Heaven’s Vault
Of all the games on this list, I think Heaven’s Vault ($25 on Steam) asks the most of its audience. It’s a game about history—a fictional history, of a lost galactic empire and what caused its downfall. But it’s a functional history, a knot the player needs to unravel. Heaven’s Vault is loathe to give straight answers to even its simplest mysteries, instead communicating through crumbling mosaics and inscriptions on weathered walls and in chunks of wood washed up on riverbanks.
And everywhere, remnants of a lost language, glyphs the player needs to translate either through context or guesswork. Get a translation wrong, it might affect the way your character sees the entire story going forward. An ancient graveyard or simple garden? Religious artifact or junk? The choice is yours.
That’s what Inkle does best, of course. Studio co-founder Jon Ingold once told me their design approach is “Lots of little choices, all of which can be significant at any given moment.” Heaven’s Vault demonstrates that better than ever, even better than Sorcery! and 80 Days. By the time you’ve finished, the past, present, and future all bear your fingerprints, traces of where you’ve gone and what you bothered to learn. It’s an incredible achievement in interactive storytelling, made better by its faith that players will want to undertake such a daunting task.
Game Link Download: https://store.steampowered.com/app/774201/Heavens_Vault/
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