Soul Searching (2017)

Soul Searching is a minimalist rendition of the survival/exploration adventure genre. With pixel graphics and simplistic gameplay, it’s a narrative-driven experience that challenges the player to learn and explore. Will you simply be an explorer, or a true soul searcher? The game controls easily, with you moving your tiny character along the map collecting food and other resources to survive. You start with a small boat that you can load with supplies to make your trips between islands easier. As you explore, you’ll be able to purchase bigger boats that can be outfitted with an array of different tools, allowing you to do things like fish and have better control of your direction on the seas. This could be better managed with a menu interface, but so could things like resource management. I feel like the lack of menus was purposely done. As you traverse the islands, you’ll encounter small cutscenes that can expand to your understanding of the small world around you. Eventually you even encounter terrifying creatures like a giant predatory bird, or a killer whale, both of which attempt to make your trip as unsuccessful as possible. You’ll also be able to speak to most of the inhabitants of the islands, each painting a picture of what life is like there, explaining their worries and their struggles, each with very sobering experiences to tell about that can be surprisingly existential for such a small game. The sounds in game do a good job of tying the environment and structure of the adventure together. In some of the later scenes with a particular race of creatures, as well as on a more solitary island, the pixel art really shines through, showing that this minimalistic artistic expression can be a real treat. The game does have other mini games and short stories available to play, many of which can be fairly entertaining. The real joy though, is the single player story, which is surprisingly complex with a rich world full of lore if you take the time to go and find it. Pros: -minimalist graphics -open exploration Cons: -can be difficult to navigate in certain boats -no clear directive can be confusing Overall 8/10 This game is a bit of a secret gem. There’s a lot to unravel here, and the execution is done really well. It’s like a pop out book you can slowly unfold into a series of wonderfully artistic scenes. While there could be a bit of polish in some areas, it’s overall a good experience. You can purchase this title here:

Soul Searching is a fun game that kept me playing. I think the pace and difficulty was perfect! I especially enjoyed exploring, fishing, and upgrading. The story was a bit dark and depressing but I think that was kind of the point. I would have rather it stayed more upbeat and like a high fantasy story (something like Earthsea), but it was still interesting enough. The extra stories were interesting too. Definitely shows that an engaging narrative can keep you going even with poor graphics. I was left wanting more to explore and hope the developer updates the game with a long adventure storyline without all the depression dialogue. The coop is a great addition too! I’d love to see more content for coop!

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

This is the most depressing game I have ever played. When you customize your character, you have the options to select which gender you are attracted to (which has ZERO impact on the game whatsoever.) The game starts off good when you buy a boat and catch fish, but the game takes a dark turn when you reach more islands. You’ll encounter people who want to commit suicide, abusers, etc,. You can’t help them as far as I know. At one point I encountered a bartender that encouraged me to drink my problems away. I decided to stop the game at that point and check out the episodes in the extras. Before the episode started, the game told me (and I quote) “This episode will be told from the prospective of a Straight White Male”. okay? The first episode you just toss a basketball around while two characters are talking about wether or not a girl likes them or not. One episode makes you listen to the ramblings of someone who is high and thinks the world is meaningless. After 20 minutes, get an option. “Do you agree?” “Yes” or “No”. If you select Yes, you get a “oh sorry you feel that way” and the episode ends. The last episode makes you feel like you’re on an LCD trip. You encounter characters just like the main game, but everything happens randomly. Every character had some weird thing to say. “I think our current president is dumb”, “Everyone who doesn’t have a religion is an idiot”. At that point I had to wonder what audience this game was intended for, was it for people who have depression? Because this game made me want to die. Don’t buy this game, don’t even get it for free.

I absolutely did not enjoy Soul Searching. Navigating on the boat was tedious and frustrating. When your character (err unrecognizable box of pixels?) is on land, the goals and tasks of the game overall are very unclear.

Most depressive game I have ever encountered. The rating system actually fails to account for something like this, as this is more like an assault on the psychological health of the player than a game, it practically has negative value. An honest rating would be -5 as far as I am concerned since the amount of time I spent playing and actually finishing it was not the only amount of time I lost to it, it took some extra time to feel good again afterwards. Avoid even if someone offers you money to play it.