Humanity is a puzzle game and, at times, quite a taxing one.
This is a lovely feature, but watching these videos is almost always a terrible mistake.
I have to do all that?!
But then something magical happens.
I return to the puzzle that has defeated me, and just start to tinker a bit.
What if I did this, then that?
What if I started by heading south instead of north?
Now this is more like it.
Through playfulness comes understanding.
Load it up and what do you get?
A gold-tinged wind-blown feather of some kind, fluttering across the cosmos.
Look closer and it might seem familiar.
Instead it’s a mass of us, mingling, cludging, bashing together.
It’s a proper brownian motion of people, a crowd suspended in a bell jar.
Telling them what to do is what the game itself is about.
Humanity, at its simplest, is a puzzle game about directing people to exits.
The river flows on, and there’s generally - but not always - an endless supply of them.
Get them to weigh down pressure plates and push movable bits of the scenery around.
As the dog, you’re able to drop instruction disks onto tiles in each 3D level.
Things start simply: a turn left tile, a turn right tile.
Then you get jumps.
Then different kinds of jumps.
Then float tiles which will affect the nature of a jump.
So maybe you have a level where you might only change directions.
Humanity gets an awful lot of fun out of just this.
So as god, as dog, I need to rethink, question my underlying principles.
I need to work out what elegance looks like here.
This doesn’t sound like fun now that I’ve written it down, but that’s on me.
In truth, even at this simple level, Humanity’s carefully crafted challenges are often delight itself.
It’s a fascinating world to be in.
And then Humanity starts to twist things.
Everything can be changed and messed around with by the puzzle makers.
It’s all learning!
Again, I haven’t made this sound like fun, but it is!
How about fans and moving walkways?
How about starting with just a few people and collecting more as you make your way to the exit?
How about rival crowds?
What about end gates which it’s crucial that you unlock with special characters?
Throughout it all there are a couple of basics that remain untouched.
There’s also what I have started to think of as a Humanity mindset.
I have thought a lot about loops, figure eights, oxbows while playing this game.
At times, it reminds me of sheet music, with those first- and second-time bars.
I haven’t thought of those in about twenty years!
Can turn off a number a visual effects for clarity.
Solution videos for every puzzle.
Cor, this is all lovely.
There’s also a VR mode, which Ian will be writing about on Sunday.
I haven’t been able to test it.
And all the way through - that title.
It’s such a cognitive nailbomb, isn’t it?
How seriously are we meant to take this?
Are we here to guide or to observe?
Is this a game about heroism or toil, or folly?
Are we a god as well as a dog?
And if so, what kind of god do we want to be?
(And which kind of dog do we want to be?)
Humanity, it turns out, is pretty great.
