Stilstand

Genre: Visual Novel

Players: 1

.

Review:

(Note: This game is included in Nakana Bundle #3 (Eqqo + Lydia + Stilstand), along with Eqqo and Lydia. This game is also included in Nakana Bundle #4, along with Journey of the Broken Circle, Lydia, Mythic Ocean, and Soul Searching. Additionally, this game is also in Nakana Bundle #6 (10 games), along with A Night at the Races, Cosmic Top Secret, Eqqo, Infini, Journey of the Broken Circle, Lydia, Mythic Ocean, Please, Touch The Artwork, and Soul Searching.)

Stilstand is a Visual Novel released on PC and mobile devices in 2020 and ported to PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch in 2021. This game follows the story of a woman living in Copenhagen during a hot summer, struggling with depression, loneliness, depression, hopelessness, depression, addiction, and depression. While this game has been described as “darkly comic”, I’m not quite sure how comic any of this is.

The game does take on surreal qualities throughout its short story (the game can be easily completed within 15-30 minutes, and perhaps due to this the game only costs $3). Throughout the tale, the unnamed woman talks with a wide-eyed black figure who keeps offering words of support, encouragement, and advice… sorta’ like a reverse-Babadook. Meanwhile, she either dreams or hallucinates odd scenarios that have her stumbling through beer-bottle landscapes and distorted versions of her depressing days.

This Visual Novel gameplay is interspersed with moments when she’s drinking, smoking cigarettes, or killing time by watching TV or fiddling with her iPhone. At times, these activities are interactive, having player guide her through a room like a ragdoll while drunk, or moving a car around to collect hearts on a freeway. But mostly, this is a fairly straightforward narrative experience.

The music is dour, the artwork is very crudely-drawn pen scratchings, seemingly intentionally making the woman and everyone she meets look like a grotesque child’s depiction. In virtually every way, this game is thoroughly unpleasant. Oh, and this game lets players interact with it using the touchscreen in handheld mode, which is probably the ideal way to play it… if you’re gonna’ play it.

I suppose if the idea was for the player to be brought into this woman’s world of despair and loneliness… well done? However, I’m not sure why anyone would want to do that, exactly. There’s not any deep message here beyond “yeah, this sucks”, it doesn’t seem to be trying to spread awareness. It’s just… a strange, distorted snapshot into a bleak and hopeless existence. So… I guess if that interests you, try Stilstand?

tl;dr – Stilstand is a Visual Novel about a woman suffering from loneliness and depression. And also there’s apparently a nice, kind-hearted reverse-Babadook. It’s a short story, with crudely-depicted characters. I suppose, to its credit, it does succeed in painting a particularly bleak and depressing picture for players. I’m just not sure what the appeal is here.

Grade: C

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