Day 324 - In the House of Asterion
Walking Simulator, Actually Sad, Mass Effect 3 ·
Skeeter’s Take:
I’m not too familiar with Greek mythology outside of what Hades taught me (AKA the gods be hot), but I’m able to recognize that “In the House of Asterion” is about that Minotaur fucker who always seems to end my runs:
The description for this game mentions it’s based on a book by Jorge Luis Borges. I didn’t research further. All I know about the original Greek myth is there is a minotaur in a labyrinth, and Theseus has something to do with it. I think he might have trapped the minotaur in the labyrinth but I honestly have no clue. Theseus also has that ship people won’t shut up about.
The gameplay focuses on the minotaur as he roams the halls of his “home”, which is the labyrinth. As he interacts with objects he talks about his time in his home, what he likes to do, etc. Most of these objects feel like they are references to the old myth, or possibly the book. I recognized a few from Greek mythology (one of the doors alludes to Icarus), but most of the references went over my head.
However, it didn’t matter that I wasn’t catching every reference. The objects mostly provided insight into our main character, the Minotaur, and his sad, pathetic life. He wanders around the empty labyrinth, waiting for the day for someone to come and visit him again.
Look what happened to the last visitor:
I just so happened to find the Minotaur to be extremely relatable:
I really felt for this little half-man, half-bull, yellow-pixel creature. He lives such a miserable and pathetic life, but he is either ignorant to it, or trying to make the best of it, and that makes him damn endearing. Minotaur should get his own movie and kick off a new wave of “Literally Me” cinema — I’d be the first in line.
After the Minotaur interacts with all of the cages in each room, a visitor arrives! At last, the long awaited visitor! My minotaur backtracks for the millionth time (I went through every room numerous times because I thought I had missed an object), and finds his way to the middle of the labyrinth where the visitor is waiting for him. At last! I get to see my boy be happy! Let’s go, Minotaur! You deserve it!
The screen fades to black.
The player now has control of the visitor, and he follows and gobbles up this big old spaghetti noodle laying on the ground:
The noodle leads the visitor back to one of the entrance doors, where he says:
Wait, that’s how the story ends?!
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!
Recommend: Maybe yes? Maybe the book it was based on?
Replay Percentage Chance: 3%
Time Played: 15 minutes
Sam’s Take:
In terms of little games made by some guy that we’ve randomly played for this website, ITHOA is top-tier. Like Skeeter said, you really get the sense of this character’s sad life by going around and poking all the stuff in his house. At the end when he hardly even fought back, I got it. There’s even some cool dissonance between you understanding why he wouldn’t fight back, but the hero you are controlling being confused by it. I wasn’t expecting to be contemplating the nature of apathy on itch.io today, but it’s always nice to have a little surprise.
There’s a whole thing about him imagining another version of him that has never seen the house. He excitedly shows this fake other version of himself around, excitedly explaining what happened to the last guy who visited, or how he doesn’t want to go out any of the doors. It’s pathetic. He even mentions that he can leave at any time. He’s trapped mentally, not physically.
I’m all about the sad bull-man game.
Recommend: Yes
Replay Percentage Chance: 1%
Time Played: 10 Minutes
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