Immortality: New game put to the test thanks to Tribeca Festival from its story creator

When you consider the number of broadcasters and shows scheduled for June, Tribeca Film FestivalUsually an authority on cinema, it might stand out in this curious orphan era of E3, but it only took a few announcements for us to immediately realize how refined the selection of this year’s gaming division has been (plus, the organization has only recently started researching it seriously).

Titles chosen because they are clearly inventive or have curious artistic qualities. Tribeca Selection They caught our attention more than the entire night a Summer Game Festival managed to do, and that’s even more striking when you consider that we’re talking more about indie or projects with really small teams behind them.

Just because a video game isn’t super production doesn’t mean it can’t have a pretty heavy name behind it, and we saw the good stuff right away in the list presented. Sam Barlowyour outstanding writer his story and present there a new research game with similar connotations.

we can try immortality For half an hour, he was taken over by his increasingly mysterious narrative: this is what we discovered.

eternal artist

Compared to The Story of Immortality, the aim was not just to bring the two plays together, as they use real actors in the scenes: Barlow’s new work follows a similar structure to his “little brother” by presenting a play to the actor. video series to analyze to go through the circuitous events around which everything revolves.

Not only that, but once again the focus is on a single woman: a mysterious actress. marissa marcel, suddenly chosen to play the protagonist of a gothic movie named Ambrosio and disappeared under unknown circumstances. But here we are not dealing with the simple escape from society of an actress on the Sunset Street, for Miss Marcel has not only been part of a theatrical movie but also boasts a peculiar resistance to aging. . In the game, you can actually see him battling three feature films that are lost in time, with the only link (interesting to say the least since the first one) always seeing the protagonist and seemingly lacking the slightest sign. film dates back to 1968 and the last to ’99).

Solving the ordeal, of course, storytelling are not presented in a precise way, linearly and chronologically. It starts from one movie list and moves on to the next by stopping them and interacting with the items on the screen. Any “highlight” object or person in a scene leads to another video with direct links, and observing them in detail not only opens new threads of the information web, but also begins to put together the pieces of the puzzle necessary to understand where Ms. Marcel.

And let me tell you: mystery It immediately becomes incredibly exciting. Barlow enlisted the help of three writers to set it up, and the care of each scene is undeniable. Each video is so well acted that it gives the impression that a movie is truly partial behind the scenes, not to mention the existence of interviews, footage of the events surrounding each work, and the enormous amount of connections between a movie. video and other that can lead to other results with a simple click in the right area.

Then everything flows at great speed, with the ability to easily control the time of each movie with the pad and resume each video from where it was interrupted once to the next. We guarantee that it won’t take long to be skeptical of any figure interacting with Marissa in an unusual way, even photos and objects in the background that could lead to new clues.

mystical elements

If that wasn’t enough, the writing work looks pretty polished once again, given that the films Marissa’s life revolves around are two thrillers and a gothic novel, there’s no lack of clues and references here. mystical elements in the imagination of the actress it goes well with the curious “wrinkle immunity” status of the girl. In short, it is clear that there is a mystery with enormous potential to be solved, and Barlow’s work once again appears infallible in its ability to glue the player to the screen. It is enough that we want to face this experience.

Even from a technical point of view, the game impressed us, but not for the graphics, as it is a movie cauldron with real actors. No, what amazes us is the care given to each material: videos from the sixties and seventies are carefully retouched to look true to their era, and every scene of a movie is clearly inspired by the director’s choices for its cinematography. age. Also (and we find this very valuable), the game at least mature audience only And because he can appreciate the subtleties of it, he brings powerful themes, violence, and nude scenes into play, seemingly without taking them out of context (at least as far as we’ve had the opportunity to see them right now). It’s a bold choice that few developers today dare to make.