Developer: The Lo-Fi Apocalypse Inc
Publisher: The Lo-Fi Apocalypse Inc
Platforms: PC, Mac, Linux
Tested on: PC
Release date: Q3 2015
OBEY – Preview
At times, developers take a step back and delve into the indie scene to create a game that they have always wanted to create. OBEY is such a project by The Lo-Fi Apocalypse Inc., a one man game studio founded by Jorge Daniel Hernandez who’s best known by his pseudonym Daniel Dez. Before vanishing completely in the indie scene, Daniel had worked on Frontlines: Fuel of War at Kaos Studios. Whether this choice was a positive one is always the biggest question but OBEY is certainly a great game so far.
The concept of OBEY hits fairly close to home as it is inspired by authoritarian systems of power and influence. Now what is OBEY truly? As the concept is a subject not many dare to tackle, pinpointing the genre of OBEY get’s slightly harder. You play as fluffy bunnies so one would say that OBEY is a family-friendly game but in reality it is not. The game is action packed with a good variation of weapons that the robot can use to annihilate any that refuse to obey his orders. Bodies will drop, that is certain but the reasons for the Master Bunny to slay his brethren may differ from others reasoning. This human behavior is one of the features that makes the game so wonderful to play.
Before I go deeper onto the importance on the human behavior and the confusion it can bring, let’s look at the gameplay. As I mentioned before, you play as an adorable fluffy bunny, that more often than not can be looked at as a guinea pig or other critter. Depending on the difficulty of the map and its settings, you will spawn randomly in the map or dropped from a dropship. A large robot is at the north side of the map and the goal is to reach that robot before any other player does. Each player will gain money but the one bunny that is stationed at the robot will earn more than the others. The longer he stays in the robot, the faster he will gain money. Gaining money is a critical aspect of the game as the player in the robot, which I will simply call the Master Bunny from now on, can buy a variation of items which will be dropped by the dropship. These items can range from fuel to rockets to uranium and more. As the Master Bunny, you have access to the robot’s various deadly weapons which you will need to use if you do not want to be kicked off your throne. This is where the human behavior comes into play.
As the Master Bunny, you have a nice view of the entire map and it is your task to find the other critters before they can forge a plan to kick you off your throne. Once a critter has been found, you can order it to wear a collar which will make it easier to spot later on. The player that received the order can choose whether to obey the order or simply make a dash for it, hoping that the Master Bunny cannot kill it before he reaches the safety of the rocks. If the bunny obeys to its Master, he will most likely be ordered to pick up the items that were dropped by the dropship and donate these to the Master to fuel his deadly powers even more. The Master can set a money gain from zero to a hundred, so that the bunny that is obeying will have a reason to continue obeying its master and donating the items in the box. This is roughly what OBEY is all about but as I said before, the human behavior makes the game interesting. Since it’s a multiplayer game, the Master Bunny will give orders via voice communication. He can also ask questions to the bunnies that are obeying. The way you obey is completely up to you as well since you can warn the Master that someone is trying to enter the robot or you can decide to keep quiet and make a run for it when the time is right.
The chaos and confusion only grows larger thanks to the human behavior. Those who can lie effortlessly can come up with some pretty interesting tactics which you can adept later on as well. The game does not yet have a way to pronounce a player the winner but we have been setting a goal ourselves – those who reaches 10k wins. You don’t necessarily win the game if you control the robot however since there will be many who will try to take over the robot and many will succeed in doing so. I will not be going deeper into the many tactics one can use since there are so many and you need to play the game yourselves to fully comprehend these.
While there is much work to do, OBEY is fully playable without many bugs. In fact, the bugs that come to mind are not game breaking bugs but the developer still considers them bugs, for which I praise him. Visually, the game is far from a realistic triple-A title but the visual aspect of the game completely vanishes once you are knee-deep into trouble with all the lies you’ve been spreading.
Conclusion
OBEY is truly a magnificent game, although the learning curve can be steeper for those less tactical. It provides an interesting concept and several hours of hilarious gameplay if you find yourself surrounded by friendly players. The requirement of voice communication is somewhat a feature I don’t like, especially since you cannot sent out preset commands but as the game is still in its early stages, this can change for the better.
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