Mosa Lina does one thing, and while is does that thing well. While the game itself is fun, it does not take long before the game starts feeling repetitive.
The game, as it describes itself is "a hostile interpretation of the immersive sim, where nothing is planned, and everything works". It does this very well, and captures a lot of what makes immersive sims greats, the only issue is that it lacks a lot of the nuance and depth that make immersive sims interesting.
While it is clear that this game is a commentary on the state of immersive sims, whereas the genre used to be about creating systems and tools for the player to use in a sandbox environment tied together with missions, nowadays the missions are designed around a very specific problem. You use the "break the cracked wall" skill to break the wall before they can proceed with the mission, or you use the grappling skill to enter the top of the building and sneak in. The player never had much of a choice, the mission was never designed around letting the player figure it out in their own way. This is not really what immersive sims are about. The player should be given the agency to use their game knowledge, tools and tricks to come up with unique solutions to their problem. Two players should be able to play the mission and come up with completely unique solutions, many of which even the developer had not seen coming.
Meanwhile Mosa Lina flips it all on its head. You are given a set of skills, the dev has no idea what skills you are given, and a random stage is selected. With all of this randomness the dev ensures even they have no idea what challenges you will be given. There is no way for the dev to test every combination, so chances are you are playing something even they have not seen before. You have to figure it out, because the dev certainly can't.
This is fun, and is more in line with what an immersive sim should be. The devs hould not decide what the solution to a problem is, you should figure it out on your own using the tools and systems available to you in the game. This is great stuff. Devs of immersive sims should look to this design philosophy when creating their games.
If you play this game, you will certainly feel creative, and you certainly feel like you are overcoming seemingly impossible challenges. But despite this, the game struggles to keep me interested. Even after just a couple of hours I feel like "I get it". The gimmick of the random lvls with random items has kind of run its course, and I don't feel motivated to keep playing. There is no end to the game, no unlocks, no skins, high scores or stats. Playing the game, while it's fun enough, is kind of like solving today's Sudoku. It's fun for a little while but ultimately not something I see myself spending a lot of time on. I probably would not have done it if I wasn't bored in the first place.
I like what the game stands for, and I like the idea, but ultimately I fail to get into it.
The game, as it describes itself is "a hostile interpretation of the immersive sim, where nothing is planned, and everything works". It does this very well, and captures a lot of what makes immersive sims greats, the only issue is that it lacks a lot of the nuance and depth that make immersive sims interesting.
While it is clear that this game is a commentary on the state of immersive sims, whereas the genre used to be about creating systems and tools for the player to use in a sandbox environment tied together with missions, nowadays the missions are designed around a very specific problem. You use the "break the cracked wall" skill to break the wall before they can proceed with the mission, or you use the grappling skill to enter the top of the building and sneak in. The player never had much of a choice, the mission was never designed around letting the player figure it out in their own way. This is not really what immersive sims are about. The player should be given the agency to use their game knowledge, tools and tricks to come up with unique solutions to their problem. Two players should be able to play the mission and come up with completely unique solutions, many of which even the developer had not seen coming.
Meanwhile Mosa Lina flips it all on its head. You are given a set of skills, the dev has no idea what skills you are given, and a random stage is selected. With all of this randomness the dev ensures even they have no idea what challenges you will be given. There is no way for the dev to test every combination, so chances are you are playing something even they have not seen before. You have to figure it out, because the dev certainly can't.
This is fun, and is more in line with what an immersive sim should be. The devs hould not decide what the solution to a problem is, you should figure it out on your own using the tools and systems available to you in the game. This is great stuff. Devs of immersive sims should look to this design philosophy when creating their games.
If you play this game, you will certainly feel creative, and you certainly feel like you are overcoming seemingly impossible challenges. But despite this, the game struggles to keep me interested. Even after just a couple of hours I feel like "I get it". The gimmick of the random lvls with random items has kind of run its course, and I don't feel motivated to keep playing. There is no end to the game, no unlocks, no skins, high scores or stats. Playing the game, while it's fun enough, is kind of like solving today's Sudoku. It's fun for a little while but ultimately not something I see myself spending a lot of time on. I probably would not have done it if I wasn't bored in the first place.
I like what the game stands for, and I like the idea, but ultimately I fail to get into it.