How the Vibes of 1000xRESIST Reinforce Its Narrative

1000xRESIST, the debut title from Sunset Visitor 斜陽過客, received significant praise for its writing since its release last year. (As it should!) But I was particularly enchanted by the vibes it creates beyond the written word. It's obvious that the devs carefully curated the audiovisual experience of each scene to create a very specific emotional beat.

As a quick example, I'll break down a scene from Chapter 1.

For the player's first communion with the Allmother, they visit memories of Iris's old school. They see it first as a seemingly evacuated biohazard zone, and then see a previous memory, when the school was still open.

Music

In both memories, the music is soft, ambient, and electronic. But in the first memory, the music is mostly high-pitched long tones with very little melody, mimicking a world that has been trapped in stasis ever since a catastrophic event. The second memory, on the other hand, features melody and countermelody, which mirrors the activity we see within the school.

Environment

Similarly, the aesthetics of the environment contribute to the contrast between the two memories. The biohazard memory has red emergency lighting, a haze that partially obscures the hallway, and the only people you come across are in hazmat suits. The second memory is brighter and more neutral, with less saturated colors. Knowing what's to come, the neutral colors give the scene an ominous, bittersweet feeling, like the calm before the storm.

Mechanics

Part of the way through the scene, the player gains the ability to swap back and forth between memories, bypassing obstacles present in one version of the school but not the other. This unnatural experience creates a distance between the player and the world they’re exploring. It reminds us that these are not our player character's memories; that this isn't a world that we're inhabiting or affecting, but merely witnessing.

Dialogue

Early in the scene, we primarily experience dialogue through conversations between Watcher and Secretary: Watcher observes an item in the school that's unfamiliar to her, and Secretary provides its name and function. Much of this dialogue isn't crucial information for the player–we already know what lockers and yearbooks are–but instead illustrates that Watcher is completely disconnected from the world we live in. In this way, the dialogue serves the same "vibes" purpose that the music, environment, and mechanics do–it's about the emotional experience.

The scene goes on to include plot-relevant dialogue, stacking clues onto the mystery of what happened at the school and how Iris was connected to it. These moments are all the more intriguing because of the groundwork laid by the vibes. It's games like 1000xRESIST that remind me why I love games so much as a storytelling medium. The written word, while crucial to the game, is one of many storytelling tools that Sunset Visitor uses to their fullest.