Oh man.
Overland. I backed it forever ago, and it went in Early Access awhile back. I tried it briefly, felt a little rough, little too hard maybe. Now it's out and I finally sat down to play it, and had quite an experience.
It's the apocalypse. There are creatures walking around destroying things. You start off by youself, and immediately meet someone else. That part is always the same, but you may meet other people later. Many will tell you to stay away from them. Some will ask you to take them with you. You can ignore them, bring them along, fight them for resources, whatever. People in your party can die, and you can abandon them to escape to the next level. It's a tough game, so those kinds of choices are a part of many successful runs. You progress primarily by car, which transports you between levels. In most levels you're trying to find gas and resources to keep going.
After a handful of deaths, I start another game, but instead of meeting a person, I meet a dog.
Oh no. This is a huge strategic problem because there's no way I'm letting the dog (Udon) die, even if it ends up being necessary to proceed. Crap. I bring the dog with me and we advance through the game. Eventually we're told we can rescue someone. I decide to go for it. Turns out by "someone" it meant another dog. This one is named Sharkie. I now have two dogs I can't let die. They have to survive every level.
Somehow I make this work. Me and my two dogs thrive. We trade cars a couple of times and end up in a big van. We're approaching the end of the game and have lots of extra gas, so when we see one more potential stop at the end with a chance to save somebody, I feel obligated to try. Even if it ends up being another dog.
Well, it is another dog (Goose). And a person (Sheena). Oh God. That makes five of us. Three dogs, me, and Sheena.
There's only four seats in the van. Somebody's getting left behind.
All my choices feel gut-wrenching. I've been playing for hours. This is far and away the furthest I've gotten, and I was so close to just getting out with my dogs. But now these two things have names and somebody's getting left behind. I have no idea who it should be. How do you decide something like that?
Except, wait. There aren't five characters. There's four...
and me. Technically, the game gave me a name at the start, and even some biographical details (one of them is about how I worked at an animal shelter, I kid you not). But I've never thought of my starting character as someone else. I've thought of it as me the whole time. I should stay behind. It turns out this is the only character I have the moral authority to make this choice for. It turns out there's no choice to be made.
So, I do. I go down swinging to keep the road clear as the three dogs and Sheena escape.
Reply to Topic
