14 DAY TRIAL // Next up in our Softpedia Game of the Year 2014 awards is the runner-up of the Best Indie category, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, created by The Astronauts.
There are more and more walking simulators being created, some of them somewhat decent, others merely a derivative piece of prose fed to us one page at a time, all the while distracting us with some pretty pictures.
Sometimes the pictures aren't all that pretty either, making the entire genre the butt of the joke for many who fail to see the value in a game without gameplay, the very essence of entertainment.
But sometimes an unlikely melange of pretty pictures and enthralling story manage to capture the spotlight, validating the genre and proving that games don't necessarily need to have enemies and weapons to shoot them with.
The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is one such title, a first-person narrative-driven adventure video game where you play the role of a psychic detective trying to discover what happened to a little boy who asked for your help.
The game has some pretty snazzy visuals, powered by some fancy technology called photogrammetry, basically taking multiple pictures of an object or area and then making measurements based on them.
The technique is not that straightforward though, requiring precise lighting and positioning, but the results are incredible. The Vanishing of Ethan Carter looks gorgeous, from distant mountains and lakeside panoramas to the fallen leaves you are walking on.
You get realistic-looking textures that really make the game world much more immersive, as everything looks genuine and the scenery has a lot of character, instead of simply recycling the same handful of repetitive textures.
Gorgeous visuals, captivating story
The visuals on their own are enough to sell the game as a walk through the woods simulator, but The Vanishing of Ethan Carter's strongest point is its narrative.
Of course, being an exploration game, said narrative might seem disconnected, especially when you happen to miss one of the triggers in an area and are left treading up and down the same mountain paths until you start learning the layout, but for the most part, it works brilliantly.
The game has a pretty compelling atmosphere, combining a laid-back approach when it comes to pacing with an overbearing feeling of dread, focused on mood and on gradually piecing together the underlying storyline.
That storyline, masterfully told through pieces and scraps, through the world revealing itself to you sequentially, is what really made the game great for me. I eventually got tired of trying to find those elusive clues, and I thought about deleting the game several times during my playthrough.
In the end, I am very happy that I was stubborn enough to carry it through, as in the end, it all comes together beautifully and everything makes much more sense than while looking for stuff in the bushes or inside the houses.
That ending tied a perfect narrative knot on the entire experience, delivering a satisfying conclusion that made me remember the game fondly, in spite of the fact that I normally dislike walking simulators.
It's a story that I would have liked to read as a book, but that truly comes to life as a game.
If you want to read more, check out our review of The Vanishing of Ethan Carter.
