Peeling back the fog in the last days of a dying city.
Inheriting a business from an old friend must walk a strange line between fortune and misfortune – although the latter certainly applies more to the former friend. However in A Place for the Unwilling, you, with your sudden elevation to market trader, find not just a new challenge in the change of job and wealth, but also in society.
A Place for the Unwilling, from a small Spanish development team Alpixel Games, follows the story not of the blank, unremarkable palette that is the main character, but in the city that they find themselves a part of. It’s feature list would certainly have had most people thinking that the game would be a business management title, while in fact it deals heavily with the relationships between the people of the city as the foundations of its imbalanced class system starts to rupture. That and the city has only 21 days left before it all falls to pieces — although that never really came up in my hour-or-so with the game.
In many ways the easiest method to discuss APftU is to juxtapose Harvest Moon/Stardew Valley’s mild, countryside life (and sometimes hectic farm management) with a busy city life, (and sometimes hectic stocks management). It’s also worth drawing in Animal Crossing, if just for it’s Turnip Market, as otherwise the game is almost the inverse; APftU and the farming titles having you do your day job to exist, while other -social- elements straddle that in the fleeting moments as you travel from here-to-there, or have got all of your work done.
The parallels aren’t simply in the case of having to manage a day-job while trying to find time for the villagers; Unwilling has a similar time-management element to it as the other titles. If you stay up too late you’ll suffer at the hands of a lay-in, a massive stump to your productivity. Wealth and success too follow similar principles, you need money to do things, and so you must find a way to earn it. Much like earlier Harvest Moon titles you can bankrupt out, albeit rather than losing the business the developers are currently trying to explore new ways of keeping the player in the game — we discussed the possibility of the player having to join the lower-classes in the workhouses, or possibly getting a loan, with the game early in development there’s still a lot left to nail in for the team.
It’s not just social class, morality, and wealth, that steer the game; another integral part of the game is identity. As you wander the dusty streets of the city, the various pathways, offices, and individuals that are going about their business are almost completely hidden from you; clouds of smoke walking the cobbles, pathways blocked by smog. It’s only as you hear about those routes and people that the cloud blows away – sent to report the young, smoking child who is selling a competing paper to a police constable? Suddenly the haze clears and you can see them as they move throughout the streets. The game’s map follows the same logic, although it still requires you to employ your memories and experiences, as the developers deliberately chose to keep it as a real map – no ‘you are here’ no legend or markings.
This feeling of grown information, and grown identity, ties in perfectly to the other themes of the game; the character’s wealth is inherited, rather than earned, as such they owe their fate to their lost friend. Do they retain their loyalty to the lower class that they came from, composed of people who haven’t had that opportunity gifted to them? Or, do they embrace their new life, focusing on high society and the higher echelons of business? While the game’s world certainly continues to turn as you spend your time there, you are the latent catalyst, the kerosene soaked match, carefully navigating your way as the city readies to burn.
The build that I played started with little exposition; lost and enshrouded in mist and fog you walk along a seemingly never-ending bridge. Along the way clouded figures ask you questions about your life and loyalties, whether you are a good person, who you would strive to protect. It’s all slightly biased towards outlining the lower-class route as a tougher job, naturally pushing me towards it. After talking to five-or-so figures I confirmed my choices, and the game’s first location loaded — the protagonist’s new home.
I played about an hour of the game, most of which served as an introduction to the social layer of the game. A rivalry between the salesman of a mainstream paper versus a young, cigarette smoking pre-teen selling a rag targeted at the workers served as the introduction to the class divide. A recent fire headlined both party’s papers, telling of a large factory fire. One paper sympathising with the factory owner, blaming workers for the blaze, while the other focused on the poor mother who died in the incident and how it could have been stopped were the factory owners more responsible. These starting interactions put the young scamp on the offensive, and they actually start laying into you until you identify yourself as a new, neutral party; that said, the other salesman is very quick to recommend you report his competitor to the police for them.
It’s a short little encounter, but with a story that serves as a tip to the iceberg that continues and escalates as time progresses in the city. Not only does it introduce the two factions, but it also removes the fog around several routes, and another handy contact – a police officer. Each of the major characters in the game have multi-faceted opinions of you, the developer who I spoke to at the booth confirmed; some may be close friends to you even though you’re actively working against their faction — although as the class-war comes to a peak it will become so divisive that it’ll be nearly impossible to interact.
Between the advancing story is a day-to-day job of commodities trading; your office is on the other side of town, and after a few days you’ll be earning enough money to rent a carriage to get to work and back, if you can ride the market well. The choice between money & time runs throughout the game, spend too long doing one thing and you’ll end up missing valuable trading or story opportunities. Commodities trading also ties into the story, as impending worker revolts are bad for certain industries and good for others, on the other hand if you opt to mingle with the managers and owners you might find trading tips and tip-offs coming your way.
It was an extremely early build that I played when I met the team at EGX Rezzed earlier on in the year, and I nearly bounced straight off of the game what with the earlier-mentioned, strange introduction sequence, the slow pace that the character walked at, and the lack indicators and direction within the game. I’m glad I didn’t, the game has an absolute mass of potential and treads a path that is unlike anything I’ve played before – a routine based game with a politically charged narrative, also, the developer -as I’ve relayed in this post- already has plans to quash most of those early concerns.
A Place for the Unwilling is currently listed for release in 2018 for Windows PCs.
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