User blog:F0T4K4T05/A few words about Ecstatica and this wiki

Hi, I'm John, the founder and currently sole admin and contributor on this wiki. After putting a lot of work into the wiki recently I felt like sharing some more personal thoughts on here.

You may be wondering why on Earth anyone would ever dedicate so much of his time into researching and writing about Ecstatica out of all games, a game barely anyone seems to care about. There is of course a chance that you're yelling "wait a minute, I care!" right now. Well, good for you. There surely are some fans of the games out there but the fact that in 2012 there was still no major and comparably up-to-date source of information dedicated to Ecstatica yet kinda speaks for itself. As does the fact that after I founded this Wiki and posted my first articles here and then took a long break nobody did anything on this wiki for two years. So let's face it: people generally just don't care about Ecstatica. Comparably few people are aware of its existence and sadly also most people who have touched the game don't seem to worship it the way many other far less remarkable games are worshipped.

Well, I for one love the game, mostly for reasons few people are aware of. Of course there's the tech and the bizarre visual style which I think is quite neat, at least taking into account the context the game was released in and how Ecstatica went in a completely different direction technologically than the entire video game industry before or after. But that's not what makes Ecstatica brilliant in my eyes. It makes it recognizable and memorable but the true beauty of Ecstatica lies beneath that curvy (oh, very curvy) look. It's a game that lives, that surprises you and has love written all over it. For one there's of course that setting which is unlike anything you will find in any other fantasy action or survival horror game. You will find creatures and characters which don't appear all that special but if you look things up you will see "oh damn, people actually believed in this stuff in the middle-ages". And of course there's the way how the game doesn't take itself seriously while still being a very disturbing and mature horror game with an almost shameless depiction of death, torture and some nudity thrown in. There's mutilated bodies just around the corner, so what? Take a nap and enjoy your extremely fragile life! It's a game that can make you laugh and crap your pants at the same time. That's rare and awesome. But that's still not the thing that makes Ecstatica truly special.

Most action and adventure games work like this: "here's this room and it contains that, when the player enters that happens". Of course there's also the opposite end in form of sandbox games: "this is a city and stuff happens there". Then there's the "cinematic" games: "THIS HAPPENS THEN THIS HAPPENS OMG HAVE YOU SEEN THIS HAPPEN?!!". Ecstatica isn't like any of those. Ecstatica is a game about a village inhabited by monsters and a guy trying to survive there. There's the village and monsters in there with you. They aren't decoration, they aren't just part of the level design, they aren't just simple challenges to overcome and they also aren't randomly placed horned bags of experience points. They live there and they hate you. Very much. And it's impossible not to feel that. They will follow you and they will torture you both physically and psychologically. And remarkably enough each of them does it in its own way. There's the insanely sadistic werewolf who is your worst nightmare at first but soon turns out to be merely an annoyance, like a crappy but totally fun friend. Eventually there's this wicked symbiosis between the two of you, his attempts to murder you will be like playing with an adorable tiger who will kill you if you're not careful. Then you notice that behind the village there's a forest which seems comparably nice and peaceful and hey, no werewolf! But yikes, there's a minotaur, just sitting there! Maybe if I walk just past him... aaah, he's getting up and he's huge! So you run past him and into a dead end in form of a monastery gate. You monks think I'm a demon? What's wrong with you?! So you turn around and OH MY GOD! There's the minotaur again! Just sitting there! You take your chances and you just barely manage to smash his face in and send him to bull heaven. Sheesh, peace at last! You take a few steps and then you hear a mysterious flute playing...

Ecstatica lives. It's inhabited by unique creatures who feel like actual sentient beings, just like you. Until you kill them. And when you notice that they are not coming back and their corpse will just continue to rot there you may catch yourself thinking: "damn, I kinda miss him now, I wonder what he would have surprised me with if he had gotten the chance". And odds are that he would have indeed surprised you. I've played this game a lot and it still manages to surprise me. There are some details I keep forgetting because there is so much unique stuff in there but when I replayed the game recently something happened that I swear I haven't seen happen a single time before, probably because I had disposed of the enemy too quickly in the past.

So, the game feels alive and it's mostly thanks to lots of really original content that you may or may not witness, be it an enemy ambushing you in a totally unexpected manner or the "hero" doing something nasty all by himself. The game is powered by a philosophy that is far too rare among video game developers. It is a highly emotional and cinematic experience which is a game first. And the way other developers usually place secret areas containing a few boxes of ammo and maybe a post card in their games Ecstatica's developers created tons of entirely optional unique animations. And try to think of just *one* game where almost each and every monster is a unique character in its own way rather than a type used repeatedly as a level object. Honestly, I can't think of any.

Now, most people reading this (assuming there will be any) probably think "What's wrong with that guy? Did he play the same game I played?". Now, I'm aware that I can easily get over-excited when talking about Ecstatica and that it may appear like in my eyes it's the greatest game ever. It is not. It has its shortcomings, it has its flaws. It's a comparably small game. The world isn't that large, there aren't that many puzzles to solve or items to obtain. A clever person playing it for the first time may beat it in two to three hours, someone who knows everything already can easily finish it in under an hour. The combat is simple and repetitive and interaction with human NPCs is extremely limited. The execution isn't perfect but I think it's important to highlight all the achievements of Ecstatica, the ones overshadowed by its bizarre look and naked corpses. Ecstatica went by without leaving a mark in video game history and that's just wrong. There is so much to learn from this game, so much modern developers with their huge budgets could do if they acknowledged and understood the design philosophy that powered Ecstatica. Maybe make things smaller but more meaningful. Reading statements by Andrew Spencer from the mid-90's makes you feel like you just got caught in some time paradox, like he's trying to fight the stagnation and shallowness in AAA game design we have today.

So, I think Ecstatica is a game that deserves to be known and to be written about. My part was starting this wiki, deconstructing the game a bit, putting all its elements out in the open - a job which isn't done yet but I will continue to do. This alone will not do anything but at least there will be one place people can go and refer to if they wish to learn about this game or tell others about it.

You may have noticed that I haven't mentioned the sequel yet. Well, it's not a secret that it's different from and more generic than the original. I did play it back when it was still new but not that much. I think that it's a great game but... well, my thoughts on Ecstatica II are a story for another day. For now: thanks for reading and I hope that you just got more interested in Ecstatica or I maybe even managed to encourage you to contribute to this wiki.

Cheers!