Developer Muse Games have a habit of creating rather enjoyable gaming experiences and with their latest title, Embr, this hasn’t changed.
Pitched as a tongue-in-cheek firefighting video game, players become an “Embr Respondr” and must take on raging fires all while ensuring the highest rating of customer satisfaction. During Rezzed 2019, I had the chance to sit down and get hands-on with this emergency services revolution for myself.
You see, in Embr firefighting is now arranged by means of an app that allows a person in danger to quickly get a response team out to them, while also providing the power to give feedback on their experience. The set up is brilliant and lays the foundations for some hilarious moments which were made better by the enthusiastic team showcasing the game. The latter really helped to sell the experience and provide encouragement throughout the firefighting chaos.
Working with a team member, we quickly picked our roles and prepared to try breach the blazing building to save lives. I say breach because I opted to play the part of the Breacher and was opening doors with a well placed breaching change. Yes, that is standard issue firefighting equipment. My team member had a ladder to help with holes and heights along with a trampoline. I guess we should of used it to catch people but really we were axing our way into rooms, grabbing people and quickly throwing them back out the window to safety. An efficient service if you ask me.
Now as you might expect when dealing with a burning building, things quickly fall into absolute chaos. The fire is spreading at an alarming rate, the water from the hoses is tripping the houses electricity, there is a gas leak and within all that the floor to the basement collapses. But we did save enough people to meet the legal minimum requirement to call it a ‘job well done’. Sure, one or two people got left behind and my team member nearly died in the fire but we got good customer feedback, which is all that matters, really.
My time with Embr may have been short but it was highly enjoyable and makes me rather excited to get hands on with the finished product. Though developer Muse Games haven’t given any clues to a release date I highly recommend keeping an eye on this on. I’ve enrolled to become an Embr Respondr and you should too.
Embr will be releasing on Steam Early Access later this year and can be wishlisted on Steam now.
Disclaimer: One of the B3 contributors, Jon, has worked with Muse Games, who are currently developing the game Embr. This did not affect our ability or decision to cover the game.
