Previews

EGX 2015: Void and Meddler is a beautiful looking point-and-click adventure with a grim cyberpunk twist

Memories, all alone in the NEC

EGX 2015: Void and Meddler is a beautiful looking point-and-click adventure with a grim cyberpunk twist
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| Void and Meddler

Void and Meddler was, for me at least, one of the surprises of EGX. It's a witty, gorgeous-looking cyberpunk point and click adventure, and I lost about fifteen minutes playing it.

I didn't have time to get to grips with the story really, but it seems to revolve around souvenirs – objects that have somehow become imbued with actual memories.

The protagonist, Fyn, is a rake thin retro-futuristic worrier, and the game takes place over one night of her life. The whole game is dripping with nihilism and grim wit.

But laced through that there's a cyberpunk sensibility. The game is littered with references, and it raised more than a smile from me on more than one occasion.

The art style is stunning as well. Thick pixels, bright swathes of dirty light, and intriguing characters that strut and stumble through the Blade Runner-inspired world.

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Everything is easy to control, and while I played the PC version, it should all translate well to mobile. A radial dial flashes up when you can interact with an object, letting you look at it, pick it up, talk to it, or turn it on.

That concept of powering things up runs throughout my play through. And it's an intriguing idea, one threaded through the talk of humanity, nihilism, and memories that make up the slightly esoteric story.

I'm not a huge fan of point-and-click adventures, but Void and Meddler sparks certain parts of my brain in a pleasant way.

There's a Demolition Man reference in there, and a William Gibson-style sense of time and place. This is a future we can recognise, and a sense of ennui and isolation that we understand all too well.

While that darkness at the heart of Void and Meddler might not be to everyone's taste, there's a literary, intelligent game here, and one I look forward to exploring when it hits the App Store in the next couple of months.

Harry Slater
Harry Slater
Harry used to be really good at Snake on the Nokia 5110. Apparently though, digital snake wrangling isn't a proper job, so now he writes words about games instead.