Third World: The Bottom Dimension

Playing this game from the perspective of both an artist and a gamer, I have a few thoughts about the experience:
- All of the character designs are incredibly detailed and beautiful, which feels super unique and elegantly tied to the artist's Brazilian background.
- The areas that you inhabit are incredibly dense, alongside the game as a whole being really badly optimised, leading me to pretty constantly use the "arrow" tool that shows you where you're supposed to go. This transformed the discovery of the spaces into a pretty bleak slog, simply walking from figure to figure, snatching up new parts of the story.
- Although the majority of the game is walking from place to place, which I did kind of expect from a video game that's primarily an artwork (see LuYang's recent video games that have far less interactivity than this work) in the second area, Sòfo, there are several game elements, from dodging the attacks from a mini boss to jumping from rock to rock down into a cavern. It was a shame that these more game-y elements weren't more present throughout, although because the game did not run well at all for me, these game-y moments were a bit more of a struggle than they should have been. After watching an interview with the artist this was of course intentional, where in the first level you're an explorer and in the second you're a full-on coloniser, so there are more enemies in the second half, but even so it would have been nice to see more game elements in the first level, perhaps some platforming or otherwise. I've had amazing experience exploring spaces in games like Grow Home, Abzu and Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, so this doesn't have to be any different just because it's an art game.
- I really liked the overarching story, putting you in the position of the coloniser and polluter (similar to many of Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley's art video games, forcing you into the position of aggressor). Perhaps there is a way of progressing through this game by not stealing resources, but I was hesitant to discover it due to the previously mentioned bad optimisation. So for me, there was no way of "winning" without simultaneously "loosing", akin to games like Papers Please and This War of Mine. It kind of lacked the depth of those other titles though, it felt like there was only the one option, rather than providing the player with a series of morally grey choices. Perhaps that's the point, though, that whatever you do you're the coloniser, and there's no way of changing that, other than to simply put down the controller and refuse to play.
- The cut scenes throughout were really great, especially in Sòfo, and did make me wonder whether this game should have been a film instead, or just given more time to be better optimised before being released to the general public. Perhaps the game runs incredibly well on the systems that they have at Serpentine North Gallery in London, UK, where this work is being exhibited, but I've not been able to visit in person to confirm this. Also I wonder whether there are accompanying films at the exhibition, fleshing out this world more than the game was able to do for me. In any case, I'm sure that experiencing the game within the exhibition would be the "optimal" way of engaging with it.
- A lot of the information about the world, alongside the different equipment that you pick up along the way, is kind of forgettable as it's only said to you once, without any real tutorial as such. I got by, but to really make an impact story-wise it would have been nice to have understood slightly more, with the world-building occurring throughout the game-play experience.
Overall I would definitely recommend the game, as perhaps you have a better PC than I do to play it. It offers a rich and vibrant world to explore with some really interesting character models, but the poor optimisation does make an impact. A lot of video games made by artists aren't really games at all, due to them being made by one-person teams with little to no funding. I feel like, due to funding from Serpentine, this experience has had the time and space to be transformed into a game of sorts, not one that I would return to, but something that was an interesting experience nonetheless. I'm interested to see what Gabriel Massan makes next.

I was a bit wary of trying yet another art game, as those tend to be wonky to say the least. I am a contemporary artist and a game designer myself, and progressively have grown tired of seeing half-assed pseudo "games" that troll game mechanics that they do not understand.
However, this is not the case here. One can tell that despite its technical flaws (the game is terribly badly optimized and would certainly not run on the recommended specs, I tried it on my laptop and even the home screen does freeze), it tries to do its job as being beautiful. The art direction is very beautiful and expressive, which at least would be what to expect from an actual art game.
I am not too sure about the sound design. I also happen to be Brazilian and be a fan of LYZZA, so I was interested in what was coming by, unfortunately it’s not very polished and sounds are just superimposed on each other. As it is, this game is just a nice prototype with good text, art direction and exploring direction, but really does suck mechanically and technically. I do suspect that the ways art projects are funded (that is, with very little money, and very little time) is mostly responsible for this.
Players must be aware that artists do not have as much time as classic developers to put in their art. The economy of contemporary art demands pretty short-timed production, so iteration really isn’t an option in that type of field. This is already exceptionally polished given the time frame, and I understand the artists to have preferred to privilege an aesthetic approach as the work is shown as a spinoff of an exhibition.
It is sad for people who cannot afford to just go to London see what’s up at the Serpentine. One of the reasons I do like games as an artist is that distribution doesn’t depend on museums and that basically anyone with a computer can run your content, but this being so badly optimized even my computer struggles to run it. Given the thematic about Black-Brazilian experience and the whole connection with the favelas that the group of artists have, I do find that quite sad, as it’s really hard to afford proper hardware in Brazil if you aren’t in the richest 20% of the population (and I’m being optimistic here).
I still do recommend it as it’s a fun little experience to play starting from a GTX 1060 with 6GB of VRAM. It still stutters, but it’s manageable. It is nothing like omg new mechanics, it’s basically a linear action-adventure platformer without much action, but some interesting aesthetic takes. It would deserve to have a more fully-fleshed gameplay loop and better animations, but well.

very beautiful and unusual, but this is definitely not a game, but a juicy picture to admire for a short time

Interesting artgame with beautiful aesthetics