You have 21 days until the city dies. Every decision you make up until that final day will have far-reaching consequences — so what will you do? Try to save the world, or live a life of hedonism in the face of futility?
That is the question that A Place For The Unwilling poses in its hyper-branching narrative adventure, and the developers ALPixel Games have left the answer entirely up to you. There are no mini-maps, no quest markers, no rail-roaded story in this one, just you, a dying city, and the paralysing potential consequences of your actions.
A Place For The Unwilling draws on a number of influences, with the major ones being the creeping dread of Majora's Mask, the narrative depth of Failbetter's Sunless Sea, and the figure-things-out-before-bad-things-happen-ness of Pathologic, plus a dash of Lovecraftian horror, a pinch of Over The Garden Wall's unsettling pastoral dreamscapes, and a sprinkling of Dickensian eldritch nightmares.
A complex balance of flavours, to be sure — and reviews of the Steam version from 2019 seem to be mixed on whether or not it pulls it off completely — but the upcoming Switch port, which launches on the Nintendo eShop on March 22nd, hopefully fixes some of the original's issues. Only time will tell!
Comments 8
Anything close to Sunless Sea is good for me. Absolutely adore that game and the universe.
Oh god, hard yes. Sunless Sea is such a stupidly great game that doesn't get nearly enough attention. This looks fantastic.
the looks of this game made me put this on my wishlist already. Looks great! Let's hope it plays great too.
I'm hoping the choice between hedonism and saving the world is a false dichotomy. People always blaming loose morals for the end of the world, but what if debauchery was the only way to save it?
Sunless Sea was fantastic on Steam, may also check this one out too.
Similar to Sunless Sea, you say..? On that note, I keep chasing a game that has buildup and consequences with teeth, something like Seeking the Name in Fallen London. I haven’t found anything that’s managed to recapture the feeling yet, and so the search continues.
@StardusterEX Failbetter has Mask of the Rose coming later this year!!
The trailer is intriguing, but what little they showed of gameplay looks bland. Looking forward to learning more.
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