Developer: Tale of Tales
Publisher: Tale of Tales
Rrp: £14.99 (Steam) and
£14.99 (Humblebundle) and $19.99 (tale-of-tales.com)
Released: 21st May 2015
Available on: Steam, Humblebundle and their own website
Played Using: Mouse and Keyboard
In times of high stress and anxiety sometimes the best thing you can do is perform a repetitive and simple action. It can give you something to zone out on and when the job is done you get a sense of completion, of a job well done. So it stands to reason that during a time of civil war, where the stress of merely living is at an all time high, that some would turn to doing something easy, something simple and repetitive. And so enters Angela Burnes, a US born housekeeper doing what she can to survive in a war torn country.
Sunset is… well I suppose its a walking and housekeeping simulator although even that extremely loose definition doesn’t fit that well. Whatever this game is its set in 1972 in the fictional country of Anchuria. You take on the role of Angela Burnes who is an US-born housekeeper in Anchuria’s capital city San Bavon.
The game opens to an elevator, and when I say the game opens, I mean that once you start the game it just shows you the date that the game is set in and then you see an elevator door. This elevator is the menu screen for the game, and you’d better grow to like it because you’ll be seeing it a lot. In the door of the elevator you can see the slightly blurred reflection of Angela. You may also notice that on the door of the elevator there is a list of mundane tasks to complete.While the left ascends to the bachelor pad of Senior Ortega (who is the man who lives in the apartment you’re cleaning) you are vocally given story exposition, at least from Angela’s perspective. This is pretty much the only time you’ll hear the voice of Angela, pretty much all the important exposition is performed through text that appears as you look at and interact with items.
Some tasks can be performed in a ‘warm’ or ‘cold’ manner which seems to have an impact on some elements of the story. Of course a even a housekeeper has to go home eventually in this case sunset (6pm) is your clocking off time. If you haven’t completed the tasks in the time you had or wanted to explore the apartment more then you’re out of luck. Once that time limit is up your character leaves the apartment, whether you want to or not. The amount of time you have left in the day is indicated by the white circle surrounding what would be the cross-hairs in a FPS. The less white that fills the circle the less time you have.
Here’s the thing to note about this game, you can quite easily complete it without understanding what the hell is going on. This is because if you just perform the tasks that are given the real story will pass you by. You have to snoop a little, that’s what brings about the understanding of exactly what is happening. In a way that’s quite clever but at the same time it doesn’t really work, at least not with this game and its all down to the main gameplay loop. In order to explain what I mean I’m going to use a strange example… Dark Souls. In Dark Souls the real story is told through the item descriptions and by drawing conclusions based on what you have witnessed. If you don’t do that though you can still have a lot of fun because the very act of playing is engaging. This engagement is what Sunset lacks, doing the tasks wasn’t engaging for me at all. In fact there were several times where I literally said out loud “Oh, for fucks sake, this is getting tedious”.
On a graphical level Sunset isn’t exactly pretty, its not ugly either, its more… plain I suppose would be a better way to describe it. And no, I don’t mean the art direction. I’m, admittedly, not a fan of seventies décor but it’s not that that I find plain. The apartment just feels flat and lifeless even when filled up with the belongings of its owner (something you see later in the game) and I personally put this down to the rough and blocky look of the game. This feeling is compounded by the many times I witnessed graphic effects suddenly pop in to existence when only a very short distance from me.
There are several things that feel unfinished about this game. Perhaps it was because the studio wanted to focus on the more… abstract things that this game contains. Sadly its because of this unfinished feeling, along with feeling like my time was being wasted by several ‘days’ that could easily have been cut down, that makes me not recommend this game at all. Which is a crying shame because this medium needs all the variety it can get, just don’t sacrifice the engagement of the player!
If this appeals to you perhaps try;
Gone Home
Shelter
Dear Esther
