The Void

Posted by Martin Mulrooney.
First posted on 15 July 2011. Last updated on 15 July 2011.
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The Void
The Sisters are manipulative and needy.
The Void
The Brothers are blind and deformed.
The Void
The Camera Obscura is used to process collected Colors.
The Void
The Sisters often undress in seductive poses.
The Void
The Void is a bizarre and twisted space that exists between life and death.

The Void (also known as Turgor and Tension) is a surreal, survival horror adventure game from Russian developer Ice-Pick Lodge. Awarded the "most original project" at the 2007 Russian Game Developers Conference, the game's meticulous English localization from its initial Russian release not only sets the scene for the experience ahead but also immediately highlights how the game offers a rather unique experience regardless of the players' native tongue. There has been a real effort by the developer to retain the original Russian experience for English speaking gamers. Consequently, the game's originality is never in question, and the translation has not done any disservice to the original intended vision of the developer.

Taking place within the titular Void, the game pits you (the player) as a nameless lost soul (Hero), trapped in the endless abyss between life and death. The story is initially scarce, with the opening cinematic bravely offering some wonderfully twisted visuals, accompanied by beautifully spoken dialog, before throwing you into the deep end. Sadly, much of this dialog can appear nonsensical at first. As the story progresses, it starts to resonate much more clearly, but many players may find themselves more acutely tuned in to the game's visuals than the game's cryptically spoken dialog.

The best description of the core gameplay is that The Void is like a warped version of Myst, with added functionality. The WASD keys are used to control movement, whilst the mouse is used to pan around the surroundings in full 3D. The mouse also controls a cursor that can be used in many different ways to interact with the world.

Every challenge in the game revolves around Color. You collect it from the offset, sprouting from the ground like plants and flowering in the branches of trees overhead. You start off in a chamber, quickly meeting the first Sister. Serving as a tutorial of sorts, she teaches you the basics, before allowing you to explore beyond her chamber in various caverns that shoot off the main path. An overhead map allows you to see that each conquered chamber connects to others, each holding its own Sister.

The map is where time advances, with every process moving in cycles. You can speed this process up, but you need to remain aware that as time advances collected Color is being used up in your Hearts. When all of your Hearts run out (you can collect up to 20 by the end of the game), you immediately die.

This is where the gameplay can get tricky. Each Color stands for a distinct ability, such as Gold for trust or Green for defense. Initially, this matters little. You simply use any Color to travel on the map (drawing a line for the Hero to follow) and can likewise use any Color to draw various glyphs.

Pressing left Ctrl slows down the world, allowing you to paint these glyphs with any available Color. They can be utilized to perform certain actions, including awakening trees and combating Predators which are small creatures eager to attack. Some glyphs allow you to possess powers such as great speed, whilst others allow you to transfer Color to the Sisters and even trees. You accumulate these glyphs as the story progresses.

However, you cannot just use picked up Color immediately. Pressing the B key allows you to see the Camera Obscura, where the Hero's semitransparent silhouette displays all available Hearts. Collected Color is known as Lympha, which is held on the right of the screen. Transferring Lympha into the Hearts will slowly transform it into Nerva, which is collected on the left of the screen. It is Nerva that you need most, using it to travel, draw the glyphs, and interact with the world.

After the first few cycles (during which you will most likely tend to the first Sister's garden and fill her Hearts with Color), the Keepers (Brothers) are introduced. As they are all blind, they are tricked into believing you too are one of them, offering you various quests. Later, you may even fight them in a duel. Yet, who are the real enemies? The beautiful Sisters or the horrific Brothers?

The main criticism against The Void is its difficulty. (Personally, it took me close to 10 hours just to get a good sense of the game's core gameplay mechanics, and even then I was unsure about what I was really supposed to be doing most of the time.) In that sense, the game is very cruel: it can be very unforgiving and punishing. You will be best starting from the beginning after learning how to avoid wasting as little Color as possible. Also, the game lies to you. The Sisters tell you to kill the Predators, so you do without question. Later, the Brothers condemn this, and you begin to have doubts about your chosen alliance. Have you been wrong all this time? Killing them certainly wasted a lot of Color, causing you to begin to question yourself. Yet, only a singular truth prevails in the end. The fact remains that the game is overall very hazy when it comes to story and even the integral ingredients that make most games shine, namely accessibility and fun. This is not a fun game, but it is an intriguing game. However, the intrigue quickly wears thin when you die and lose life simply because of movement or the passage of time. In other words, the game's demands are frequently too high, with multiple mechanics that must be strictly adhered to and death being a constant threat. The tension that these demands create may be admirable, but the actual feeling which blossoms out of them is mostly that of frustration.

Regardless, the production values of The Void deserve praise. The game's translation of both written and spoken text is excellent. The Sisters are portrayed in a tasteful, arguably non-sexual manner, though some players may be offended at their gradual removal of clothing and question the developer's intentions further down the line. Yet, it can be argued that this titillating aspect is strictly necessary to portray the Sister's ongoing manipulation of the Hero. The graphics are stunningly twisted and often beautiful, despite a muted color palette. The brush controls, possibly inspired by those in Clover Studio's Okami, work well in this game, making you wish that it is possible to harness endless Color rather than the meager rations available. The music is muted and largely forgettable, but perhaps this is an intended choice: whenever the music makes itself known, it immediately conveys a strong sense of impending doom.

Playing The Void is certainly an original and unique experience. For some players, it can even be safely assured that every piece of the game will click into place and they will excel at unraveling the admittedly intriguing narrative to its natural conclusion. For the majority of players, though, it is most likely that this adventure is just too unusual to really shine. The game is certainly worth experiencing, but at the risk of immense frustration, confusion, and almost certain defeat. The Void is not a conventional adventure game in the slightest. In fact, The Void is not a conventional video game at all. Approach with caution, but feel safe in the knowledge that—love it or hate it—there is no game quite like The Void.

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