Eidolon

Eidolon is a hard game to rate on a binary scale. On the one hand, the minimalist abstract art, music, and resulting ambiance are absolutely beautiful. On the other, you spend hours slowly jogging through an empty world, periodically munching on berries and shrooms, with absolutely nothing going on. Now, if the game was free, it would be easy to recommend for an hour or two, just to experience this little gem. Or, if the game had a more robust survival and crafting system, to go on a The Last of Us style odyssey across America, uncovering forgotten mementos of times past along the way. In its current state, however, I don't think it's worth paying $15 just to then spend dozens of hours running around collecting hundreds of random notes scattered around a large barren landscape.

I camped beneath an old transmission line tower and as the sun set I watched the sky ignite with a thousand diamond pinpricks

It's really hard to review Eidolon. It's a relatively horrible gameplay, wrapped into an intriguing/immersive atmosphere, dotted with some excellent writing and environmental storytelling. It is memorable. My mind keeps returning to it 2 years after I played it last. It's a game that opens up to you... One other user commented you get out of it what you put into, that's true. It's like a relationship, not presented as a piece of interactive media waiting to wow you with its pzazzz, rather it's a piece of art with actual depth waiting for you to dive beneath its surface. If you want to... If you don't get bored after an hour of aimlessly wandering around. It is an exploration game. One I enjoyed immensely more than the acclaimed Outer Wilds or Subnautica or Proteus. Partly, or perhaps specifically due to its gentle, unassuming nature. If you like such games, or games with good writing, you should give this one a try.

Beyond thy lectures learn'd professor, Beyond thy telescope or spectroscope observer keen, beyond all mathematics, Beyond the doctor's surgery, anatomy, beyond the chemist with his chemistry The entities of entities, Eidolon The present now and here, America's busy, teeming, intricate whirl, Of aggregate and segregate for only thence releasing, To-day's Eidolon. The noiseless myriads, The infinite oceans where the rivers empty, The separate countless free identities, like eyesight, The true reality, Eidolon.

Cascadia minus the scolding SWPLs, fentanyl-feral urbanites, and heathen Cathayan landlords, rendered in pointillist minimalism. Survival is a bare-bones box-ticking exercise, so the real red meat is ambling about for readables, which are all genuinely well-written. There's a science fiction story worth unpicking, but Eidolon's best moments are its abstract landscapes and the soft instrumentation of country fingerpicking that brings them to life. Alternatively, turn the in-game music down, shotgun some Rainiers, and put on some Grouper.

A BEAUTIFUL TELLING OF WALT WHITMAN'S EIDOLONS. PLAY AND RECOGNIZE THE SHAPE OF YOU IN THE OLD POET. I AM THE MOTHER DYING INTO THE BIRTH OF HER SHINING CHILD.

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