A triumph in cinematography.
NO SPOILERS
I finally had the chance to play No Code's latest game and I’m going to be honest with you; it really impressed me. From the cinematography, to the thriller-filled storytelling techniques, to the clever use of its UI, it hits every note in a unique and well-executed way.
But before we dive into it, for those of you who don't know, here is the official description of the game:
Observation is a sci-fi thriller uncovering what happened to Dr. Emma Fisher, and the crew of her mission, through the lens of the station’s artificial intelligence S.A.M.
This game is not your usual puzzle or exploration game. It is one that relies heavily on its storytelling to create its mechanics and gameplay. Every aspect of the game is serving the story it’s trying to tell. Whether you like the story or not it’s up to you, but I simply cannot praise the execution of it and world building enough.
Where other games use UI as a separator between gameplay and player information, often breaking the fourth wall and immersion, Observation makes it the main gameplay mechanic and central to its puzzles. It is so central in fact, that I could boil it down to the UI being the game itself.
Where other games try to be cinematic by adding extras along the gameplay such as black bars on the screen or film grain or photorealistic cutscenes, sometimes thinking that those tricks are enough, Observation makes the actual gameplay itself cinematic. Not in an Uncharted way where you still have control of the player character whist the ground is breaking from under you. It simply makes the gameplay camera be the cutscene camera and follow the "Every frame a painting" ideology, allowing it to capture and frame memorable moments in its view.
Where other games sometimes struggle to use the gameplay in parallel with the story, sometimes ending up with gameplay mechanics that do not create a nice marriage to the story and sometimes creating what we call a Ludonarrative Dissonance, Observation says "hold my beer" and makes every choice, every decision, every gameplay aspect, support the story it's trying to tell. And that is what makes great storytelling.
Take a look at how naturally this shot is presented before switching to gameplay. The floating body of the AI character works as the cutscene camera.
Observation manages to accomplish that immersive storytelling experience in a variety of ways, but the most important one, is by taking the limited information we know about space and use it to its advantage. As humans all we know and have seen about space are images like these:
Not from first person experience, not from a third person perspective even, but from the eyes of a fixed camera.
This achieves what other games try very hard to achieve; to sell the world to the player, to make it believable and to ground it in their story universe. I immediately immersed myself in it because my limited knowledge of space was on par with how the game presented itself. This idea itself, already creates a cinematic feeling unlike anything we have experienced before in games. But where does that leave us with the gameplay and the player character? It would have been hard to play from the perspective of a human. It would not have sold what we already believe about space. We have never been to space; I do not know what it feels like. But I have seen astronauts float in the ISS. I have seen still images on the inside of a space station. I have seen very low resolution images of the outside of a space station. The answer is simple. Observation makes the player character an AI. An AI can have fixed camera angles. An AI can be low-res, distorted, imperfect, just like those real life images we have all seen of space. An AI can be limited and confined to its own space, one that is separate from the humans inside the space station. And that is the most realistic representation of such an impossible location that is space itself. It’s all you can hope for as a game developer, to be able to create a shoe that fits the foot not because it's a cool shoe, but because it made sense in the most pure way. And that is what makes a great presentation.
Another aspect that plays to the game's strengths is that it is not afraid to take things slow, like allowing the camera to linger on specific frames or slow down player movement or take it’s time switching camera angles, and it uses that methodical pace as a tool to tell its story. It’s not irritating or annoying. It fits the setting well and it creates the feeling of tension. The puzzles themselves are in different locations, some requiring the player to use information from a combination of different areas which can add to that uneasy feeling. This creates a lot of "whats ifs" in the player's mind. "What if I return back to the area and something will be waiting for me? What if something jumps at me after reading this needed-to-progress document? What if there is something around the corner while I backtrack?" What ifs are really important in a horror/thriller game. I would argue it's the most crucial aspect while designing a horror game. The player's mind is the best tool a game developer has in order to create fear, more than any gameplay mechanic because our brains like to make things up. It is a defense mechanism of preparedness, all it needs is the right push from the game developers. Throughout the game I felt like I was watching (observing if you must) a really well done bone-chilling thriller. It has no gore, no jumpscares, no disturbing imagery. Instead it uses that slow pace to immerse the player and allow them to get scared. That is important because it gives the player time. Time to get scared. Time to build up tension. Time to imagine horrible things that might never happen. And that is what makes a great thriller.
Time isn’t the only thing that adds to the fear. The mysterious environment itself does a great job. The amount of times I turned around and absolutely nothing happened and yet I still got scared is a sign of a masterfully planned horror game. Still and empty astronaut suits, floating objects, lights flickering, gloves and helmets sticking out of walls, long corridors, camera FOV, sound effects and camera effects triggering at the right times, all of that and much more to create an environment that is eerie and intimidating.
The environment for us is foreign, atypical and scientific in ways we don’t understand. It is unfathomable and in a way, uncanny. The fear and theme of the unknown is very much present throughout the game. Story-wise the "enemy" of the game is unknown. What happened to the crew is unknown. What happened to the station is unknown. When you discover what the "enemy" is, it’s not really clear, it’s still unknown. By the end of the game, some things are still unknown.
To add to that fear, the developers also used shapes. A recurring theme of shapes can be found throughout the game and its environments. Some are subtle or hidden and some are straight up thrown at you. Without spoiling anything, take a look at the game's poster. Notice a shape?
Now look at this in-game image:
Notice any similarities? If you think this isn't scary, it's because you don't have enough context. The developers cleverly made the end of that corridor flat black. It is only illuminated when you get closer and a bit more abruptly than normal. Turning around and facing that gave me cold sweats. It made me squint my eyes while floating through the corridor, squint my eyes when turning a corner. And yet, nothing happened. The cosmic silence of nothingness that this game has throughout its course, is the most mature storytelling I have witnessed in a game. The anticipation of something terrifying happening is the fear of the unknown. And that is what makes a great mystery.
What about the gameplay? Yes, the gameplay is also enhancing the story and it exists to push it forward. It can be broken down to this:
The whole game is a bundle of minigames connected with beautiful moments, cutscenes and gameplay events. As the AI you have tasks and in order to complete them you must figure out puzzles that in their most basic form are different types of minigames. The puzzles usually involve a bit of exploration but mostly they are comprised of UI interactions.
Each minigame is unique and smartly designed to make you feel clever for figuring it out with its minimal to none hand holding and genius UI.
The minigames are not the important thing in this game though. That is something that needs to exist in order to call this game, a game. It’s the interactivity that binds the rest together. What is the rest? Take a look at this image again:
You see those black arrows connecting the puzzles? Those aren’t just there for style. The arrows are the best thing about this game. They are everything I have talked about so far. They are the slow pace that drives you to the next puzzle. They are the stunning shot of a cutscene right before. They are that corridor that scared you because it was dark while you were heading there. They are the silence while you drift in space looking for it. They are the WTF moments when something is revealed before you can move on.
See, the core gameplay doesn’t make this game great. It’s what happens in between that does. It’s an experience worth playing and feeling. It’s an experience that is unique with every turn but also repetitive enough to count as a game. It’s an experience that is noteworthy and that I still think about way after its end credits.
And that is what makes a great game.
Quick THOUGHTS
Observation is worth buying.
Observation is a unique game.
Observation has reminded me of the films Annihilation and Arrival.
Observation is not easily comparable to other games.
Observation has stuck with me mostly due to the cinematography and mature, visual storytelling.
Observation does not overstay its welcome.