NOTE - If you don't want to read all this just skip to 4. It's by far the most important note here.
Okay this is gonna be somewhat congested and tossed together, but this game is AMAZING. I think nearly all of us can agree that in the modern climate, things have been bleak. ♥♥♥♥'s getting depressing, and there really seems to be nothing that IS getting better. Hell I'd say 95% of games that even come out nowadays are nothing more than a cash grab, it's incredibly disheartening, and of the few games I did play, they've turned to nothing more than a pile of bones the shareholders continue to pick at to cash out off the game.
This game, MOLE, is SO incredibly relieving cause it does a few key things so well.
1. This game is not a cash grab at all, it is absolutely worth every cent and priced perfectly by my opinion.
2. It's made VERY well, this game truly was made with passion and a very deep energy behind it, I can feel it in everysingle detail throughout the map. Every poster, every item, the atmosphere, etc. This game was crafted and built extremely well
3. This leads into the atmosphere - this game feels incredibly unique, oddly enough the graphics, sound design, etc, all work in harmony that fit eachother perfectly that crafts this very uncomfortable, always almost "off" feeling, you always feel like something could be to your left, or right, or behind you when your walking through the drill assembly, for how the graphics are presented in being VHS-Horror themed, this game is genuinely pretty damn scary.
4. Most of ALL that I appriciate here, this game does not treat you like your dumb. WAY to many games nowadays pull the card of baby'ing you through it. They give you a tutorial that's just very video-game esque, it guides you, nudges you on what to do, and It's so immersion breaking. This game does not do that at ALL. It treats you like a competent human for once. The way it presents the rules is in a very complex, almost very realistic system that allows YOU, a drill worker to look over scrambled notes, tests, etc, and essentially soak up information from what otherwise would be a decently realistic way of finding it. This genuinely made me feel like a ♥♥♥♥ tard a couple of times cause I've been baby'd through games SO much I've nearly forgotten my ability to learn from the environment. To the developers, THANK YOU for making me feel like a person and forcing me to use my brain again. That is so relieving in the modern day of doom scrolling and tech addiction where our brains never have to work for anything, yet are so flooded at the same time.
5. The story is genuinely very interesting, I've dealt with a handful of family-related death's, and being the only daughter of my family, I lost my brother in Ukraine not long ago as he had gotten deployed. This tossed me for a few emotional loops cause it really dives into an obscure, very twisted, but fascinating idea of the philosophy of death, conciousness, the idea of a human soul, communication with the dead or even a whole other plane of existence for a "soul". The story is nice cause ontop of that, It's a very neat, highly creative system that incorporates puzzle solving, mechanical skills, etc. You don't just do a few things and repeat them, this game scatters your attention all over the drill assembly. Your the pilot, the Engineer, the Geologist, the Communications specialist, the Security, and It's just so interesting the way they've presented it all. And not only that, but I find the art style compliments the whole game incredibly well, I absolutely loved every bit of this. I'm well aware by now studying so much of my own countries history that this is almost certainly VERY heavily inspired by the SG-3 Kola Superdeep Borehole which was when the Soviet Union attempted to drill deepest into the core of the planet ever, and they did so and that records never even come close at all in the modern day. This games creativity is incredibly cool as It's based in the 80's as your a successor crew tied to I assume that borehole, but your in a SHIP, not just a drill operator on the surface. The technology is incredibly cool, using old 80's styled Soviet experimental computer systems, cassette's to extract and load data, etc. All in all, the story is AMAZING. I am highly greatful for the experience, there aren't many people who've lost a love one that may have meant so much, so greatly and so deeply to them, enough they'd sacrifice themselves for them. Tiny venting session aside, this game is weirdly very deep for what it is if you really pay attention, and treat it with an honest morale compass.
6. I think the credits deserve their own little section. I in my entire life have NEVER seen a credits system as ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ cool as this game has presented them, being a crime scene camera operator, going through and looking over what you've done, what you've caused as your actions and death are narrated over by your own corporations PR specialist. This was INSANLEY cool!!
All in all, this game was genuinely VERY relieving, it makes you think, it doesen't treat you like some brainless zombie on auto pilot, and It's very engaging. I absolutely LOVED it.
I honestly even feel bad even making any suggestions at all as this game was made with so much passion, care and love as it is. Honestly my only changes, and even than not changes but requests would be very small. Maybe a few small armored view ports on the walls in some rooms - you can look out and SEE your in rocky caves, or see glowing magma through them, have out-door microphone systems that you can listen into in the communications room and hear voices on the outside of the ship whispering to you, just small, odd anomalies and stuff. Maybe even lean into the Soviet aesthetic harder, add a more brutalist nature of design to the ship, etc.
This isn't my game at all, these are more so suggestions of tiny changes, ultimately though they are NOT complaints or things I'd change at all. Honestly for my rating, which I often judge things quite harsh as my standards are high and rough, AND treating this in the case of it being a small developer team just making games they want to make, not some big ass company ripping off It's customers, I'd say a very solid 10 out of 10. Absolutely excellent!! to the developers, thank you for the experience and I will be keeping an eye out for your future games!!
As a last note, this game would be AMAZING in VR!!
