“It’s Winter” is not a fun game

“Nothing is waiting for you. It’s just that the radio is broken, lonely, and endless snow. “That’s Ilia Mazo’s brain It’s winter now, To introduce his games on Steam to potential players. Even for the Muscovites, this is outspoken, but he is not out of reach.

For a bold price of $9.99, you will get a game deliberately without plot, purpose or characters.This is a sandbox reproduction of a lonely night spent in (or around) khrushchyovka: One of the ugly prefabricated complexes is synonymous with large-scale housing in the Soviet Union. He told me that this is a “post-Soviet sad 3D” work, an immersive exercise.

Stepping into the shoes of the Soviet self, you will find that almost everything is interactive. The radio-you should try to make the radio work-combines the industrial atmosphere and the atmosphere of Russian chanting. This is Mazo singing. Despite claiming to lack musical talent, he created and released three albums that were intertwined throughout the competition.

This is not all. There is also a short film, an anthology of poetry, and an animated workbook, each of which is more sinister than the last. According to my moderate experience in the area, none of these contents provide any hints for setting. A Russian friend told me: “You may be in Vyborg, you may be in Vladivostok, or you may be somewhere in between.”

I think this is the point.Unity is the scar left by the architecture of the times Device. (Mazo is a bit creepy, and later admitted that the block was a copy of a friend’s residence in Petrozavodsk.)

Therefore, there are scattered furniture from the 1960s, refrigerators with food, and showers to keep you busy. Look at the right place, and you may even find some disturbing clues spiritually. A half-eaten antidepressant box is hidden under the sink. My notes, written in a draft in a spider-shaped Cyrillic alphabet.

For a stand-alone vignette, this level of detail is absurd-you can rummag in the neighbor’s trash can to learn about his life, or you can simply microwave it into tomatoes. But if you are like me, you will soon get tired of the internal chaos. The real attraction is to walk into the night and explore all the glory of its dystopia.

That’s all It’s winter now Offer-and if you like this kind of thing, it will touch the nails in your head. Playground, stairwell, storefront… Each scene is more frustrating and frustrating than the last scene. It is the most primitive porn-a snapshot of a world that has long been closed to the West.

According to the local army of fans of the game, this is the real deal. A player said: “This is a very precise representation of a typical Russian house on a typical Russian street.” “If you are from a first world country, please play this game. Try it out, embrace its atmosphere, and for you Not being born in such a cold, lifeless slum is happy.”

This is the key to appreciation It’s winter now; It should be seen as a work of art rather than a game, as a fleeting and fleeting experience in life in the frozen north. According to internal statistics, even more enthusiastic fans reached their limits in about two hours of gameplay. (However, there are always outliers: a player has already invested 36.3 hours.)

It’s winter now Maybe a bit recherché, but this is not the first time.Walking Sims, somewhat derogatory, are usually lighthearted and bizarre, like Dan Golding’s Untitled Goose Game.They may also be very popular: with Mary Flanagan’s [domestic], Is the reconstruction of the house fire that the author experienced when he was a child.or Cancer, Cancer, An autobiographical game that tells the experience of parents watching the game while fighting the same illness with the baby. It’s winter now Sitting right in the middle of these two camps-definitely not that deep, but it does provide some opportunities for contemplation.