Forget Call of Duty — it seems like the era of unique, fascinating games about war is underway. Case-in-point: Sunset, an exploration game that puts you in the role of a nosy housekeeper. As the housekeeper, you look after an apartment belonging to someone involved in the war that has broken out around you.
From the game’s Kickstarter page:
Sunset is a narrative-driven first-person video game that takes place in a single apartment in a fictional South American city in the early 1970s. You play a housekeeper called Angela Burnes. Every week, an hour before sunset, you visit the swanky bachelor pad of Gabriel Ortega. You are given a number of tasks to do, but the temptation to go through his stuff is irresistible. As you get to know your mysterious employer better, you are sucked into a rebellious plot against a notorious dictator Generalísimo Ricardo Miraflores.
No guns, no combat, no puzzles. Interesting, right? It might not be a surprise to hear that the game, which is being developed by Tale of Tales, has influences like Gone Home and Dear Esther. But unlike those games, what you uncover hasn’t happened in the past. Events unfold as you discover them.
The game is called “Sunset” because that’s when you clean up the penthouse. Your tasks will revolve around housekeeping, sure, but inevitably you’ll snoop around some too. In doing so, you’ll uncover information about the world, as well as influence the penthouse’s owner in subtle ways. Heck, though you might never meet him, but it does sound like you’ll be able to develop a relationship with him:
For each task in the apartment there is more than one way of performing it: a neutral way or a naughty, funny way or flirty way. Gabriel will respond through small notes and other actions. It is up to you to decide how intimate or antagonistic this relationship becomes.
You can watch the game’s pitch here:
Tale of Tales is hoping to raise $US25,000 for the project, which you can support here.
Comments
11 responses to “A Game About War With No Guns (Because You’re The Housekeeper)”
Sounds pretty great, right there.
A game you play as a maid is interesting to you, after all the posts about sexism in games?
Strange.
Not that strange. I mean:
Female protagonist.
Sounds like the player will be able to determine how the narrative plays out.
A very different take on a “war” game, that isn’t you being musclebound militaryman shooting all the guns.
Honestly what I see in a lot of the sexism in games posts (and just general discourse around the place) are a want for more stories involving female characters with their own agency, or at least characters somewhat varying from gruff-white-dude-who-shoot-the-guns. Bonus for games that break standard gaming mold and look to give us a unique experience. This game looks to do those sorta things. I mean I’ve sure never heard of any games that sound similar to this 😛
You don’t actually understand what sexism is in games do you….
I demand to be able to play a male maid/housekeeper for equality!!! 😛
You mean a butler?
Nah, the Butler has real power over the household. He tells the maids what to do.
@namiwakiru
I tend to find that there are a lot of people who don’t understand much of anything. For instance, I was at a party some years ago talking with a girl about video games, and specifically, those involving superheroes. Now one might think that her argument would have been based around the lack of games based on female superheroes such as Wonder Woman, but one would be sadly mistaken. This girl listened to all I had to say and then went on a 20 minute rant about how sexism is killing the video game industry and tried to illustrate her point throughout by exclaiming that if they really valued gender equality they would make a Batman game where Batman is a female.
TL;DR – Stupid people are stupid.
This sounds great, and that art is reeeeal pretty. Kicked!
What a fantastic premise for a game. Really hope it pans out.
Woodhouse!