‘Apartment Story’ Review
Developer: Blue Rider Interactive | Platform: PC | Playtime: 1:25
Video Games are Art. It’s an oft contested opinion and leads to the usual following: ‘How is Call of Duty art? ’Art? That means more Sony movie games!’ However on the flip side, Indie games have the freedom to be more expressionist and artistic than your multimillion dollar corporate title. Some do miss the mark slightly. Take Apartment Story – it would make a brilliant arthouse movie but I’m not sure how well it functions as a game.
Due to the nature of the game and reviewing it, this review will contain FULL STORY and GAMEPLAY SPOILERS. If you have any interest in the game, I suggest trying it out for yourself and forming your own opinion. It’s £6 and lasts roughly 90 minutes, it should be played in one session.
You play as Arthur, recently unemployed 20 or 30 something in his small English apartment. You receive a text from your landlord saying there will be someone coming over to fetch something later. That person is your old friend Diane, and that thing is a Gun. Diane is trying to escape from her abusive boyfriend, hence the need for the gun. The game’s description on Steam gives this away and declares it as the central point of the game but in reality it is relevant for a minority portion of an already limited playtime.
The game operates in a sort of real time in the sense that the story, which takes place over three days, happens at certain points no matter what you're doing. Which brings us to the gameplay which is certainly interesting - think of the Sims, but you control your sim rather than guiding them and you can only move around your very small apartment. In the vast amounts of downtime you have, you'll have to maintain your “Life” bar which is governed by a few other bars - Hunger, Sleep, Mind, Hygiene and Toilet. Some have obvious solutions, things like mind can be raised by smoking weed or wanking at your computer (yes really). Toilet just means going for a piss, which is fair enough. You can be naked, with your dick out, eating a bowl of cereal meticulously crafted by placing each ingredient on a chopping board and sitting at the table which is pretty cool. The novelty of this is fun to begin with but when the TV doesn't actually show anything and the only form of in game entertainment is the soundtrack by TRAAPS (which is very good) is the only kind of entertainment.
The story culminates in Diane's boyfriend wanting to kill you after you had sex with her. You don't know when he's going to arrive but your meters are counting down. I get what the game is going for, you can't put the gun down in case he comes to get you but you still have to keep yourself topped up. If you've played well you can just let these run out and camp the door with a gun which I feel like kind of defeats the point. Failing this ends the game and you have to play again but you can save and try again which lets you see the games poor ending.
I think that about sums the game up - really interesting concept that doesn't hit the mark. If the player had the gun throughout the entire game, you could have made an interesting story about that. Alas, game as is is an interesting experiment that's worth trying if nothing else. I appreciate it for what it tried but it's not what I hoped it could bem
