Beautiful Desolation (2020)

Beautiful Desolation (2020), created by Christopher Bischoff, developed and published by the Brotherhood

In the '70s, the world as we know it changed forever when a gigantic structure shaped as an impossible Penrose triangle appeared in the sky over South Africa. Not only did it alter the politics of the world, but it also had an effect on technological progress, allowing huge jumps forward during the next decade.

The Penrose didn't alter the world only on the global scale, its appearance had smaller, more personal effects as well. The case of point, Mark Leslie, who was on the night of the appearance of the structure in the car with his spouse, heading to see his brother Don. The turmoil of Penrose's appearance causes a car accident that kills Marks spouse.

Years later, the world has changed quite a bit. The 80s of Beautiful Desolation is very different from what our own is, thanks to the advanced technology sparked by the mysterious structure. The effects reached world politics as well, allowing new superpowers to rise. But the story isn't about that, it is about Mark, who has begun to investigate the Penrose, as he wants to know from where did the device that altered his life so drastically came from.

Mark ends up asking help from his estranged brother Don, who is now a helicopter pilot. Together they fly to the Penrose to investigate it further, only to be apprehended by a robotic guard dog, Pooch. But before she can do anything further about the intruders, a surge of power from the Penrose whisks the trio thousands of years into the future, in a world that is much, much stranger.

The world has grown different, humans as we know them, don't exist anymore. Humans have turned into something else entirely different thanks to bizarre unions of technology. Besides the odd tribes living(?) humanoids, there are several artificial beings as well. After realising how much the Penrose will affect the future of the planet and the future of humanity, Mark feels is even more important for them to get back to warn of the danger of the Penrose.

 Beautiful Desolation is an adventure game that borrows its gameplay from games such as Baldur's Gate and Planescape: Torment. A big chunk of the game is based on exploration. While you go around the world, meet new people and see new places, you have to keep your eyes peeled for the important stuff. At times this means people, at times it means stuff you can either find or buy from the merchants. There's even an optional combat-oriented mini-game, which I accidentally sidestepped on my first playthrough.

Unlike in most other adventure games, there's a question of cause and effect as well. Your decisions can have at times drastic effects on the populace of the proud, new future. Your approach can mean death for tribes. This on its own adds some replayability to the game, especially if you are interested in how your choices play out in the end.  You can try to play it nice or antagonise everyone you meet, even your companions, Don and Pooch.

I admit I expected a bit more from Beautiful Desolation. It's not a bad game, not by any means, it just is that Beautiful Desolation lacks some refinement. What it does well is showing that this kind of gameplay familiar from RPG's can work with adventure games as well. Exploring the detailed, apocalyptic world is a fantastic experience and solving its puzzles is fun.

The problem, however, is more on the side of usability. Despite BD having a journal system, it does lack a standard quest log found from every RPG it copies its gameplay from. This, quite often I might add, leads into a situation where you just don't quite rightly know what you should be doing, as you might have several puzzles open at the same time, but you have to move all over the large world to solve them. It is easy to forget what you were doing and forget that you had some other tasks to complete as well.

Especially after a pause from playing, I noticed I just had to start brute-forcing myself in travelling between the locations until I found the next thread to explore. Of course, you can always review the discussion logs, but it gets a bit tiresome after a couple of times. A simple quest log would have been a better option. Or even the possibility to write down your own notes in the game. I know, I know. pen and paper do exist, but I've always been a poor note-taker in what comes to games. And really, I do prefer the game to do that for me.

You do have to be pretty thorough in your investigations as well, as the only time I got genuinely stuck was when I had missed an important item in a location I thought I had already explored to the fullest. The worst thing was, I knew what I had to do, but I had no means of doing it and no hint whatsoever on how to proceed. Even if there was a hint in some discussion about it, they meant nothing, as I hadn't seen the item the hint referred to.

As I said though, Beautiful Desolation is not a bad game. It does need some more refinement on some aspects, but it still is a good game. It's graphically stunning and the story and the world it presents holds up nicely to the end. It has a bizarre world, inhabited by bizarre cultures and odd individuals. In many ways, it portrays one of the strangest worlds I've ever seen done in any form of entertainment. It is a world I'd love to see explored even further, no matter if it was done in books, comics, games or movies.

So while the gameplay itself might be lacking at times, the world-building itself more than makes up with any annoyance I have with the game. It also provides a blueprint for an entirely new kind of exploration-based adventure gaming, if other developers are willing to test their metal.

The best thing about Beautiful Desolation is the world it has. If Bischoff decides to create more games set in the same world, I for one would be intrigued to see what he comes up with. Just as he proved with Stasis, he can create interesting settings for his games.