Valve - Dave Hughes

A new Valve game is always cause for excitement. So just last week, the official announcement of the invite-only Beta for Deadlock had the PC gaming folks all excited. 

But then on Labor Day, significantly, a more important Valve game arrived to CSSCGC Manor.

You can hum the Valve music yourself.

Good first impressions from the loading screen - some effort has been expended.
It's even got a thrilling tag line that promises 'All the fun of a Valve'. Which, honestly, seems like an achievable goal. 

Impressions remain positive through the instructions screen. And you can even set the colour of the Valve! Some games would charge you money or make you open loot boxes for this kind of player skin customisation, but here we have it for free. Take that, Gabe. 

But it's here that the truly important nature of the game is first indicated. 
We, the players, are to inhabit the person of Barry, who manages the titular valve at the behest of the State.

My Barry got a high score, possibly a medal.

And so the game begins. The State demands that the valve be opened! Barry complies, and opens the valve. The state demands closure! Barry complies. Open! Comply! Closed! Comply! We are left to imagine how the State communicates its desires - presumably through a hierarchy of loyal party members, themselves following orders with fanatical obedience.

Barry does not question the State - the game does not allow space to do so. Barry, although officially, I'm sure, assured that his job is a both badge of honour and his civic duty, is oppressed by the rigidity applied by the game, and thus, allegorically, by the State.

Valve then is more than a simple fun game, but a meditation on the constraints necessary to a centrally planned economy. Could Barry's job be more fulfilling? Could it be automated, freeing Barry to pursue more creative, productive endeavours? Would Barry be happier knowing what was flowing through the valve, or is it something so terrible that to know would be to revolt?

Perhaps, in years to come, when we have as a culture finally attained the inevitable fully-automated luxury space communism that we move inexorably towards, games like this will allow our truly free descendants to manage their utopia for all, avoiding institutional traps for lives like Barry's. Only in that far future will this game's importance become clear.

Until then, the only revolt available in the gamespace is to neglect the State's wishes. Leave the valve open when it should be closed, let the Politburo clean it up. What happens then? Who knows. An alarm sounds, the screen goes red. 

We've all seen HBO's Chernobyl, right?

Scores

Technical Ability : 50%

It's in BASIC, the language of the proletariat.
It beeps when it should, it looks nice and clean, nothing wildly obviously bad about it. 
The high score even carries forward to the next game, if for some ( possibly political? ) reason you want to play it twice.

Achievement : 50%

It achieves its ( incredibly small ) technical goals admirably. 
Single-button control scheme means that it's ripe for conversion to phones & tablets.

Fun : 30%

I wouldn't call it fun, as such, but I was oddly compelled to keep playing until I got a high-score. 

Crap Factor : 20%

Nice loading screen, clear instructions which are spelt correctly, Colour customization, working high-score, no obvious bugs.
It's barely crap at all, if you ignore the fundamentally tedious nature of the gameplay.

You can claim social credit by downloading it from here, once Comrade JBizzel has uploaded it.