Things We Lost in the Flood is a new, free-to-play indie MMO with a brilliant twist: It’s a massively multiplayer “loneliness simulator” where each player is set adrift on a boat in a post-apocalyptic world that’s been flooded over. So instead of forming into groups or communicating via chat or instant message, players can write and send messages in bottles for other players to find. Some of those messages can advance the game (more on that below), or simply just be personal expressions, anonymously shared and set adrift into the pixelated sea.
Created by indie developer Dean Moynihan of Awkward Silence Games (who also created the acclaimed, deeply moving game One Chance), Things We Lost was first conceived to be massively multiple storytelling game:
“The original idea was for players to find notes that I had written, to tell a short story out of order,” he tells me. “However, I’m no writer… Once I figured out a way for the players to be doing all the prose work, it was smooth sailing from there.”
That decision enhanced his intent to simulate loneliness: “The only thing that could feel more lonely than floating in the middle of the ocean by yourself,” he explains, “would be floating in the middle of the ocean by yourself — and reading notes from other living people.”
Though the game has only been out for a short time, players have written over 6,000 notes to each other, running the gamut of useful to the game, to creatively discursive, to surprisingly profound:
“I’ve been blown away by how earnest the messages seem to be,” as Moynihan put it. “[T]he vast, vast majority of messages appear to be from players genuinely sharing secrets and stories about themselves — or at the very least, pretending to. Players sharing stories about their depression or anxiety always hits home. Although, my favorite messages are probably from the players who are in roleplay mode and writing their diaries at sea. I’ve seen messages from people talking about seeing monsters, mermaids and even other players.
“Which as far as I’m aware,” the game’s creator notes, “isn’t possible.”
From a technical standpoint, the message sharing mechanic is pretty simple, and comes with a way of quietly removing abusive a-hole missives:
“All the written messages are sent from the Unity client and just saved to a database. Then one is called literally at random to be spawned into the players game in a bottle. As such, an Internet connection is required to play. There is an ‘invisible’ filter in the game actually stops players from sending abuse/slurs. I say invisible because players aren’t actually told whether their message hits the filter or not. This kind of prevents some brute-force-trolling, as no one can be sure that their abuse is getting through to the database.”
Beyond message sharing, there’s a social collection mechanic which advances the game. (Potential spoilers below.)
“The game features some community-based goals in the form of the big red doors. Players collectively need to collect as many red disk as possible, and pop them into the doors when they come across them. The 100th person to put a disk in the door, gets to go in. From there, they can go on to complete the game (get an ending to the ‘story’) or activate the killswitch.”
Once 100 players activate the killswitch, the game will be turned off.
“Maybe for good,” Dean Moynihan adds cryptically.
