or antagonistic this relationship becomes.

There will be moments when you have the opportunity to make a choice. These decisions will not radically alter the story itself, but they will affect your role in the events, your responsibility and the emotional impact of the experience.

There is no right or wrong way to play Sunset. And no way to fail. But each player's experience will be different.
Click to expand...

Made by: Tale of Tales

Why should I be interested:
Tale of Tales has made some pretty artistic games in the past, sure, but also some pretty awesome ones like The Path or The Endless Forest or Bientôt l'été. It is also a thriller game with a pretty unique setting and idea I do have to say. You don't see much of such games.

If any of these following things tickle your fancy, then I recommend you give this game a glance. Perhaps even give them some of your pennies, even when this game has already gained twice its original Kickstarter goal. Kickstart available for the next 20 hours at the time of writing of this.

• first person exploration

• story-driven: no puzzles, no combat

• atmospheric: sunset glow, stillness, tension outside, time passing

• influence the relationship between the two protagonists

• emotional narrative arc happens as you play

• game length depends on style: between 90 minutes and 6 hours

A bit more about the game and the ideas behind it:

Sunset takes place in the year 1972. It is the time when designers Auriea and Michaël were born.
The early seventies were a time of conflict. A time when the traditional life style of a middle class bourgeoisie clashed head-on with anti-authoritarian modern ideas of freedom and revolt. In fear of the communist threat the US government supported violent dictatorships and the overthrowing of democratically elected governments, especially in South America. Back home, liberation movements such as feminism and Black Power rose to prominence. Many public figures got violently murdered as social tension increased.

We feel that a lot of parallels can be drawn with our contemporary era as our humanist/capitalist ideologies are gradually developing more of the dictatorial tendencies they once offered an escape from. Will the increasing global influence of the military-industrial complex lead to a new era of violent resistance?

The aesthetics of the early seventies presented this conflict in a much more amusing way. The eclecticism of combining space age clean designs with antique and exotic elements forms the basis of the look of Sunset. This is the time before disco or punk, when soul music reigned the air waves and middle-aged gentlemen received guests for cocktails on the shaggy carpets of their modern penthouses. Only to be discombobulated when a Black feminist with an afro brings subversion as well as romance to the unsuspecting bachelor.
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Dogling · 16 Jul 2014

So much nicer than the copypasta

a++

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Sunset

Sir Rahka ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

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Sunset

Sir Rahka ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

Dogling Marmite

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