Alexander Ocias' Loved remains one of the most intensely debated and discussed games on our site, so his new interactive short Foggy Shore, with music by Stefano Guzzetti, may make your interest perk up, though it won't take you more than a literal few minutes to play. In it, you control a young woman wandering down a lonely, misty beach, moving with [WASD] or the [arrow] keys, interacting with [E] with a prompt appears, and using the [spacebar] to jump. Just... wander. Follow the shoreline, interact with the objects you can find that have washed up, and take in the atmosphere... which, it must be said, is very well executed for a game that looks like it leaped off the original Playstation. The tone is somber, if not quite melancholy, with little touches like the footsteps our character leaves behind and the way the wind tugs at her hair making the world feel chilly but alive, and encourages the sort of reflection the game is going for. You might call it a "walking simulator" if not for the typically derisive tone that's given, so "interactive short", as the developer himself calls it, feels apt. The ending changes slightly based on the things you interact with, and how, and can be surprisingly insightful and emotional if you're in the right frame of mind for something like it. Contemplating the meaning the actions you take with the things you choose to interact with, and how they could be interpreted and be used to construct a narrative or meaning, is surprisingly clever. Foggy Shore is simple, yes, but also an elegant little experience whose untold story can change in your mind drastically depending on how it ends up, making it for a delightfully calm and introspective piece of interactive art.
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Sounds lovely, and I'm about to give it a try, but I wanted to let you know that the links are giving 404s! Looks like the "http://" is missing, so they're being treated as relative links within your site.
Lovely indeed. I found three endings...has anyone discovered more?
Also: while it's never actually necessary to jump in this game, as far as I can tell, I recommend doing so. Like, constantly. It's really fun.
Yep, sorry, I left them off the download links. :) Fixed now! And as for jumping, you're right that it's not necessary most of the time, but I DID actually get stuck at one point in a weird little pocket on the edge of a sand dune and need to jump out, so maybe it's there for moments like that? I have no idea if skipping around may influence your ending. Which endings did you get?
I just got the three endings where
you pick things up
you throw things into the sea
you leave things where they are
And you? Seems like there are four items that give you this choice (did I miss any?), and whichever choice you make the most determines the ending you get. I'm not sure how ties are broken, or if certain items (maybe the message in a bottle?) count more than others.
Constant jumping (skipping? galloping?) doesn't seem to influence the ending, though that would be funny. ("Would you do something for me? Maybe try the decaf next time?")
I got endings like that too, I was more curious as to the actual words of the endings to see if they changed. :) For example, I chose to
take the shell and the bottle, throw back the starfish and the fish, and leave the driftwood. The text I got was something like "Can you do something for me? Forgive yourself."
I couldn't be sure if specific combinations of items and actions lead to different text beyond that.
My assumption was that the endings don't change with that much granularity, though I do know what happens when one assumes...
I regained control after the ending and found
a camera by the driftwood. By pressing H, you go into "camera mode" where you can zoom in and out, and turn it around so that the character's face is in the shot. There's also a rock in a little alcove that, if you look at it with the camera, is shown to have drawings on it that look like tribal images.
I got a little creepied out after I explore post-ending because
at where I think it was the bottle was located, the reflection in the ocean seemed like there was a distorted woman underneath the sea. But then when I looked through the camera at the water, I could see the floating piece of rock being reflected. With "me" underneath it with my back turned.
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