No Small Roles celebrates the RPG experiences being created by small teams in the indie space.
Sometimes, a game comes along that fits neatly in the intersection of your thoughts. Days Gone Remastered came out, and I was curious how it might play with some extra polish. I like some parts of that game, and the biker traveling across a post-apocalyptic world is a pretty cool concept. Unfortunately, I was quickly reminded of why reality has nothing on the idea. It was still a dry, weirdly off-center, open-world apocalypse-em-up. So I was once again left unsatisfied by a game I’ve somehow spent 60 hours in over the years.
Then there’s all the Death Stranding 2 talk, which brought back fond memories of trekking across beautiful apocalyptic landscapes with a baby in a jar—a baby in a jar that would tug on my heartstrings by the end of that wonderful game.
Yes, the apocalypse thing is overdone in games, but here are two very different examples of what can be done in that space, for better and for worse. Both were in my thoughts when I stumbled upon BlightFog on itch.io.
BlightFog is by Zakroutil and tells the story of an anthropomorphic beast who rides a motorcycle across a largely monochrome post-apocalyptic world full of strange machines and dangerous fog. But it’s not just you on the road. You’re entrusted with an infant, and ultimately, you are out to get this kid and their mother to relative safety. But there’s a lot of road and a lot of danger between you and your goal.
BlightFog, DarkDays
BlightFog is a pretty straightforward RPG in terms of structure. It’s a game of choices, and the weight put upon those choices is survival. Resources are naturally limited, and the world is ugly, greedy, and violent, so you’ll have to fight for what you’ve got.
The problem is, you’ve got another mouth to feed. There’s a nagging emotional crux to this tale: care for yourself to make the journey safer and easier, but risk ill health for the child. Or ensure the child’s comfort and make yourself vulnerable, possibly tweaking your chances should trouble arise. It’s a choice that sounds pretty straightforward, I suppose, but context is key, and the context is there’s no clean and easy survival in a post-apocalyptic world.
As you travel, there are options on where to travel. Do you conserve fuel and go a riskier, shorter route or do you take the smoother, safer route now and possibly risk a different kind of trouble down the road. There could be some much-needed supplies on the risky route, but is it worth it when things seem relatively fine for now? Sure it will help later, but as is always the kicker in a choice-based system, there’s always a fallout you didn’t bet on.
BlightFog does allow you to think outside the box somewhat and do desperate things in a hopeless situation. So, say you have plenty of fuel but nothing to drink. You can drink that fuel, but naturally, it’s a last resort, and any benefits are minuscule. Yet they could be just the kind of margins you need to make it.
What Zakroutil has done so well here is drive home that this is a bleak situation that can twist morality in understandable yet disturbing ways. Every failed action, every bad decision, every wrong word hangs heavy on what comes after. You can’t forget your mistakes in this world, because they’re life-altering. But to survive, you sometimes have to do things you’re not proud of, and that’s the haunting quality of a post-apocalyptic world.
BlightFog is on itch.io now.
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