Feign: by Ian Snyder is a fairly simple game set around finding nine people in a maze that would give a cartographer nightmares. Use [WASD] to move around, and the [arrow] keys swing the camera about. Although standing still will cause the number of people (or bodies, really) you've yet to find to display, the only thing you have for a map is your own brain. Think you have a good sense of direction? Feign: will put that to the test. How? Well... it's bigger on the inside.
Despite the atmosphere, there's nothing outright frightening about Feign:. Most of the unease comes from how difficult it is to track your progress since it's impossible to judge distance. You might think you're going around in circles but find you can't figure out how to get back where you started, right before you stumble across another body. Just thinking about actually being lost somewhere like this is enough to give you chills. The downside to all this is how frustrating it can get when you need to go back, and you can't because you're spectacularly lost. Especially once the terrain swaps palettes. The only way to start again is to refresh the page, sadly. Once you've played Feign:, there's really not much reason to go back and play it again, but it's worth a look because it's so strange.
The thing about art games and myself is that you get the best reactions when they act as blank slates for people to project upon, and slates don't get any blanker than the perplexingly unsettling experience that is Feign:. It's lonely, sombre, and, depending on your mood, reflective. Does the maze symbolize something? What about the various postures of the people you find? OH EM GEE YOU GUYZ WHO IS TEH LAST BODY ELEVENTY!!! (M Night Shyamalan is going to make a movie about this, you know his is, someone stop him before he strikes again!) You're free to take as much, or as little, away from the experience as you like. But one thing's for sure; when Ian Snyder and Brother Android let their Wonder Twin Powers Activate, strange and wonderful things happen, and I hope we see even more from them in the future.
I tried this game. Very cool but it makes my computer work too hard. The fan comes on and just howls at me.
seven / nine seems to be all I can find
an interesting experience.
interesting game, 6 out of 9 only though
Also managed to get 7/9 before I started feeling too vertiginous to continue.
I achieved 8/9 before giving up (I worry that I left the last body a long way back and don't want to repeat it all).
My advice is to go SLOW don't be afraid to go back and forth a bit, keep circling around whatever area you're in and figure out how your movements alter the surroundings.
Hint for late in the game:
There's one short section of wall/floor/ceiling that toggles between the two templates when you touch it. It took me a moment to realise that this is a switch - other places will open up and close.
I couldn't do anything at all with the room directly beyond what I just described in the spoiler - I suspect that something in there would change or open up if I had all the bodies. In any case, I *think* I tried everything in there with no luck, and a really truly dead-end after such an interesting path to it seems just strange.
The link through the image leads to jayisgames.com/URL .. -goes to try the game-
I managed 8/9 before giving up too.
And like JonMW, I was stuck in the same place, I couldn't seem to find any where beyond that end 'room' and I really didn't want to try back track to see if I'd missed the last body...
But all in all, it was a very interesting/strange lil' game.
@JohnMW - I got exactly as far as you, and like you, am completely stuck. I can't figure out if the last room you describe is where I am supposed to find the last body somehow, or is where I am supposed to come after I find them all, as you think it might be. I actually found the game to be surprisingly linear in it's presentation, and unless I missed something WAY far back, I have a feeling there is just something we're both missing in that last room. Either way, frustrating!
Interesting, but I can't help but feel that unity would have been a far better suited to this experiment than flash. That might be the lack of mouse-look talking, or it might be how petulant my computer gets when trying to make flash behave like proper, well mannered software.
Controls could be improved with quick turn buttons. Like a fast 90 left and right on Q and E or a fast 180 on space. A dash key might be nice.
Final note. Needs a volume control. This thing is insanely loud on my machine.
I'm stuck with you two hothotpot and John. I've got 8/9 and have even backtracked to the very beginning and can't find number 9 anywhere.
It is like the walls are made out of Stan's suit. My eyes tweaking...
I went all the way back to the beginning and checked every wall on both sides. Stuck in the same place. But there is one thing that I am not sure of: the room mentioned, the one behind jonMW's spoiler, appeared different the second time I went there. As far as I could remember it had a corner missing in the middle 'structure'. As I got back to the room, it was perfectly rectangular. So now I'm guessing it is not the same room after all and maybe there are more,
depending on from what route you approach it. But I didn't succeed to find back the one with the 'missing corner' so maybe I am just confused
I, too, am stuck with 8/9 bodies. I don't think that 3 people all missed the same body. I think there is something that we can't figure out about that room.
Something I've noticed in the "last room" is the break in the wall on the left of the box. If you look carefully at the top of the wall there is a small discontinuity which leads me to believe the way out is there.
Try going through and not getting any bodies
I know the secret, and it makes me angry:
To get past that last area, you have to not collect any of the bodies.
If you notice, there are a few areas with large rectangles on the ground made up of squares. As you collect bodies, this rectangle fills up with blocks. These blocks seal off a door at the end, so you can't enter it if you've collected bodies the way the game tells you to.
Even knowing this, I wasn't able to finish the game after that section. I'm not sure what I was missing.
Well, solved the mystery. The story about the last body is a bit disappointing. Couldn't find any in-game hint about it. Anyway, check the spoiler.
As you are finding bodies, structures are built throughout the game.
If you want to find nine bodies:
Start a fresh game and don't touch any of the bodies. You'll find the gate to a new section in the "last room"
@ Neddo
Total spoiler:
If you don't touch any body you'll find a gate in the last room. There is a seemingly endless path behind it. Follow it till the end, just wait for it to end. Then there's one light path that circles around a black wall. I found all nine bodies lined up in a gap on the inside wall, after circling around a couple of times. Don't know if I missed it the first time or had to walk around it first. After the last body move to the light square. The game wishes you "goodnight, darling". And that's it.
Wow. That is just not playing fair. That's too bad; it's kind of beautiful up until the point where it's not.
I was coming here to comment on how this is one of the most genius designs I've seen, but that I was stuck at 6.
Now I read the trick, and I think that's just bad form.
Nice game, like the cool vector visuals with textures.
In the last room where people are stuck with 8 out of 9, I also managed to get a corner removed but couldn't repeat it. I'm not sure if this is significant or not.
I really liked the game at first. It was only after finding the eighth body that the game lost its appeal.
I was disappointed that the game was unwinnable without refreshing. Still, the layout was much easier to navigate the second time through. It didn't take long to finish the game after refreshing.
I'd like to see a more involved game having the same mechanics, since this game was really neat to move around in.
The music was annoying (to me at least. I enjoy games with "mute" as an option), I don't think blue and brown look good together (which is the point: they contrast), and I got stuck at five bodies.
I'm still giving it a 5/5 because I LOVED the concept. I prefer platformers and rarely enjoy puzzle games, but this one had such a great concept. I'll have to come back to it when I don't have so much homework.
XD
I was only able to gather 8/9 of the bodies at first, but then I realized the whole point of the game. I won't be giving spoilers(Unless you'd call the first sentence a spoiler). Interesting game. I give it 4/5.
Most irritating twist ever.
If following the instructions is going to make the game unwinnable, at least make that clear at the end, rather than letting us backtrack and wander slowly in circles in the most confusing visuals since that old Windows screensaver, you know the one I mean. Even a restart button would do.
...after getting stuck and reading the comments for help, the title of the game suddenly makes sense.
The visuals in this game really remind me of Gankutsuou.
The game kept stuttering for me. This frequently resulted in me moving or turning an unknown distance without seeing the transition between my old and new perspective. Very confusing, given the game's visual style.
I always wondered if it was possible to make a game that worked like the strange building in House Of Leaves. Now I know it is, and that just bodes awesome as far as I'm concerned.
Now someone make a House Of Leaves game! Go!
Even better if it's also in HTML 5, and the game window itself changes shape depending on your location, like the way the text changed format depending on what the book was narrating on a given page. :D And you use footnotes as ammo! And you have to write the footnotes yourself! And to complete the end-game, you have to close down the program, play through and win a completely different game somewhere else, then go back.
What? It was a weird book :P
Interesting concept. I really liked the game up to getting the 8th body. I got to the 8/9 mark like many others and actually got to a point where I got lost in nothingness because I was chasing after a lit spot I couldn't get to. I can't find my way back to lit walls at all. I guess that's part of the point of the game. Since all movement is relative, if you have nothing to use as a relative point, there is nothing... which also means it's game over. I guess I'm one of the bodies now. =S
Reading about the twist, it seems like a very niche maneuver. I'm not sure how I feel about it. It can be very thought-inspiring in the right mood, or it can be a pain.
I also would have liked a volume control. I enjoyed the music, but as mentioned by others, it is super loud on my system (my headphones are currently halfway off of my ears).
I'll give it a 4/5. Volume control and the ability to teleport back to the point of the last body I found would have won a 5/5 from me.
I must be an idiot, but I have no idea where to go after the 7th body.
Loved the concept, styling and sound.
As with most people a little annoyed at the 'unwinnable' state it encourages you to get into although saying that, why not? It's as much exploring a conept as any other statement.
Still, ever so slightly frustrating. Well done though.
It took me a while to figure out what to do after body 7, so if you want a hint:
1 of the walls isn't a wall.
I made a video walkthrough since a text version would be impossible.
Walkthrough
I am terribly sorry that the link in my last post didn't work, I don't know why it didn't,so I'll just write it out.
Video Walkthrough
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6c2mr7TFWA
Oh. Links auto-create themselves. I'm sorry, I didn't know.
wow, this must be a 4 dimensional maze.
I got six out of nine and got stuck. And after reading about the lame way to get the ninth body, I'm glad I quit. XP But still, this is a phenomenal idea. The way the floor/walls transition between the colors and the music just create such a chilling atmosphere... fantastic.
Thanks for the video walkthrough, Nick!
I didn't think it was hard to navigate until
you go past the gate after the "last room;" if you take a wrong turn in those blocks, it's a bit difficult to navigate back to the gate.
The atmosphere and visuals were nice. (I found it a little creepy when those other bodies seem to rotate because of your perspective...) But I didn't like that trick about the ninth body xP
Great game, needs a better ending - either way.
If you are in the situation where all you can get is 8, then it needs to either give a better clue to the secret, or end the game, maybe by trapping you in the final room. or if you stop for a few seconds then turn around on the spot, the last body IS RIGHT BEHIND YOU!!
maybe YOU are the final body?
and the cheap ending should be improved- even after finding the nine bodies there's no real satisfying conclusion.
It's not a bad concept, the idea that picking up the bodies on the way blocks your path further up, but you need to be able to learn this from within the game, not from walkthrough forums
Original with potential, but with no gameplay value. More of an art than game. And I would recommend watching some walkthrough before playing
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