Review cover The Town of Light (PlayStation 4)
Official GBAtemp Review

Product Information:

  • Release Date (NA): June 6, 2017
  • Release Date (EU): June 6, 2017
  • Publisher: THQ Nordic
  • Developer: Lka.it
  • Genres: Psychological horror walking simulator
  • Also For: Computer, Xbox One

Game Features:

Single player
Local Multiplayer
Online Multiplayer
Co-operative
1930s/1940s fascist Italy needed mental healthcare just like anywhere else, how about a game exploring it through the eyes of a patient? GBAtemp was sent a copy of The Town of Light to do just that.

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The Town of Light (PS4)

It is a dark and psychological game featuring quite graphic depictions of abuse, neglect and other unpleasant things. All fit well in context but if the mere depictions of such things are not for you or your kids then walk away now.

I played it in English. Text is available in English, French, Spanish, Italian, German and Portuguese. Dub is available in English, Italian and German. Credits list other languages but they were not included in this copy.

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Move over Assassin's creed, you have competition in the oddest disclaimer game.

 

The game

In instances like these we occasionally have a little discussion along the lines of “what is a game?”. We can then cook up all manner of things involving win states, failure states, choices to be made, tests of skill and more besides. Sometimes it goes further and we have to create terms like interactive film and, worse, things like “experience”.

While I have been known to read books on game theory for fun I am actually of the “make my own fun game” persuasion, or maybe even play a role of a sort. Other times the work in question will have a pertinent message of some form.

Here I am lacking in the first one and the second… I suppose I had not really considered what the state of budget/state run, long term, secure, female, mental healthcare was like in late stage fascist/world war 2 era Italy before, however I would be unlikely to assume it was good. Also that probably means fans of “unique” in their games have a new one, personally I go with good over unique or innovative when picking games and for that you get to read on.

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Mental hospital, creepy notes, paint peeling. Talk about setting a scene and we have not even started yet.

Anyway lacking any other framing method this reminded me somewhat of the old language class staple of “here is, or think of, an object/scenario/location, write a story involving it”. Except here rather than an essay or something conveyed through the medium of interpretive dance you have a... game I knocked out over the course of an evening. Possibly would have been less but there were some considerable loading times at points.

 

Going into this I also wondered what it might be like if the player character was not all there in the head. I am still apprehensive about it but it was not half the problem I thought it might be.

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Off 'splorin

If you read the first few paragraphs you knew more than I really did going into this. I could have learned more, and there was a nice film student video covering things you can see from the main menu but I only saw that after I finished the game. So I was dropped in front of an old tumble down building in something like the modern day. Cool, maybe I am an urban explorer. *walks* that can't jump a small fence.

Said fence proved to be a problem as well so I wandered around the starting area for a while playing with everything I could see. In Virginia I commented that it was the first time in a game I got to play with a microfilm, here I got to play on a see saw, a slide, some swings and a roundabout, but sadly the rocking horse was not interactive.

Eventually I made it inside and the story begins. After that you also get some nice maps, a helpful hint button and revisit most of the areas a few times so you are more familiar by this point. To that end I mostly avoided the 90s adventure game problem of walk everywhere, speak to everybody, open everything, rub everything on everything else, something I dreaded when the review code came with a walkthrough.

I guess you are some kind of ghostly echo and you play as a former inmate reliving their time there over a period of years, unlocking and understanding more areas as you progress, and some of the things which led to that point. Spoiling the story any more than what has already happened would serve no great purpose so it won't be.

Suffice it to say the game plays nicely with unreliable narrator, unreliable historical accounts (going by the recollections of the player then bad happenings being covered up more than once), incomplete information, dream sequences and more besides. Not a terribly accurate portrayal of mental illness but certainly something interesting to explore within a game engine. Peppered throughout are various historical documents, texts, propaganda of the era and some of the scary things that used to be called psychology/psychiatry back in Italy at that time (again as if it needed stating then the combination of Italian fascism and similar vintage Roman Catholic beliefs was not a winner, and somewhat behind the rest of the world which was hardly nice by today's standards). At the same time no punches were pulled and you got to see things at their ugliest, managing also to avoid slipping into voyeurism.

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One of the cool little flavour text pieces/items found

At no point did the developers appear to cast the player character as someone that did not need some help, which is nice, however there was a constant question of “more harm than good” which was unpleasant to play though, in a good way, and nice to see in general. Or at least that was the impression I got and having read the game website as I finish typing this I see the line "Her only fault" featured prominently so there is that.

Technically you are given choices, though to say they are unclear as to their effects (at times you are the player character, at times you are you yourself playing as some kind of doctor/well wisher aiming to help the player character (or maybe not), at others you might just want the game to get going) would be an understatement. Said choices do also lead to different paths through some parts of the game, you could fairly easily brute force your way to the one your wanted as well (each action immediately sees a cryptic symbol appear and the key is available in the chapter selection). All roads lead to Rome though. Speaking of endings the last few segments maybe felt a bit rushed, doubly so when they introduced a nice new area to see.

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One of the choices

 

Graphics and Audio

The thing is built in the unity engine and the opening set piece uses the “grow in” rather than pop in approach I have seen a few times before now. What was more annoying were the shadows (pictures around here) which popped in at fairly short distances and were quite noticeable. In the building it was not so bad and the light engine was pretty good, especially if you were like me and liked to play with the windows and shutters. The static shots don't do it much justice, or else the motion blur covers more than I thought.

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See the shadow from the lamppost.

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See the box in the distance

Open world games and games like this are various praised or see some kind of uncanny valley when it comes to recreating a lived in world. For my money abandoned building is harder to pull off well and this does well for it.

I can't call the audio superb as that is reserved for something more than this, however had the musical stings, audio design and more not been there it would not have been half as compelling as it was with the lights turned off and only the light of the screen. Though actually to separate it from the whole does it a disservice; the game combined some nice control effects, visual effects, gameplay traits and audio to pull off some great sequences. Sequences where what they were though, and to call them disjointed would probably be a compliment… call it not as tight as it could be. I would also have to wonder if the "based on true" might have limited it in some way.

Many horror games could learn a thing or three from this, and it may be a spoiler but there are no jump scares despite what years of listening to some audio design like this has conditioned you to expect. Certainly far bigger games, games aiming at all the cinematic nonsense, from developers with far more to their name have done far far worse than this.

The voice acting worked well enough for me, there were a few missing sections, a few what could be programming glitches and sometimes the audio went further than the diary you fill in.

Coupled with the graphics glitches above this speaks badly of it being an “Enhanced version”. None of it really rendering the game unplayable but at the same time I do expect more from something as short and, for want of a better term, sweet as this.

 

Replayability

You have those branches, none of the puzzles are particularly challenging, you have some small amount of exploration for extra hidden memories and some sequences you might want to replay with context from later events in the game. At the same time “one and done” is a valid way to play this game.

Mini gallery

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Probably more outside in this gallery than you really get in the game, equally none of the dream sequences here for fear of spoiling some of them.

Conclusion

If you are a card carrying member of the “not a game” club then this is not for you. If you are one to enjoy this sort of thing then there is something to it. It will lack the broader appeal of something like Gone Home but at the same time it was compelling enough for me to do once it got going. Earlier I made comments about writing a story to fit a place/theme/object, and urban exploration. I have watched a hundred urbex videos and partaken once or twice myself, this game was then in many ways more memorable than a simple video and photo/text writeup is likely to be, though at the same time telling a story about something is itself a trick to help memory. I don't know if I want every abandoned factory to get this treatment but I will not begrudge this its attempt at such a thing.

At time of writing for the PS4 this retails for £15, PC not much less. For the amount of polish, the length and general subject matter it is more than I would be willing to pay. Especially as about £1 more would get me a copy of Life is Strange. Previously I have used the term solid rental despite it not meaning much any more, and will again here.

Verdict

What We Liked ...
  • A haunting exploration of a time and setting I have never really seen explored before.
  • Some great horror gameplay design.
What We Didn't Like ...
  • Some quite noticeable graphical glitches.
  • Other aspects of polish a bit lacking.
  • Not necessarily short for the gameplay style but still not the longest game out there.
7.5
out of 10

Overall

A dark and depressing exploration of a dark and depressing aspect in history. If you like the idea of that it will probably deliver.
I dunno about your complaints on pricing. This is very much a game you buy for the experience, not the gameplay. For $20, it might be a fair asking point to experience something this interesting. An IMAX movie ticket runs you $18, so think of it like paying for a cool movie experience. If it was something like, say, an RPG, then yeah, a complaint on length might be valid. If there's gameplay in the game, you expect there to be enough gameplay to justify how much you pay. But I don't think you can hold an interactive experience like The Town of Light to the same metric.
 
Definitely a point I've considered before, comparing the pricing of a video game to an experience in the movie theater. When comparing the two, it's a really strange feeling, for exactly the points you make. A movie is often $20-$30, but yet then so are games which can give even more hours of entertainment. So why aren't games more expensive? I find almost all movies to lack in rewatchability, to the same extent as video games, but others will rewatch the same movie a dozen times (like Star Wars). Final Fantasy 15 has how many movies worth of voiceovers? But at the same time, I cringe at thinking of $100 games. Also, similarly with piracy, Hollywood will ruthlessly hunt you down for piracy on their creations, but game creators have only rarely sought such actions.

So, yeah, dunno.
 
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Price contemplations were probably the hardest part of the review for me to want to include as they were, even scoring (which I really dislike doing) probably came easier. This gets further troubled by having to consider how much money I do or don't have, and my approach to things. £15/$20 US very much being beyond my pain point for money to burn on games, especially "experiences". I like the general concept/gameplay style (probably should not have played all those adventure games and 7th guest/11th hour in my earlier days) but I am never quite sure where to slot it.
At the same time cost per hour is not something I tend to like all that much, especially as games almost necessarily involve downtime and filler.

I don't regret the time spent, but in the same way that I watch independent horror films or really low budget stuff rather than constantly skimming for the best ratings and going from there. I am not expecting anything new and interesting but I enjoy it never the less, except there it is usually gore and cheese that I go for... this was actually probably closer to a survival/post apocalyptic film in that it was draining in a good way.

Equally I am happy for them to play with unity and suffer/play to its limitations, many of the gripes I had regarding polish were not the fault of the engine and probably should have been picked up in QA. Not game breaking by any means, and when the diary went further than the text on the page it got me to speculate a bit.

It is not the sort of thing you play with friends, nor the sort of thing I would do as something to hold my attention for an afternoon (earlier I played some battlefield 4 just for something to do in a game, this is not good for that), though at the same time "watch my kids for the evening, they go to bed and you do that is very much the sort of thing I would do). Definitely something to lend to someone for a "when the mood strikes you" moment.

This is getting a bit rambly though. I will continue to stand by the inclusion of the section and what it said.
 
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Review cover
Product Information:
  • Release Date (NA): June 6, 2017
  • Release Date (EU): June 6, 2017
  • Publisher: THQ Nordic
  • Developer: Lka.it
  • Genres: Psychological horror walking simulator
  • Also For: Computer, Xbox One
Game Features:
Single player
Local Multiplayer
Online Multiplayer
Co-operative

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