[h1]"Spying is the future; the future starts with you"[/h1]
You're thrust into it without so much as by your leave, let alone preparation, other than a few words on the phone from your employer, practically from the assembly line into the middle of a film reel. You are after all just a corporate drone pieced together haphazardly from the scraps of your previous colleague who went and got his head blown off. And the same can happen to you. I mean, how hard can it be "to turn on the surveillance system, eavesdrop on conversations and scan objects"? The amusingly bored corporate voice even said they already knew the answers. Then why are you even gathering all this intel? Obscurity just oozes from every aspect of this game. Although I felt some things could've been communicated better, the more I played, the more I saw its cryptic minimalism as a feature rather than a flaw. The shadowy vibe certainly fits the theme, but its colourful surrealism was what had me positively mesmerised.
You're in the dark in more ways than one, starting from the working environment: Three drab panels with few points of interest, lonesome silence barely filled up by some vaguely ominous ambient hum, only interrupted by the piercing phone ring at the start of every day and bunny girl's morning broadcast. That is until you insert the disc and turn on 16 cameras in the middle panel where all the action takes place and your world opens up. You're supposed to spy in real time on 5 curious creatures of the mysterious Undercroft for some faceless RA Corporation for whom you're one of many faceless agents. No other context, background, worldbuilding is provided. I suppose it all feels dystopian and a bit post-apocalyptic.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3086822456
TOBOR is one of those surveillance simulations, management type games with a surreal twist; kinda similar to Do Not Feed the Monkeys, but with the resource management severely stripped down. You don't have to manage time between spying, working and sleeping, you don't need food nor money; you're a robot and although a slave, you're at least free of such burdens. You can just observe characters for six days, trying to make sense of their unfolding chopped-up narratives. Still, there is multitasking involved. Your main actions are to eavesdrop on conversations and tap significant highlighted lines, and scan for objects to further reveal information; all the while following blinking camera lights and moving from scene to scene. Occasionally you will have to quickly pop to the right panel to press some buttons in order to reduce the ever-increasing glitching and noise. Easy-peasy. Well, it certainly becomes a routine after a while, but it takes a bit of getting used to as all the gameplay tips are relayed while you're trying to follow what's happening on the camera feeds, so it's easy to miss things. (Like to follow one character per playthrough, argh!) At the end of the day you report to HQ and this part I especially enjoyed. All the intel you've collected is digested into semi-interpreted pieces of information, crucial keywords from which you choose three at a time that best correspond to the objectives, so called "deriving intel". Finally you can read at your own leisure dispersed slices of character backstories and Undercroft history without rushing and missing anything. Bit by bit, piece by piece, the story forms. A strange tale about the Ark and its dumping ground deep under the sea, about failed clones, and one locked up AI, sad and angry... Ok, I better stop here as revealing the lore is the main point of all that spying.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3086848708
[h3]"There is nothing either good or bad, but YOU make it so"[/h3]
But TOBOR isn't all about spying and looking outward. It's also looking inward. I mean, who wouldn't start [strike]tripping blue[/strike] daydreaming during all that relentless gawking into other peoples' lives. You let your mind [strike]glitch[/strike] wander and suddenly you're transported into a light point'n'click game, or rather a dream-like interactive interlude. Atmospheric and stylishly monochrome, these visions look as if you've entered the monitor, through a looking glass where interactions are amusing but seemingly inconsequential, until you're presented with a choice that can actually alter characters' realities and influence endings.
The highlight of the game though are surreal dreamscapes at the end of every day, a dive into subconscious slumber aka charging the batteries. What do robots dream about? Whose dreams are those - Tobor's, Machine's, Its, Yours, Mine? Either way, it's in COLOUR! In stark contrast to the gray everyday, these surreal visual novelesque segments, the dreams, are very vibrant and colourful, rendered in striking minimal style. And remarkably human. By that I mean there's a whole carnival of child's! recurring nightmares: a labyrinth of hallways, doors, tunnels, forest trees, rabbits, dolls, masks, hands, evil grins and all-seeing eyes. And mazes galore you navigate with simple choices. Even though it may appear you're lost, the only way out of the dream is right through it... something like that. Meaning, just go with the flow, enjoy the evocative and highly symbolic scenery that seems to hint at the crux of this tragic story, reflecting the bigger overarching narrative - and you'll find your way.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3088935443
It feels like there should be an overarching story tying all these splattered chunks together, and not just in your mind, but with a finite ending, a proper closure. The biggest challenge in this game is the fear of missing something, especially if you're a story completionist: sticking to the storyline you're following, deciding what to give your easily scattered attention to, letting go of that very interesting conversation you just stumbled upon cause it's irrelevant to your current objective. You must come to terms that you can't see everything, but choose the threads, prioritise a character you've selected to observe to be able to meet the intel quota on the topics that are required*, or you'll get terminated. It struck me how this starting and stopping makes the game simultaneously immersive and immersion breaking. Which is by design since you're a voyeur on the outside looking in, only witnessing slices of lives that unfold independently of you. It's a bit like taking a tour among set pieces - and characters do have an air of theatricality to them, like actors in a play - but nowhere staying long enough to see the end of the story. This creates frustration, but one that bears curiosity, the need to complete the picture. Before you know it, it becomes addicting, compelling you to come back for multiple playthroughs.
The game is conceived to be replayed... at least once for every character. Sadly, I realised this after my first playthrough when I observed a different subject each day and got an unsatisfying non-ending. There is adequate replayability to sustain starting from scratch; obviously the surveilled intel will be fresh, but the surreal parts also show quite a bit of variety. However, I'm not sure that's enough to justify not having a Day replay, if not a manual save, for quickly exploring mild differences over which I wouldn't want to completely restart the game, even if one playthrough isn't that long. Another thing is about what constitutes sufficient mission quota, as I would get A+ for deriving 2 out of 3 intel, another time I got F for the same amount. I feel this could've been communicated better.*
Other than these complaints, I found TOBOR's atmospheric minimalism refreshingly imaginative and its mysteries compelling enough to tickle the peeping tendencies we all have... Um, just me?
[h3][quote][b]You can stalk me at [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/40848670-Drugoja-In-The-Dreaming/]Drugoja In The Dreaming
