Where to get it

2008 · Ice-Pick Lodge · Adventure · Horror

The Void

A first-person game in which after starving to death, the player wakes up in the Void, a dying land housing numerous Sisters and long-absent Brothers, all of whom subsist on Color, the essence of life in the Void. With the player's arrival, a resurgence of Color is observed in the Void, prompting the Brothers to return and subject the player to various trials so that he may also become a Brother by using and sharing Color.

Released: 17 April 2008
Platforms: Windows
Genres: Adventure Horror Indie Role-playing Strategy
Developers: Ice-Pick Lodge
Publishers: Noviy Disk
Modes: Single-player
Perspective: First person
Themes: Action Fantasy Horror Survival
Country: Russia
Age ratings: PEGI 12 USK 12
Languages: English, German, Polish, Russian
Time to beat: 25hmain story44hcompletionist

About

The Void, also known as Tension (Russian: Тургор/Turgor), is a 2008 Russian first-person adventure video game developed by the Russian studio Ice-Pick Lodge and published in Russia, other CIS-countries, and Poland by ND Games on 17 April 2008. It won the "Most Original Game" award at the Russian Game Developers Conference, KRI in 2007.

The game was released in English-speaking regions on October 23, 2009, and then as a digital download on Steam on December 16, 2009.

›Story

When a person’s soul is extinguished, for a brief flickering moment it passes The Void—a grey limbo, breathed back to life by scarce droplets of Color scattered across it. Ravenous, monstrous Brothers beckon the soul to preserve every bit of it; enticing, sly Sisters beg to be fed. The whole Void, inhabited also by a multitude of weird and sometimes scary creatures, changes with every droplet of Color used, making every action you take have repercussions across the whole world.

But perhaps there is another way to use the Color. The way to break out of the never-ending cycle of the Void. Nourishing Color in gardens and fighting the Void’s creatures, unlocking the Sisters’ hearts and taking on their Brothers, the player gets the chance to find it… and achieve ultimate transcendence.

Players say

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

The Void is played from a first-person perspective. Color, the character's primary resource, exists "naturally" in the Void as Lympha. However, collected Lympha of Color cannot be used directly and must be processed in the hero's Hearts first, where it is slowly drained out, becoming Nerva. Each Heart also corresponds to a glyph; more complex game actions are done by drawing Nerva-infused glyphs on screen using the mouse.

When drawing a glyph, time slows down to allow the player to carefully draw it. Typical game actions are talking to NPCs, fighting predators or Brothers, collecting plants and growing gardens.

Story

The player takes on the role of a lost soul that accidentally lingers in a place called "the Void" before meeting its absolute death. The Void is a purgatory-like place, in which the most valuable thing is Color, a liquid that represents lifeforce. Color is scarce, and the Void's inhabitants are plagued by famine. These inhabitants are beautiful naked Sisters and monstrously deformed Brothers, two conflicting factions that the player must interact with.

Color is a universal resource in the game — it functions as the player's health, armor, stats and ammo. With the help of Nameless Sister, the player finds out that there is a way to escape the Void and be reincarnated on the "surface", but in order to do this, the player must pose as one of the Brothers and eventually confront them.

Reception

Overall, the game has received positive reviews in Russia and abroad, with the exception being the Polish press that played the non-director's cut edition. The German version, the director's cut of the Russian version, received more favorable reactions ranging from medium to high scores. In the first international reviews the game got high scores, and enthusiastic praise from Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

In the first English-language review, Resolution claimed it to be rarely fun, but offering "a viciously beautiful, enormously interesting experience." Rock, Paper, Shotgun wrote an overwhelmingly positive review, saying "The Void is the most important game you are GOING TO FUCKING PLAY."