An emotionally charged point-and-click tale about betrayal, manipulation, and abuse. Road To Nowhere is going to be free at release, with a demo out now.
With a quite unusual visual style using live-action actors being rotoscoped in the style of the movie A Scanner Darkly, full voice acting, an interactive music system and a melancholy soundtrack it's definitely one of the more unique adventure games to come along recently. Visually, it's quite stunning.
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Set over four years across the United States, Road To Nowhere tells the story of an introvert, and successful software developer, whose life is torn to shreds by scandal. Though aided by family, he walks away devastated and soon finds himself on the open road. While it doesn't directly mention it and it's a work of fiction, the story is inspired by the events surrounding game developer Alec Holowka and their death last year.
Find the demo up on itch.io, with it also coming to Steam in a few days. The full release is due later this year. A short while after release it's also going to get a "Director's Commentary" and a "Making of" video too.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
I liked one philosopher's approach to this: In the social-emotional sphere be compassionate and supportive towards the victim (assume they are telling the truth), but keep the legal system separate from the compassion (where presumption of innocence defends the accused party). I guess their suggestion still lacks in compassion towards the accused.
All in all I feel that many of us are afraid of the social media (Twitter, Youtube, etc) mobs launching vicious campaigns against someone. Nobody deserves that devastating psychological hell (I've heard several accounts of such experiences on youtube). I think even the worst of the worst scum on earth shouldn't be subjected to mob violence like that. Our imperfect justice systems should suffice.
Looks more like heavily filtered and processed video than actual rotoscoping. Looks nice though.
Quoting: chrI think this game does a good job of reminding a die-hard victim-defender like me that there is a person on the other side of such interpersonal conflicts and that fear of equalization of social power relations isn't the only possible reasons someone might take the side of the accused in these kinds of interpersonal conflicts (accusations of abuse or assault). Though I still think it is extremely common reason, if not the most common.
I liked one philosopher's approach to this: In the social-emotional sphere be compassionate and supportive towards the victim (assume they are telling the truth), but keep the legal system separate from the compassion (where presumption of innocence defends the accused party). I guess their suggestion still lacks in compassion towards the accused.
All in all I feel that many of us are afraid of the social media (Twitter, Youtube, etc) mobs launching vicious campaigns against someone. Nobody deserves that devastating psychological hell (I've heard several accounts of such experiences on youtube). I think even the worst of the worst scum on earth shouldn't be subjected to mob violence like that. Our imperfect justice systems should suffice.
I think I'm likely to save more of my empathy for the victims, particularly given that one of them was, and continues to be, the primary focus of what may be the largest sustained harassment campaign in internet history. It is important to remember that there's a human on the other side yes, but all indications point to him being....not a very good human. Troubled, in pain himself, yes. But also harmful to almost everyone around him and not above using that pain as leverage over others, a fairly common tactic among domestic abusers.
In terms of humanization in the Holowka case, I'm more inclined to go with the personal story Scott Benson tells, which paints him as human and worthy of some sympathy, but doesn't gloss over the destructive (both to himself and others) parts of his character, over a game that seems to seek to present his stand-in as a largely hapless innocent who's just caught up in events beyond his control.
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