Rituals
Rituals is a downright fascinating title that can really capture the attention of its player and refuse to let it go.
Reviewed by Artemis on May 30, 2015
There is something enchanting about having a game actually tell you its story without telling you the story directly. Even if the story has been done before, depending on the execution it can lead to a somewhat surreal experience. Such is the case with Rituals, developed by Tymon Zgainski, and published by Mudvark. Rituals never directly tells you what its story is, rather showing small clues and letting the player figure it out for them. This way of indirect storytelling plays to the game's strengths, allowing the player to be the one that dictates what the story is about beyond the skeletal narrative that the developer set up, relating to civilization and nature.
When starting out in the game, the first thing the player will notice is that they can't move freely. They're on a set track that gives them various options to go through on a set path. You use your mouse to click on the arrows in front of you and to move your characters head so they can look around. There are still options of exploration, which gives the player a chance to really figure out just what is going on in the mysterious office building they've worked their way up in. You can go all over the office building or the other explorable areas, but you can't interact with everything which is a little disappointing, considering it would be interesting to be able to turn on all of the computers and investigate more that way. However, the way that it's set up does give the player plenty of chances to learn more and more about the world they're in. The player doesn't know anything other than what they find out themselves or what they can interpret. This game makes you think about what the developer was trying to get across with their work, some parts are more obvious than others, but it gives you a chance to theorize on just what is going on in this office building.
Nobody tells the player what they're supposed to do, so it's up to them to figure it out. You're required to use your brain when solving the various puzzles throughout the game, and it's important to stay aware of your surroundings so you won't miss any vital clues. It isn't difficult, but when you aren't paying attention this game will not have the same effect. Now, one could easily go through the game and use trial and error to solve certain puzzles or try to figure out the story on their own without reading any of the notes, but that will take away from the experience that Rituals tries to give you. This game isn't meant for someone who just wants to get through it, it's meant for those who are willing to take the time to really get to know the world they're in, a world surreal yet similar to our own in this world.
There's a sense of disconnect in Rituals that may turn some players off, because when you interact with things, you don't really interact with things; they just appear in your inventory. While that is a stylistic choice, it does take away from the immersive way the environment is presented. It goes from being completely engulfed in what the game is trying to tell you to an item just magically appearing in your inventory when you click on it. If the game was in third-person it'd be different, but for a game like this seeing the mysterious protagonist interact with things might have benefited the game overall.
The polygonal graphics, while jarring at first, are actually one of the game's biggest strengths. At first you're in an office where everything is square and white, and it works for that area showing off the mundane nature of the player characters life. It shows that they are stuck in a routine, a ritual if you will, of going to work and not really doing anything other than work. However, upon further investigation the player may find a few tidbits about the character they're playing as. While we never get a name we can assume that they are worker number 7, who's getting too curious according to one of the notes.
Later on, when we are introduced to the other areas of the game, the polygon graphics even work there, showing that not only is it different for the player themselves but for the character who is trapped in this surreal experience of having his life turned upside down with the touch of a button. He's finding out more and more about what's happening to his building, what it's meant for and how it'll affect the world at large. We don't get many character moments from 7, but when we do, they're somewhat startling because up until this point we have no idea what his personality is like. But when he adds a statement to something you pick up you forget you're playing a person rather than yourself. If the intent was to immerse the player in the game by making the main character mostly silent, those sudden moments of speech really knock you out of it, wondering why they said what they said. This leads to an entire other mess of how to interpret this.
Interpretation is a big part of Rituals, you'll have no idea what to fully think about the game by the time it's over. The game is criminally short, and could have had so much more content added into it to further expand the game world. Instead, it uses players to have them try to piece together just what happened in this strange place they've been dropped in. This works, but at the same time it could have had a lot more to give us a banquet of thoughts rather than the small smorgasbord we are given.
Rituals is a downright fascinating title that can really capture the attention of its player and refuse to let it go. While it is short and a lot more could have been added to it to make the world you're playing more complete it is a journey that should be taken at least once just to see what you get out of its story.
Angelina Bonilla, NoobFeed (@Twitter)
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Verdict
79
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