the kickstarter even sounds like a trite 'artsy' bullstuff thing
you're an omnipotent god who has to solve 'riddles' throughout the world by triggering pre-baked animations by pressing the right button when you're in the right area and you have to deal with your Emotions (
represented as a physical tangible object) which will either harass you (as mandated by the plot) or guide you (again, as mandated by the plot) through this mysterious world that you have the power to create or destroy that has no semblance of gravitas or symbolism besides what is brute forced into your head
here's a hypothetical situation. you're wandering around and you find that there's a big empty void here and its swallowing up all the ground around it. what could it mean? could it represent something that is typically represented as a big empty void that swallows up everything surrounding it, such as the futility of existence or possibly the effects of clinical depression? would you like to make a guess? ok, you've made your guess. it literally does not matter at all because the game will never refer back to it or use its tools to do anything beyond straight-up tell you something like 'this is depression. this is how the depression feels. are you depressed? does depression feel like this? you are depressed now.' and give you an utterly manufactured feeling of success having 'discovered' what this 'deep and creative' game is trying to tell you because the game
told you what you were discoveringthat is how this game seems to work
earthbound was more creative and interesting then this in the 5 minutes you spent in ness' magicant
Ah, I understand now. I suppose people have different perceptions of what is and is not a game. Usually when I hear the word game I tend to think of 'competition'.
However I'd consider things such as these as games. A few notable similar titles to Essence would be the entire Myst series, Gone Home, Life is Strange, NaissanceE, Kairo, Dear Esther, Mind: Path to Thalamus, Obduction, and Proteus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myst_(series)
http://www.gonehomegame.com/
http://lifeisstrange.com/agegate.php
http://www.naissancee.com/
http://kairo.lockeddoorpuzzle.com/
http://dear-esther.com/
http://mindpathtothalamus.com/
http://cyan.com/games/obduction/
http://www.visitproteus.com/
Would you consider some of these similar titles as games or not?
(I am not challenging you, I am just curious of if you would or not.)
gone home and dear esther are literally the archetypical bullstuff artsy walking simulators and don't even have puzzles, just things to listen to and potentially scare yourself with
life is strange is the definition of 'bullstuff and artsy' but is actually an adventure game with puzzles and mechanics so no its not that similar
myst is also an adventure game with puzzles and mechanics which i do not expect essence to have
proteus is an art game that deliberately attempts to get the player to enter with a very vague understanding of what theyre getting into and does not spend its time doing things like describing Mind Keepers and Spirits and Essence and Emotion because it knows that the player will find their own meaning in the visuals it represents and is very much unpretentious about what it does
kairo is a game purely about exploration and does not deal in fancy frills and art student flourishes and actually if anything borders on surreal horror
most of these games
are similar but only half of them are 'games' in the sense that you actually play them and interact with objects on a substantial level as opposed to just wandering around abstract landscapes until you find the thing you have to do to progress
