Aggressive melancholy in games. As anger, helplessness and devastation help to receive satisfaction

We are all people and we are all prone to melancholy, introspection, self -digging, longing, sadness and other human factors. Not only that, it is not rarely that we like to drown in our own helplessness, for example, we can watch a sad film, not in the best mood in order to aggravate our state even more. And there is nothing wrong with healthy melancholy, when I want to calmly sit at home, wrapped in a blanket, and so that no one touches. It just so happened that among gamers there are a lot of lovers to suffer at the emotional level, for them games are created, whose purpose is difficult to attribute both to typical time-killer and sterile-navigated AAA Titles.

These are the games that are made so that you feel them, let them through yourself, completely dissolved in the world that they offer. To be able to exchange sensations and, as a result, release those unpleasant emotions that for some time glowed you. I’ll make a reservation right away that it will not be about that tube and pleasant melancholy in the manner of Life Is Strange, Gris and Journey, but about the back side. Melancholy gloomy, cold, hopeless and cruel, but all the same damn attractive. I highlighted 10 games that, in my opinion, fully reveal their dark energy. It will not be a top, rather, the road from devastation and a sense of helplessness to brutal and cold -blooded cruelty. Due to the specifics of the selected topic, most of the presented games are neo-nuars, since it is this genre that best helps to throw out the negative and fully enjoy the disgustingly beautiful feelings of moral oppression.

Before starting, I’ll make a reservation that it will be a healthy melancholy and a slight spleen, and not about serious mental disorders. So, if you suddenly have a second case, it is better to immediately contact a specialist, and not provoke addiction emotions in yourself.

Pathologic/Mor (utopia) – death and helplessness before time

Original pestilence released in 2005. studio Ice-Pick Lodge, It is a truly merciless Expirence that can drive you into hopeless despondency (in a good way, of course). I decided to start with it, since the Mor is the game that is interesting to listen to, but which is very difficult to play in.

For context: The main character of the game – the bachelor of medical sciences Daniil Dankovsky arrives in the city of N, in order to meet with an immortal person who has lived in the white world for more than 150 years. But upon arrival, the bachelor learns that someone killed the immortal. Broken and crushed Daniil in desperate attempts trying to find a killer. Soon, a mysterious disease appears in the city, which runs out residents one after another. Having broken his way to the truth, the bachelor’s way: every day to make a difficult choice, communicate with the inhabitants of the city, protect them, wise to survive, taking care of that he himself is fed up, did not suffer from thirst and be healthy from terrible ailments, which walks along the streets with him.

But, unfortunately, the game is built so that everywhere and always you do not have time and pay for this to someone’s life. The player has 12 days, and in each of them you need to manage to fulfill the list of tasks that is designed for a specific day. Time goes on regardless of your actions, it is not you move the events, but they are you.

Mor (utopia) can be considered a synonym for the word “helplessness”, this sensation stretches through the whole game, only taking away and giving nothing in return, drawing strange bizarre images:

Thanks to them and the characters, events resemble a delusional dream, from which, alas, not wake up.

Thanks to them and the characters, events resemble a delusional dream, from which, alas, not wake up.

Thanks to them and the characters, events resemble a delusional dream, from which, alas, not wake up.

Mora has a very large threshold of entry, the game wanted to spit on you, she is not at all interested, the problems that you will face, be kind to play by her rules or not play at all. If you still can overpower yourself, then the world of Mora captures you with your head, and it will cost him.

Inside – fear, loneliness and emptiness

Another masterpiece from the creators of Limbo, affecting the themes of loneliness, renunciation, despair. Puzzle platformer released in 2016. Indie-studio Playdead.

Here all the feelings and experiences of the player will be purely personal, and events are freely interpreted, since not a word will be spoken in it in all 4 hours of playing in it.

For context: You are just a boy who is trying to survive. Run away from people in masks, and they are trying to catch you. Along the way, to overcome certain obstacles, you have to decide simple puzzles that seem to intend to simplify so that the player is not distracted from the process of contemplation and being in a state of prostration.

The overall sensation of the emptiness also helps the embosses from Martin Stig andersen And Sès Gunver Ryberg, which just fills the world of the game with a viscous sense of loneliness. INSIDE is played perfectly, it passes quickly, in the finale you sit with your face. Isn’t it fine?

It goes well with apathy and fear of the inevitable future. Inside helps to dissolve in his experiences, but does not allow them to choke on them. The game rather helps to slow down a little noise in the head and indulge in a calm course of time.

Papers, Please – moral exhaustion, bitterness from the consequences of choice

Widely known indie game Lucas POUP (Return of the Obra Dinn) is a border guard simulator in a totalitarian state.

For context: The main character is offered a border guard and give an apartment in addition. All that is required of the player is to correctly exercise the inverting of foreign citizens into the territory of your country (Glory to Arstotsk!), according to the instructions and requirements. For each violation of the check-in regime, the player will be written out, due to which he will lose his hard-earned denyushki. And earnings are very important in Papers, Please, because we need to support our wife, son and mother -in -law. You need to pay for housing, food, heating, and if one of the family members gets sick, then you also need to spend money on medicines. No, of course, you can not spend money, then you simply doom to the death of all your relatives.

The whole game takes place in such a moral crush. They pay very little, and will not be enough for everything. Will have to make a choice, which, of course, will have the consequences. In the course of the development of events, a lot of things can happen, and the player may be involved in this. Some of the foreigners need to help with documents so that in the future they help you. Someone will ask you to participate in the coup for good money in which your family needs so.

Despite the fact that directly the game screen in Papers, please is only one:

It transfers the atmosphere of a closed state in full, from the checkpoint it blows the cold of concrete slabs, and the imagination finishes the rest of the city as the most gray and gloomy place, and this is only thanks to the design of the game.

In my opinion, Papers, Please is a game just for the moment when you have There is no mood, Today was a disgusting, gray day, you really did not do anything and watched from the side of how life flows.

The Wolf Among Us – Dirt, Views and Neon

It is considered one of the best, if not the https://paradise8casino.co.uk/ best, the game now deceived, and then reborn, Telltale Games. The game is based on the comic book universe Fables Bill Willingham telling about the characters of various fairy tales, fables, folklore, which are forced to hide in our world. The concept is very interesting, and execution at the highest level, so I also advise you to get acquainted with the original comics.

For context: The actions of the game unfold a few decades before the events of the original. The main character is the biggest and terrible wolf from a fairy tale about a red cap, only now the wolf is represented in human form and is the sheriff of Faibirtaun, the region in New York, where all the legends escaped after the enemy captured their native lands. The wolf made a sheriff just because of his reputation as a cold-blooded and prudent predator. So also due to the fact that after the escape from the native lands all the legends were announced an amnesty (that is, all their past merits and misconduct are now canceled), then the wolf will not be able to file any complaints.

According to all the laws of the telel well, this is an episodic Point-And-Click quest, where we should unravel the case of the murders of girls-storytellers as a sheriff. But the value of this game is not in the plot and not in, God forgive me, gameplay, the style is important in this game:

The game of light-teni, music, characters, everyone is simply interesting to be in this. There is no need to say much for non -linearity, because it is still TELLTALE GAMES, and all the main events take place anyway.

The game is also perfect for your disgusting mood, so that you can fully feel the dirty, neon, brutal aesthetics of New York of the 80s. Try on yourself the skin of a truly cool guy who, like you, is tired of all this shit.

The Red String Club – Easy Quietness of Being

Game from Deconstructeam (Gods Will Be Watching) was released in 2018 and gave players a truly personal expirence. In fact, The Red String Club is a bartender simulator in the world of cyberpank, and all that is required of the player is to communicate with visitors and interfere with cocktails.

For context: A faceless future, the power of corporations, a soulless city that tramples and devours the fate of ordinary people. And only the forever uninhabited Donovan calmly sits in his bar and tries to make people life a little better, communicating with them and raising their mood with his drinks.

Donovan and his friend-hacker Brandais learn about the plans of the evil corporation, which is going to save people from feelings of sadness, longing, anger with the help of the project “Public Mental Welfare”. But behind good intentions, the goal of total control and brainwashing is hidden. And while Brandays is taking more active actions to destroy the plans of the corporation, we, in the person of Donovan, also continue to work in a bar, communicate with various people and get information from them for our friend.

To talk people, the player must correctly mix components for a cocktail, which will help to call the emotions necessary for conversation. Each visitor this person with his preferences, his thoughts, problems, and each requires their approach.

Information received by you from visitors, you are free to dispose of whatever you like. The quantity and quality of this information depends on your actions. People come to you to share personal experiences, tell news from the streets, and your task is to maintain a dialogue as natural as possible, continuing to divorce the guest.

The gameplay is uncomplicated, but pleasant, the dialogs are alive, like the characters that pronounce them. The plot of stars from the sky is not enough, the main thing is here, as in all the above games – the atmosphere. The game is ideal for a rainy evening, when the colors of the whole world fade slightly in your eyes.

Half the way is already behind. Games where to make people hurt not the basis of gameplay is also over. Ahead of us are waiting for projects that amaze with their evil, gloomy and tough energy. Games that give us plenty to be saturated with the dark side of our thoughts and fully imbued with melancholy interspersed with adrenaline.

Max Payne – drugs, hopelessness, noir

The same Max Payne, whom he probably knows. Despite popularity, I could not help but mention him here. Therefore, something like a game gives a story and what is building a mood around-worthy of praise.

For context: The story of an ordinary policeman who lives an ordinary life with his wife and little daughter. As Max himself says – “The American dream that has become reality”. But one of the days, when Payne returns home, he discovers a bunch of drug addicts who mercilessly killed his half -year -old child and beautiful wife. This nightmare event turns Max’s life upside down.

The greatness of Max Payne, like a third -person shooter, no one is going to dispute, as it is also to confirm this again, because we are not here for this. And in order to think about how the game makes us catch the gloomy and depressed wibes of the frozen, vicious New York. Music, locations, monologues of Payne, and 20 years after the release of the game, also graphics – all these factors are configured to morally destroy you, turn inside out, force to shy away from each rustle (and the game is not a horror).

Watching Peyn as a deeply injured person is a real perverted pleasure. Bake it with your hands every bench, like shopping and members of the mafia – gives a feeling of gloomy satisfaction. The game is perfect in any cold season, when you are sick of everything positive and cheerful, and the soul requires brutal noir.

Hotline Miami – Retrovyive and Ultranasilia

So the parade of games from Devolver Digital, at the end I will try to summarize how it happened. And now ..

Miami’s hot line reached in 2012 and became a kind of phenomenon, although being the usual Top Down as a shooter, became a household name of this genre. Combining the crazy style, brutal ultranasilia and hurricane gameplay, the game was doomed to success.

For context: It is difficult to say anything about the context when it comes to Hotline Miami, because with something, but with the plot of the hot line its oddity. Events are seriously presented and torn, and the reality of almost every fragment of history can be in doubt, which is why some things are given to players interpretation.

But the Neo-Nuer Top Down Shooter, in the style of the 80s, lasts to entertain you with a tricky-stray plot, here is a style, violence and retrovia. You only need to clean various locations from enemies over and over again, using the arsenal of firearms at the level. How can this approach differ from the same Duma (let’s say 2016)? Everything seems to be the same: you delightly destroy the hordes of opponents, cruelly, brutally and under the most beautiful sound accompaniment. That is, that the thoughts, that the hotline of Miami should awaken the same emotions in us. But no. The devil lies in details.

Firstly, the opponents of the opponents are in Khutlin, with the exception that they are all bandits and a scum, while demons from hell are waiting for us in the Duma. And the fact is that by killing us like the same people from flesh and blood, we do something wrong on a subconscious level, and such walking on the knife is only bewitching.

Secondly, in the Duma and in Miami, the main characters are most depersonalized as possible, with the only difference being that Jecte (the hero of the first part of Hotline Miami) is obviously a mentally unhealthy person, with obvious deviations. Despite the alternative reality, Miami of the 80s, nevertheless, is very close to our world, unlike the distant future with Mars and hell. And, if you look at the situation from this side, then an unemotional and mentally unstable jacket, killing members of the Russian mafia and drug addicts – cold -blooded, particularly cruel way, much closer to the player’s loaded problems. Rather than the omnipotent thought of Slier, annihilating the endless hordes of the demons of hell.

Thirdly, despite the similar construction of the gameplay, the sensation of it is radically different. When playing in the thoughts, you splash anger and get a charge of adrenaline and positive emotions from the gameplay, because the game is tuned for this. This approach is also therapy, but treats slightly different sores. While in Hotline Miami the player accumulates anger and gives himself to his dark “I”, showing just that unemotional and cold -blooded form of melancholy. Dark feelings overwhelm you and dissolve during the game, as you are dissolved in this state.

This, of course, does not mean that, playing in the thought, you cannot be sad, but, playing hotline, you cannot have fun. Simply, in my opinion, thoughts are configured to splash out feelings, and hotline for prolonged lubrication of internal throwing.

The game with his stylistics, rave and message pays tribute to the 80s and the neo-nuar era. The very thing for a state when you are just a “grandfather of inside” perfectly accelerates blood and gives away from pressing problems, drowning in the abyss of hopeless ultranasia. And, although it was only about the first part, the sequel in this regard is not at all behind the original and even sheds light on some ups and downs of the plot.

Mother Russia Bleeds – Russia, acid and hatred

Beat’em Up, published Devolver Digital In 2016, he was the first game after Hotlina Miami (not counting Bloodbath Kavkaz, of course …), which managed to catch that hurricane rave and energy, while creating a completely different game, in another setting, a friend of a friend and with another history. The general, perhaps, remained pixel art. Similar features have undergone transformation – this is spirit and music. Mother Russia Bleeds has become rude, tougher, dirtier than its spiritual fellow, and this is expressed in everything.

For context: You are a member of the gypsy community in the USSR of the 80s of the time of perestroika. The player is given 4 characters for which you can play, each has its own weaknesses and strengths. The difference is most of all between the clumsy, but strong Thunder Ivan and the weak, but fast Natasha. In the course of the plot, we are kidnapped in order to set up experiments using a new Necro drug. When the main characters are chosen from a secret laboratory in prison, they find that they became addicted to this drug. In the gameplay, this is reflected in such a way that syringes with green liquid can either restore the player’s life, or give a boost to strength and speed for a short period, which is useful against the attack of numerous opponents and in battles with bosses.

In general, here the plot is even more optional than in the previously mentioned Hotline Miami, so it also makes no sense to garbage.

The bitemap gameplay is also not enough stars from the sky, unless I want to note that it is very pleasant to demolish the faces of the muzzles. In terms of ultranasia and composure, the game behaves more aggressively than a hotline, developing into some animal rage in relation to its enemies. The benefit of these sensations is played by a more abominable and disgusting, in a good way, the design of locations and opponents.

Music also sets up on a more aggressive tone. It helps especially well when your calm melancholy slowly develops into a barely controlled hatred of everything around. Having “live” a little in such an alternative world, thanks to Mother Russia Bleeds, it becomes much easier for you to return to our everyday.

Katana Zero – PTSR, longing and player

Katana manages to withstand the subtle balance between sadness, melancholy and unemotional fury.

For context: The protagonist of the “snakes”, despite his young age, is a war veteran, after which he suffers from post -traumatic stress disorder. The hero visits a psychotherapist, where each time he complains of the same nightmare that he dreams of. At the end of the session, the doctor gives a snake medicine – “chronos”. And then sends the hero to the next custom murder. After completing the task, the snakes return to his apartment, watching a TV with a summary of terrible news about endless crimes on the streets of the city, drinks tea and goes to bed.

Unlike the two previous games here, the plot is not easy for the next location that needs to be cleaned. And, in principle, the “peaceful” moments of the gameplay in interest are not inferior to combat. First of all, thanks to the calm, dreary, atmosphere of neo-nauric anti-utopia.

Also, the dialogue system is very pleasing and helps to better get used to the role of a snake crippled by fate. Looking at the answers that Katana Zero offers us, the player understands that all of them, one way or another, are spinning in the head of the protagonist, and there is no feeling of some extra or wrong remarks.

Snakes – an unconditionally typical representative of this kind of game. He is mentally not healthy, silent, assembled, calm, cold -blooded. But when the main character meets a little girl in his house, which has absorbed everything human that remains of the snake, it involuntarily makes you smile at the most typical smile, with notes of sympathy and regret.

Unlike Hotline Miami and Mother Russia Bleeds, Katana Zero will not help you share your anger and neglect of the world around. Because Katana makes from the game about ultranasy under the synthesive a personal story, with a raid of inexorable longing.

Ruiner – cyberpunk, hopelessness and oblivion

Another game from Devolver Digital, Another neo-nour, another anti-utopia and another depersonalized, injured hero (this time with amnesia). I don’t know what kind of pattern is, and how such games absorb streams of universal sadness, self -flagellation and anger, but the fact remains. The last five games from this list work for one idea, they want players in them to heat their problems, bad thoughts and Grandfather Inside mood. Let’s go back to the ruiner.

For context: 2091, cyberpunk, corporation, implants. Your brain is hacked, you have amnesia, your brother was kidnapped, and one obsessive thought is spinning in your head – “kill the boss”. You will help you to deal with all this, you will have a hacker girl who supports you with a remote connection and, in which case, directs on the right path. Ruiner is a TOP Down Shower with pumping skills and abilities. The game also has a dialogue system, but it does not affect anything, because:

The game is saturated with the decadent mood of the rotten city of high technology, where the black market rules everyone, and the corporation does not care about what is happening below there. In Ruiner, a palette of anxiously red light of neon signs, emergency lighting sources in factories, as well as cold blue light, which shine the same neon signs, prevails. I also want to note a viscous emboss, which largely supports such a dense gloomy atmosphere that at least scoop it with spoons.

Despite all the hopelessness of the world Ruiner, he still manages to lure the player and makes him completely dive into the dirty streets of Rengko. There is no open world in the game, there is only a hab-location in the form of the southern part of the city, by which we are free to move wherever we want, and where we go to tasks. This small area is so lively and atmospheric that it helps to completely believe in the world of a ruiner, the world in which people have long become consumable and, moreover, they were so desperate that they themselves were ready to become.

Wandering around the area, you hear conversations, collect information about the city, people, events in the universe of the game, which you can then read (and this information is always worth it). The game is a reflection of the very state of prostration and apathy, mixed with quiet anger and sadness, when the hands have long been lowered, and there is nothing ahead, only oblivion.

Final

So we came to an end of our trip to the places of gloomy and cruel melancholy, filling us from within. How did it turn out that the last 5 applicants on my list were games that published the last 5 applicants Devolver Digital, And also why there were no truly large AAA projects here? For example, The Last of Us Part II. After all, it is also all saturated with melancholy and ultranasilia in amazing performance. I can explain my choice as follows: the products that are presented here are emotions games. Everything that happens in them is not as important as the emotions that they share with the player. In these games, all the feelings that I described above are the leitmotif of all their short duration. Their melancholy vibe is constant from the beginning to the very credits. And large projects strive to tell a story with ups and downs and emotional jumps, tell about people, about events, surprise a hurricane gameplay.

I do not want to say that the same mor is not trying to convey something to the player. I understand that there is more sense than in my life, but, personally, I hooked me primarily with his mood. I also can’t say that in Max Payne something is wrong with the gameplay that players value first, simply, again, for me, the game from the Finns has psychological value. And, yes, I also realize that for someone and Sims can be a way to enjoy his embittered despondency. But that my The list of games supporting the brutally-melancholy wyb, and the fact that half of the presented games came out from the publisher Devolver Digital, It is rather a funny combination of circumstances than a conscious choice. Just these guys are one of the most important publishers of indie projects, if not the most important. And the phenomenon in itself is that there are so many products on the market with similar messages, it simply confirms once again that gamers are sensitive and love to suffer in their hearts.

It really turns out that games, as a form of expressiveness, attract and help people who need to distract from the problems of everyday life and the way of combating internal demons. But here it is important to say again, if you really have problems, and not another “autumn spleen”, then it is better not to aggravate your condition, but to seek help from specialists.

Thanks for the time spent, I hope I was able to convey my thoughts, and most importantly, the sensations that are in the above games.