The Last Survey

You, a geologist, return from years surveying a company’s mines to present your report to the CEO, in an air-conditioned office on the 19th floor of a skyscraper. A powerful, well-written story about how alienating corporatism is: from beauty, from morality, from any kind of humanity. It’s about a specific impending environmental crisis that we rarely think about, but it reflects universally on CEOs’ practice in any field (see: how Facebook and Twitter refused to take action against misinformation, because it would be bad for the bottom line, until they felt they might face real consequences for their actions). I should also mention the vivid sense of space it creates - the soul-sucking neutrality of the office itself, painted with just words and simple animations. It resonated with me, and I think it would resonate with anyone who's ever worked a corporate job.

[i] My Experience [/i] I likely saw The Last Survey on the same list that many other 2021 players of the game did - John Walker's "The Best Games of 2020 That You've Never Heard Of," featured on Kotaku. His description of the game piqued my interest, and I grabbed it recently when it went on sale. First of all, the game is exactly as well-written as Walker asserts and was a pleasure to read. Although I'm not sure that the story could have only been told in the medium of a game (as Walker asserts), a game seems a good a way as any to experience it. There are a few moments when you choose a dialogue option to continue the conversation and it's possible that this alters the ending, but there was only one choice that made sense to me at each junction. I don't tend to replay games like this, and I didn't replay this one either. I liked the way that the player is made privy to each and every thought of the geologist as they live this experience. It's surprising (but realistic) how many thoughts occur as someone sits in a waiting room, and this comprehensiveness helps the player truly enter the shoes of the protagonist. My favorite things about the game are some of the ideas that it e…

This game is a small masterpiece within the context of it's genre, which is essentially in the visual novel category although this would be more of a visual essay as it's only about an hour long. I won't get into a detailed description; other reviewers have already provided that. I will say, briefly, that the narrative is brilliant as well as the soundtrack which fits in an absolutely perfect way. I happened to learn of this game while surfing the web and stumbling across the Buried Treasure website(if you haven't taken a look see at Buried Treasure you should, by the way). I think it's important to seek out these types of games. Granted, you may have to be a "certain type of gamer," etc. But to use a musical analogy, it's like everybody knows about Rush and Queen and Fleetwood Mac and Garth Brooks and there's nothing wrong with that or with those artists; they're all great in their own right. But for the more adventuresome gamer who wants to take some chances, to stick with the musical analogy, you could check out Captain Beefheart or Can or John Zorn or Swans and be totally blown away by all that, too. Anyway, to sum up this game is definitely a small masterpiece/hidden gem and …

No saves, no resuming, and you can't even click through things you have already seen before due to the impatience mechanic. The game crashed for me after around 25 minutes, and now I have to sit through it again and patiently wait on every screen - otherwise the game restarts itself.

Strongly recommended, for the reasons stated by others. I'd add that the sound design and mixing are *superb*, literally startlingly good.

recommended if you get this on discount because to be fair there is barely any gameplay in this game and its basically just a visual novel with binary choices. that being said i do like the art style and i did enjoy my time with the game. the vocabulary used in the game is for people who only understand intermediate/advanced english though as i had to look up some of the words but regardless the text is well written and gets the point across. the game is about a someone who has collected data and has to report data to a big boss akin to big brother, aka someone who is corrupt. they are hoping these data and findings will inspire the boss to make some sort of change but nothing happens, though it ends of a reassuring positive message. its a good concept and well made, however it is very short and again there is barely any gameplay as all you do is read text. so again get it on discount.