A Moral Dilemma

Last year I came across an indie game by Facepalm. The game was called The Swapper, a sci-fi puzzle game. I was immediately hooked by this creepy little gem on the psn library! It was a great few hours of amazing story telling using the sci-fi genre.

The game touched on a age old question of the human soul. It did it in a subtle, but unique way. You are given a device that can clone you up to four times and allow you possess one of them at a time. It felt like I was playing out an episode of the Outerlimits! Geeking out as I ran around a derelict space station solving puzzles to access more areas.

Then the story started to take hold and I began feeling uneasy about my actions. I was effortlessly cloning myself and swapping bodies to solve puzzles. Sounds innocent enough right? But, what if I had to sacrifice hundreds of clones  just to complete those puzzles! I sent clones to their deaths by falling, crushed, and shredded. What the hell was I playing?

The light touch on music was like you were listening to it in a vacuum. It gave off an erie feel. Made you get the idea of a lonely space station and a sad memory. Like you were in a dream of a place that used to be quite alive. Only, there it was…..dead! This is a soundtrack that you should only want to listen to while you were playing the game.

Another thing that the developer did was give the game a sort of claymation look. Instead of a realistic image, they went more towards a Tim Burton movie. The movement was fluid and dream like. I went around room to room in what almost felt surreal. There seemed to be a slight haze about the map. The space station seemed largely vast and open. Yet, did not feel that way as you progressed through the story.

I eventually came across one other person running around the space station. At first I only would catch her as she was moving about. Eventually, I made contact with her and started to develop a partnership. I was told by her, Chalmers, that the device transfers my soul to the clone. This device was created after the crew came across a new form of life. Chalmers wanted to push the limits with this device, but was asked to stop after an incident occurred.

Here I was creating soulless being to do my bidding. But, was i murdering myself over and over again? Was I a clone now if I killed the original version of myself? What a mind fuck!