Utility for the Soul

Alright. Utility for the Soul is done and dusted. I think it took me 15 minutes to complete? And apparently, I was a good little worker. IDK man. This was a weird one.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3415939640

It's a minor puzzle game where I guess your goal is to find a better personal balance between you and the world around you so you can be a better employee. But instead of focusing on balance between work life and personal life, I guess it wants you to better understand your place in the world as a worker. By coming to terms with yourself as it pertains to your role at whatever company you are slaving for. By going to a retreat where you interact with the Earth, Fire, Water, and Air.

The abstract nature of this is somewhat lost on me, but the social engineering aspect of this is kind of offensive, lol. But hey, maybe I'm reading too much into this. Or maybe I am spot on and my lack of willingness to further line some oligarch's pockets is the real problem. Why are your employees working so you can buy a second car, a second home, a second yacht while your employees are living paycheck to paycheck? Is my own philosophy.

In properly completing the challenges presented in this game, I guess you are showing how your worth to your company and your overall productivity will increase if given the illusion of happiness, while also making sure you know your place and never try to rise above it. Maybe we'll call it Wellness and pretend it's for you the worker bee when it's really for the corporation's benefit, ultimately. F that ish. Real mental and physical stability comes from having a proper work/life balance and not giving everything you have to overlords who ultimately care nothing about you. They don't deserve the years of your life you willingly hand over to them.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3415939482

So yeah, that's the game. Even though it is philosophically offensive to me, it is in practice an interesting little existential puzzle game. And it is free to play, so there is that. I'm going to give it a negative rating because I don't think we should be engaging in social experiments designed to make you more docile under the guise of "finding yourself", but at the same time, I don't necessarily think you shouldn't give it a look. IDK. It's on you to decide for yourself.

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interesting minimalist game about the elements and an unspoken commentary on the condition of workers in the modern age, and the narrow lens in which corporations view them in. also nice to see how the elements (archaic model of matter) are being brought to in such artificial ways. quite a lot of food for thought, but that's just me! also just a nice puzzle if you want to spend some time on it.

A minimalist game, with line drawn-style graphics, based on the environmental artist Aleksandra Kasuba's proposed "retreat house" for the rest and re-invigoration of corporate employees in 1970. The game implements a short series of rooms in which a visitor experiences the elements Earth, Fire, Wind and Air in different ways; the player has to make each room behave in a way which matches Kosuba's original textual description of them.

There are achievements are for starting and finishing the overall game, for specific additional actions in four rooms, for four different "visitor reports" which reflect the mix of rooms undertaken or skipped (getting these represents much of my play time), and for examining Kasuba's drawing plans of the proposed retreat house.

I can't say that I gained much enthusiasm or empathy for the "retreat house" concept itself, but I felt that the game was well and cleverly implemented, and I was happy to play and complete it.