Pathologic (2005). Been wanting to play it for years but been a bit too intimidated because of the reputation it has, but finally gave it a try and am about halfway through the Bachelors’ route.
It’s actually not as bad as I had made it out to be. The core loop of resource management isn’t too difficult and pretty engaging. You famously spend a large portion of the game walking between places but because of the stakes imposed by the resource management and the constant potential for sweet deals in the hobo economy, you’re always engaged. The game isn’t afraid to throw unfair feeling scenarios at you, but if you’re not above reloading and retrying a couple of times they are very possible to deal with, at least so far. I have a decent stock pile at the moment, so I might actually fuck around and not reload next time I catch the plague.
The game does a lot of things with the medium that very few other games have even attempted and is absolutely worth a play. It also has a very unique and compelling setting, Morrowind is probably the closest example I can think of in terms of world building even if the setting in Pathologic is relatively speaking more grounded.
If you haven’t heard of it before, Quinns article in rock paper shotgun is a good introduction and what first made me interested in the game when I first read it maybe a decade ago. Since it was written, Ice Pick Lodge (the studio behind the game), has released a remastered version of the first game with better translation, released a sequel and announced a second sequel, both of which are retelling of the story in the first game from the point of view of one of the three available protagonists in the first game.
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Pathologic (2005). Been wanting to play it for years but been a bit too intimidated because of the reputation it has, but finally gave it a try and am about halfway through the Bachelors’ route.
It’s actually not as bad as I had made it out to be. The core loop of resource management isn’t too difficult and pretty engaging. You famously spend a large portion of the game walking between places but because of the stakes imposed by the resource management and the constant potential for sweet deals in the hobo economy, you’re always engaged. The game isn’t afraid to throw unfair feeling scenarios at you, but if you’re not above reloading and retrying a couple of times they are very possible to deal with, at least so far. I have a decent stock pile at the moment, so I might actually fuck around and not reload next time I catch the plague.
The game does a lot of things with the medium that very few other games have even attempted and is absolutely worth a play. It also has a very unique and compelling setting, Morrowind is probably the closest example I can think of in terms of world building even if the setting in Pathologic is relatively speaking more grounded.
If you haven’t heard of it before, Quinns article in rock paper shotgun is a good introduction and what first made me interested in the game when I first read it maybe a decade ago. Since it was written, Ice Pick Lodge (the studio behind the game), has released a remastered version of the first game with better translation, released a sequel and announced a second sequel, both of which are retelling of the story in the first game from the point of view of one of the three available protagonists in the first game.