The eleventh episode of a short series on games I discovered at EGX Rezzed 2017.
Take one look at A Light in Chorus from Broken Fence Games and you’d be forgiven for confusing it with Scanner Sombre (Introversion). But this was another game I knew nothing about other than seeing the odd RPS headline pop up on Feedly. I went in proper dead cold.
A Light in Chorus, like Future Unfolding, tries to offer something unfamiliar with minimal instructions, although whether this minimalism survives the game’s evolution to release, I can’t say. So here’s the thing. Similarly to Everything I struggled a bit to understand what I was supposed to be doing but, unlike Everything, it didn’t seem to matter a damn. I found the experience – in a word – awesome.
I gleaned this was about the discovery of the Golden Record from one of the NASA Voyager probes and, I assume, an attempt to reverse-engineer the origin of each sound. Playing a sound conjures an environment to life, constructed from tiny pellets of light; stop playing the sound and the pellets return to whence they came. And these literal soundscapes can be explored…
I unravelled a little of what Chorus seemed to be asking of me but never gained complete confidence. It didn’t matter. It was enough to just explore the dotted soundscapes which ranged from the inviting to the eerie. And the way the environment can switch abruptly between these states makes it a little unsettling. Absolutely marvellous.
Again, with something that feels fresh and different, how long the ideas can be sustained for is anybody’s guess. But, ya know, I’m pretty excited for this one.
A Light in Chorus is still in development.
Interested in other games I’ve dabbled with? Check out the series index!
Download my FREE eBook on the collapse of indie game prices an accessible and comprehensive explanation of what has happened to the market.
Sign up for the monthly Electron Dance Newsletter and follow on Twitter!
That really does look like Scanner Sombre!
“these literal soundscapes can be explored […] the way the environment can switch abruptly between these states makes it a little unsettling.” That sounds really cool.
Okay, I just visited their site and, yeah, that looks really beautiful.
Can you tell that I didn’t get to go to Rezzed this year? 🙂