Say what you will about games where you take a leisurely stroll through the world created but sometimes you just want to have an experience that’s built to make you think and feel over forcing you to have twitchy fingers and reflexes of a cat. And Essence looks to take this idea to the next level. Some people may think that games like Gone Home and Dear Esther aren’t real games, but I have to disagree there. In fact, sometimes they give a much deeper experience than other genres. And you can explore at your own pace.
In Essence you play as a person with no memories. You don’t know who you are, where you are, or how you got there. Similarly, each world that you come across in the game are also missing their memories. In fact, the first time you land on one of twenty planned worlds it’s all black and white where you can’t really interact with anything. As you progress through the story you’ll pick up fragments of memory, adding color to the world and unlocking the mysteries of the place.
Can you put the pieces together and figure out how the single worlds all belong together and what happened in the past? Can you find the connection that holds the secrets of ESSENCE? Can you find the reason of a whole world dying? Can you find out why the color vanished? Can you uncover your own essence?
That is what I find most intriguing about Essence. It’s a continuously evolving world (or series of worlds) that you help reshape from cold and lifeless to teaming with beauty and wonderment. And along the way the main character will find himself as he struggles with both the land and his own emotions. What lies in store for the protagonist as he continues on his journey?
Track the progress of the Essence Kickstarter in our Campaign Calendar.
[…] towards the slower, cerebral, and more storydriven games. With Essence this is the latter. After an unsuccessful campaign last year Onevision has just returned to Kickstarter with a second attempt to make this dream a […]