Little Lydia, a chubby little girl with eyes like buttons, at first glance not much different from his fellow peers, with whom she spends all his free time away from home. Is that it seems a little … a pragmatic? No, rather more adult than you might expect.
However, when the beloved pope still takes her home, Lydia turns into an ordinary child. She giggles at her father’s jokes and asks him to tell the tale before bedtime.
But because angry moms tale finish and can not be, and Lydia can only guess what kind of monster is, comes to life at night.
To overcome fear, the girl gets her favorite toy, purple teddy bear, and he promises her that he will meet the monster, and overcome the fear of it. You just as a loud rumble from the bottom party in full swing, climb into the magical passage in the closet, and then, maybe …
Total Lydia will dive into the hole three times: once it is all the same child, the other – a teenager, and the third – is a girl.
And if the first time is really like a fairy tale, with the only difference being that knight already pretty drunk, badly he understands and barely on his feet, the latter two sketches, despite a slightly dreamlike surroundings (clownish father hood girlfriend crown), tell us about the very real events, although the heroine and do not forget about the invisible, but very cruel monster.
Monster, which would give her to understand how “welcome” a child she was a monster, which gradually kills virtually all those close to her.
By itself, the theme of alcoholism is not so new to video games: even those who perceive the game as one of the many hobbies that are not worth spending too much time, probably remember one or two characters who have had a problem with alcohol.
Or problem drinkers funny games – not so rare as it may seem; and even then there CRPG’s, where the amount of alcohol consumed depends on your desires and quests.
But these characters – whether it’s a sad aged Maks Peyn or The Bloody Baron of “The Witcher” – may be in the spotlight, can appear tragic characters, may be loathsome characters.
All this is generally not important. It is important that they – center axis of history, and circling around them gets satellites supporting roles. And hardly anyone tries to look at what is happening through the eyes of the “boring” satellite.
Perhaps the most famous video game to date about alcoholism parent eyes of a child – it Papo & Yo from kanadckoy Minority Media studio.
She served as the basis for the childhood memories of one of the employees, and the result is a platformer about a boy and a monster, which is usually friendly. Unless feels full of poisonous frogs.
“Lydia” is trying to achieve the same purpose – to show how parents perceived alcoholism child.
That’s just it turns out it is not very – even though strong in the final scene, brings to mind the horrible phantasmagoria engraving Eduarda Viyralta “Cabaret.” Because in front of us all the same game, and everything depends on the gameplay.
And in fact the gameplay is the choice of the direction in which direction to go heroine, a puzzle that even so called short ashamed, and – most importantly – to select the replica. More precisely, not replicas and behavior: can be made of Lydia clogged and timid girl, and can be – brave and willing to insist on. Can. In theory.
In practice, it appears that some options or choose, the result will be the same. Well at least the game is quite short (one hour it is possible to pass, if you act well, very slowly), so check the other options especially time none.
And worst of all, that the conversion of Lydia’s quiet, closed a girl in a rather self-confident woman going somewhere completely behind the scenes. That is, in fact, to understand how the character became ready for the meeting with the two-faced monster, we did not give. And it is very unfortunate.
