Capsule Review: Moirai
A free ten-minute experiment in player motivations, trust, and violence. It’s an interesting idea, but not much else, and the quality of the experience can vary widely from person to person. There’s also perhaps a bit too much exploratory freedom; it’s possible to miss the path to the game’s most important content without realizing you’ve done so. But the mechanic being explored is decently thought-provoking and the setup creates a strong enough atmosphere to have a decent chance at distracting you from overthinking things before the veil is lifted.
Unfortunately, the game is no longer playable. As described in this developer announcement, the database that the game relies on was brought down by attacks, so the game has been pulled. As a result, this game is no longer an interactive exploration of certain motivational aspects of gaming, but rather a sad illustration of certain motivational aspects of internet culture - the attacker who brought the game down did so because they “thought it was funny.”
Even if the game can no longer be played, it’s still an interesting culture artifact. In lieu of playing it, I recommend reading the designer’s postmortem and this piece from PC Gamer.
I Stopped Playing When: I finished a single playthrough. I saw no reason to play again since the game’s gimmick works best when you don’t already know about it.
Three Stars: Good. I liked the game enough to finish it (or just play it a bunch, for games that don't end). I recommend it to most genre fans.