Thalassa: Edge of the Abyss: Gample through fantasy

To begin with, I really recommend you not to read the blog if you have not played this game and there is at least the slightest desire to try to get used to it. It is 200% spoiler -dependent and it is worth catching at least one spoiler – you will no longer be able to get the sensations described in this blog.

If you have already passed the game (and with the most unhurried passage it will take no more than a week) or are absolutely sure that you will not play it – welcome.

A brief description of the game

The plot tie is that we were a submariner on the ship, on which an expedition was carried out to search and raise the Spanish galleon from the bottom of the ocean. During the rise of the nasal statue of a sunken ship due to a broken crane, our friend dies (beloved – decide for yourself).

The ship returns to the port, we are in a not better mental form we go ashore, together with us to support the head of the group of submariners goes to the shore. The rest of the crew goes back to the expedition. After some time, we come to our senses a little, but we get a message that the expeditionary ship sank with all crew members.

Having decided that both we and the family members deserve to know the truth about the causes of the death of the ship – we go to the crash site to find out what caused the flooding. Actually the main gameplay of the game begins with this.

At the same time, which is important – the main character in search of the cause of the crash of the ship also hopes to find the causes of the death of his girlfriend, t.To. It does not believe in such a fateful combination of circumstances and in the tragedy going one after another for different reasons.

Gameplay Thalassa: Edge of the Abyss is something between a quest and walking simulator. The entire gameplay consists of three components, two of which are obvious, and the third can be seen and realized only by passing the game to the end:

1) traveling around the ship in search of clockwork and evidence.

In this part of the game, we just walk on the ship and select interactive items. In this case, then they do not need to somehow unusually combine or use. Just every evidence can be examined or raised, no additional actions need to be done for the search)

The game contains very conditional elements of metroids (gradually finding new tools you will open access to previously inaccessible locations).

2) comparison of the evidence found to receive answers to questions in the corresponding menu. The game itself will give you a question that requires an answer when finding a clue. T.e. Finding, say, the record with the voice of a woman whose voice was not on the ship – the game invites you to ask about who this woman. Comparisons for the most part are extremely obvious and in the presence of at least the slightest logic will not be difficult.

3) and the third hidden part of the gameplay – the work of your brain in making up and reconstructing events based on limited information. Since we are not a neural network, which plays only to close gameplay need, (t.e. collect all the evidence, substitute them in all questions and complete the game) and living people with certain curiosity and empathy are our goal in the course of passing first of all, to find out what happened on the ship. Do not substitute the necessary clues to the right issues (compare the suitable squares), namely, to restore the chronology of events and make a picture of what happened for yourself. Not because it is necessary for the final credits, but because we are interested in. And with a certain degree of empathy, we may even really want to know the cause of the death of our girlfriend.

Now – let’s figure out why the third element of gameplay works in the process and how the authors beat the peculiarity of our perception in order to convey the main idea of ​​the game in the finale.

Warm coziness of the ship to the crash

Cold lifelessness after

Cliche

All of us, one way https://gamblingdata.net/casinos/old-havana-casino/ or another, constantly and continuously absorb art in one form or another. And the longer the art exists and the more accessible it is, the more cliche becomes in it. Established plot turns, characters, events and their consequences, images.

Cliche in art in itself, it is not good and not bad. At the moment, we are at the point when almost all plot turns have long been invented by someone, and the author is available primarily interpretations, rearrangement of terms, unusual combinations of clicked plot turns and clicked characters. But these same cliches make art interesting. These are proven ways to make a narrative meaningful. The work should carry some kind of thought, have a tie, climax and denouement, to cause interest. In the work, each event carries a certain semantic load and has consequences in the future, or is designed to create an atmosphere. The work in which events will take place just like that – with a high degree of probability will be called bad (in one of 100 cases brilliant).

Based on the widespread use of cliches in art, we freely or involuntarily get used to them and automatically apply to perceived works, whether it be books, games or films.

Seeing a little girl with her hair closed hair in the frame – we assume her hostility or danger.

If the character finds ancient letters on the seabed – with a high degree of probability, their connection with ancient gods or monstrous rituals can be assumed.

If in the first race we were given a uber charged wheelbarrow, then soon they will be taken away. and t.D.

And this habit of our brain to project familiar patterns for the development of plots and characters on a new work and plays Thalassa: Edge of the Abyss.

Let’s look at several game examples:

In the crew of the ship there is a chief engineer Thomas. Thomas is 20 years old, which is very little for the main engineer of the ship. Tomasa taught the previous chief engineer Demesvar, who resigned from his post due to advanced age. These are facts that provide us immediately.

Next, we dose and we get the following information about Thomas: Thomas wears banks with canned food at night. In the kitchen there is a hidden compartment of the ship in which the mattress is spread, there are candles and there obviously someone lived there.

And here cliche comes into business. In our desire to give an explanation of what is happening, we come to certain conclusions with the inspirational meanings of events in other works. You probably had your own version, but at that time we decided that Thomas actually did not understand anything in the engine, his teacher lived in the pantry, who, despite his age, did not want to part with the ship and who actually said nothing to the engine, what to do with the engine. T.e. Knowing the key event of the plot (the collapse of the Talassa) – we are trying to give what is happening in the context of the work, namely, to tie it to the crash.

Or, let’s say, we will find out that there was a journalist Jesse on the ship, whom the organizer of the expedition invited to write an article about Talassu and her journey. However, from the editorial office, the journalist receives the task of making a sensation from the article and finding something scandalous within the ship. The journalist knows how to find an approach to the crew, while communicating defiantly straightforwardly with crew members, dumping the dirty laundry of others on some interlocutors. And again, thinking in the framework of the main goal – we assume that conflicts on the ship were the cause of the crash.

Having learned that Isabelle (the organizer of the expedition) is ruined – we assume that the cause of the crash was saving. And t.D.

At the same time, in the course of the game, it becomes more pronounced that the main character is driven not so much by an attempt to find out why the ship sank, but an attempt to find the cause of the death of his girlfriend. An attempt to understand why this one, the first, an accident, and most importantly – who is its culprit.

And we generally readily succumb to this impulse, because during the study of the ship we understand that no one of the team is not without sin. The head of the expedition is twisting a secret novel, the organizer is ruined, the chief engineer – an inexperienced guy with some secrets and t.D.

Apofenia

Apofenia – the term appeared in 1958. Initially, it was used as a medical term describing pre -zyazophrenic symptoms, but later it began to be used to describe similar cognitive distortions in healthy people. This term describes the peculiarity of our consciousness, try to find the relationship between unrelated and random events.

Apofenia in a mild form is inherent in almost all people. It exists in mind that the brain needs to structure chaos. This is an attempt to consciousness to identify patterns in the surrounding world and use their. However, in view of the fact that the world does not rotate around us – this feature sometimes turns into a distortion of reality.

We find the reasons for the events where they are not, we blame ourselves in those things that we could not influence, we attribute to other people evil intent where there was a banal ignorance.

And it is thanks to apofenia that the plot and idea of ​​Thalassa: Edge of the Abyss works.

Having gone through the entire ship and reaching the place in which the events took place, learning about all the crew members, even that we should not know, turning the past of everyone – we understand that the reason is an accident.

The chief engineer is more than professional, his teacher has a dementia, and he fed a secret wiang.

The journalist loves to dig to the truth, but she is a completely emphasic person and having downs a few potential scandals, but seeing that the crew of Talasses is generally good people – sends a neutral article to the editors.

The ruined owner of the expedition with all her heart is happy for the team, although he hides her bankruptcy – sells property from her estate in order to ensure normal working conditions for the team.

Despite the presence of dirty linen, each of those present on the ship, they are basically good and even bright people, with their passions, but loving, enthusiastic and selfless.

Despite sometimes even mystical hints and coincidences – there is no mysticism and a draw of evil will did not cause a crash. The guilt of the whole storm, which ruined during the storm, the engine part and a combination of circumstances.

The same applies to the death of our girlfriend. None of the crew saved on a crane, no one was mistaken in its installation, no one was mistaken in its operation. The fault of the marriage in production on another continent.

We earnestly tried to find an explanation of the death of a friend, to understand who could wish her death or whose mistake became fatal. Apparently because we were the last to see her alive and could not save her and we wanted to shift the blame on someone else. And it was necessary to just take it off yourself.

“Talassa” ends with the fact that the versions of events so carefully built by us throughout the game, attempts to plunge here causal relationships from books and cinema – are crashed about one simple fact.

Shit happens. Sometimes just like that, without a goal and insidious reasons. The world is not a movie. Not every event – happens to something. The world does not spin around us. And the departed loved ones sometimes need to be able to let go, instead of blaming yourself or someone else.

I will not say that the game is masterpiece, but its gameplay works due to the fact that the developers submit information in the right order and with the desired pace. They give the player to boil in their own versions of events, internal dialogs they enhance the player a sense of apofenia, the entourage – they lead the player to the reproduction of detective plots in the head.
But – they never deceive the game, never once give their evaluation of events for the game, they do not push the player to one or another conclusions too straightforwardly.

I consider such a work with the script and its presentation, as well as the main idea of ​​the game, at least worthy of attention and a higher rating.