Four Fat Chicks -- Force Majeure II: The Zone Review

MrLipid's Closet of the Odd
Force Majeure II: The Zone

Review by MrLipid
February 2006

Force majeure
1 superior or overwhelming power
2 an unanticipated or uncontrollable event or effect which releases one from fulfillment of a contractual obligation

What Tha ... ?

You're walking in a park, and the world suddenly comes unglued. You find a tunnel and hide in it while the park and the world around it are convulsed by an unanticipated and uncontrollable event, the sort of unprecedented event that relieves insurers of the need to pay up because, by definition, this type of event releases signatories to a contract from the obligation to fulfill the contract's terms. This sort of major event is better known as force majeure.

So begins Force Majeure II: The Zone, an interactive story by Leo Nordwall. And a thoughtful, if brief, story it is. Nordwall has used Adventure Game Studio as the engine for a graphically arresting meditation on the nature of reality and memory and what relation they have to each other. The Zone unfolds with a startlingly spare visual style. A location may be nothing more than a single heavily processed photo, underscored by a conversation conveyed entirely in captions while slyly off-center music cycles in the background. It doesn't seem like it should work, but, for me, it did. I couldn't stop reading the captions, clicking to the next screen, and solving the occasional puzzles.

Where Am I?

As a new inhabitant of The Zone, you have to figure out what has happened to your world. At the same time, you have to figure out if you are going to be able to leave The Zone and return to the reality you took for granted.

Is The Zone a shifting mirage built of what you remember? Is its emptiness an indication of how little attention you paid when you were surrounded by the world of your previous life? If The Zone is built of memories, what happens when, once in The Zone, you begin to forget?

While some of this speculation recalls countless overly serious late-night conversations in dorm rooms, Nordwall keeps it moving by tossing in surprising side trips. One frame encapsulates the heartbreak of office politics, set to a looping ditty that echoes the sound of a clock methodically dispatching the seconds between now and end of business. Nordwall is reaching, successfully, for the satisfactions one expects from art: a combination of image and sound that changes how one experiences the world.

Quibble, Meet Nit

Not every element in The Zone works. There is an extended bit of processed video toward the finale that slowly loses its impact as it unspools and starts to look like what it actually is. Still, that's a quibble. For the most part, as you move from one location to the next on your map of The Zone, the conversations that tell the story are intriguing and the setpieces memorable. Nothing like saying "Howdy" to a brain in a vat. Or facing off against a crazed young fellow brandishing a pair of revolvers. Or helping someone find a lost cat. Or meeting a lost love on the beach.

Zone HQ

The main website for The Zone provides amble opportunities to sample both the game (there's a demo) and the soundtrack that accompanies it (there are six representative MP3s). I am a big fan of the Force Majeure Theme. Just happen to like the combination of piano and whistling in a style that seems almost but not quite like a mid-1960s Italian caper film.

The website also provides all sorts of background on the making of the game and on the philosophy behind its production. Discover the Scratchware Manifesto and how scratchware is to commercial games what independent film is to major Hollywood blockbusters. There's even an update patch that fixes bugs and adds some new material.

Extra Credit

I also recommend a look at this site devoted to the VUE, or Violent Unknown Event, the event that triggered the changes in the world that director Peter Greenaway documented in his epic spoof, The Falls. The Zone and The Falls have a lot in common. Both take an existing form and give it a twist. The Zone looks like a game, while The Falls looks like a documentary. Both change how one looks at the world.