The beautiful isolation of Everybody's Gone To The Rapture

Welcome to my first-ever blog post with hopefully many more will follow. This post is an appreciation of this adventure game, which aided in my research of the genre (for my final year project). Moreover, as someone from Shropshire, I was intrigued to explore the fictional representation of this county in the game.

Below are a collection of observations and adorations I noticed whilst playing this game.

Cues

The quarantine within the world story provided a subtle way to give feedback to the player an area was inaccessible. In many games, doors cannot be interacted with. Bars and chains can be quite visually obtrusive and harsh, which could detract from the serene atmosphere of this game. I enjoyed the use of a single piece of paper saying “Quarantine” which harmoniously incorporated it into the game's story. Intrinsically, I learned any house that this sign is automatically unexplorable.

In addition, despite the areas being locked, they did not leave me with any frustration and break the immersive state I was in, in comparison to locked doors from GTA 3 and many other open-world games. You could still see inside, making the environment feel more authentic and expansive.

However, locked doors were not solely indicated by these paper warnings, but also lighting. Generally, if the interior was without any lighting or warmth, it is not possible to explore. Learning this took slightly more time but eventually, it became extremely rewarding to intuitively feel which buildings were explorable. Interactions became instinctual, which despite being subconscious, I believe may have triggered a sense of mastery of exploration skills within me, therefore making the experience more enjoyable.

Interactable/explorable areas are also signalled with doors being ajar, which is reinforced by the tutorial section, with an open town door and phone box (which also introduces sound as a cue).

I will elaborate on this topic further in the level/environment design section.

A fresher take on the apocalyptic genre

Usually, when I think of the end of the world, I associate it with perpetual panic, anger, sorrow, and violence. However, the slow and meditative progression into the chaos within this game, I found to be a strangely calming and cathartic experience. The gentle strolling pace, with the luscious and biodiverse landscape, made accepting the end, from the very beginning, an undemanding yet fascinating process. Rather than being a rugged hero, or a panicked passer-by, you play as a gentle observer, watching the slow disintegration of denial and integration of the end. It was fascinating to watch people go through stages of denial, as an observer who has long realized their fates.

Additionally, the slow-paced gameplay adds to the theme of acceptance, as there is no rushing, only gentle strolling. Whilst at times, this did feel tedious and made backtracking a frustrating experience, it did allow me to take in all the scenery and make the world and its ambiance, temporarily more tangible.

Narrative

Whilst playing and piecing together the narrative when gaps were present, I often tried to fill the gaps, pondering questions such as “Is there a symbiosis between the light and the life absorbed?” “Are their moments, fragmented and trapped in time?.”

As a result of the lack of hand-holding when it comes to traversal the narrative becomes part of the game's puzzle. Piecing together the tales became an extremely rewarding process for me but also left room for ambiguity and curiosity to arise further and heighten my desire to roam for even more answers.

Due to the order, you can view sequences, there were moments when I witnessed a character at wit's end saying “God, it's over” then traversing back to see them still have hope, making it even more emotional to see the sequence play out.

Furthermore, the orbs of light (patterns) portrayed as people, who had undergone absorption from the entity, made following them believable and did not break my immersion. If I was ever stuck, I could attempt to find one, without ever feeling diminished.

Level Design and Environment

Set in a fictional Shropshire to allow the familiar affordances, of natural walkways, wooden signposts, hedgerows, and rivers, made traversing flow akin to real-world experiences I have had. At times I forgot I was playing, as it became so effortless, which added to the meditative feeling this game often gave me. The luscious environment helped create what I find to be an addictive, calm yet chaotic approach to apocalypses.

There was a consistent loop of minor confusion which often led to moments of satisfaction. The confusion and isolation often made me try not only to fill in narrative gaps but to try and decipher gameplay patterns too. For example, at the beginning of the game, I discovered a house with a quarantine sign, so I tested to see if it was locked, and it was. In my head I then decided, all buildings without this piece of paper must be accessible and coincidentally, the house nearby without one was open, but shortly this pattern broke as I stumbled across a locked door without a quarantine sign. Then came confusion once again. But I found another pattern I decided to stick with and this one was by analysing the houses' interiors through the windows, I discovered houses that were dimly lit inside were all accessible.

There were many moments of micro-confusion within this game for me, but sometimes following real-world rules, I was able to find my way back.

I found that in many moments where expectations of affordances weren’t immediately met, they were often met later after more exploration, which created a heightened sense of satisfaction, not only at their reveal but at the prediction of events being able to occur there. Examples for me include a church, which lights cascading through the windows, a pub (which I had to return to at the very end of the game to get the story segment to trigger), and a spotlight centred at a stage.

One particularly memorable moment was in Lakeside Holiday Camp when after exhausting the scripted story segments, the speaker beckoned for me to return to the village hall, which before, made me curious and wonder why there wasn’t anything interactable within it, since it opposed my initial expectations.

This pattern helped create hierarchical importance for locations, which could be related to real-world expectations and experiences.

Another way they make explorable (and therefore story-significant) buildings stand out, is via spacing and colour contrast. For example, white is commonly used in explorable, but in this image below in Primrose, all the caravans are white, so to make this one stand-out, orange tents were placed in front of it.

But not only do they make finding explorable buildings easier, but they also make traversing to them a pattern.

The image below shows an obvious path along with a spirit orb towards a cottage. I think this area acts as a subtle tutorial, to instil within the player they can follow and trust paths to guide them.

The image on the right is a slightly less obvious path, which I found more rewarding to follow, as I became lost during an exploration amongst thicker foliage so attempted to find a path when that subtly appeared amongst the shadows. By simply stopping to find a path, I felt rewarded for my initiative, which isn’t something I have encountered many times within gaming.

Furthermore, despite the non-linear design, due to the story intertwining, so does the exploration. Loops are common within exploration, which I believe are also subtly aided by assets such as bunting and powerlines, which connect areas and help area readability and recognisability.

In addition, the persistence of light within the world further enhances the sense that “The pattern” is inescapable and ubiquitous. The fragmented story also meant that light became more ominous as time went on but also more beautiful.

In areas where story scenes are present, light is not just a guide, it also acts as its own storytelling measure. For example, after finding out “The Pattern” had evolved and could not only infiltrate powerlines and radio waves, the sky changes colour, insinuating it can manipulate wavelengths, which can change the colour of the sky from blue to having hues of violet.

Overall, from its captivating design to the calm chaos of the apocalypse, I thoroughly enjoyed my time with this game. There are countless post-apocalyptic narratives out there, but this is a uniquely fresh post-apocalypse, as the fires still smoke, cigarettes still burn, and lights still flicker. Fascinating, the horror does not necessarily come from the world itself, but what’s missing in the world. There’s horror and beauty in the unwavering stillness and walking through the immediate aftermath of the rapture was a gaming experience I will forever savour.