1000xResist : A Storytelling Masterpiece

 

Last weekend I was feeling quite unwell with a bad cold and a crappy week so I decided to cancel all my plans and have a chill weekend playing Videogames. I wanted to play a rather short game that I could finish before Monday and went through my forever growing backlog to find something juicy. I eventually decided to try 1000xResist, a game that KindaFunny highly recommended to play and seems to be a bit of a hidden gem. The average beat time for the game is about 10 hours (which was the exact amount of time I took to beat it) so it was exactly what I was looking for. Now after beating it I can easily say that this game is a must play for all story fans.

I will also say I came into this game with no idea what it is about. All I knew was it is a walking sim (no combat at all) and it is well reviewed. I generally believe this is the best way to play this game so feel free to not read on and get playing because you want to play this game as blind as possible.

Story - What makes us who we are?

In 1000xResist you play a character called Watcher who is one of six clones made by their mother Iris but they call the ALLMOTHER. The near future apocolyptic world they live in was created by a deadly virus that causes humans to cry out all fluid in their body, with Iris seeming to be the sole survivor from it. She is now living in a shelter called the Orchard where she has created multiple clones to help with running and maintaining it. These clones are assigned specific functions from the ALLMOTHER, when one of the clones get assigned this function they are also given a name that represents it. This is how our main character Watcher got her name (she is tasked to Observe the other clones). 

The game starts straight away however with everything going into chaos. We see Watcher stabbing and murdering the ALLMOTHER claiming she has taken everything from her and her sisters..... yeah pretty wild and crazy intro....I loved it. You are then as the player sent back in time to play as Watcher to see how the events led to you murdering the ALLMOTHER and then what consequences and world altering situations happened after that. 

For Watcher it begins when she is tasked by Principal (The head of administration and oversight of the Orchid) to have communions with her fellow sisters (Fixer,Healer,Knower, and Bang Bang Fire). These communions which are created by a floating robot named Secretary (think of the ghosts in destiny) allow Watcher to go into the memories of Iris and shows her path from being a normal student at school to becoming the ALLMOTHER. You also see how Iris parents and her best friend Jaio also struggled with the impossible changes around them form the pandemic as well as the complex relationship humans have with motherhood, friendship, responsibilities and themseleves.

I really dont want to go into more detail than that for the spoiler free version. I will spoil a bit later but this game is all about it's story. Their is no combat or puzzles or quick time events, their is a really fun time mechanic where you can move forwards and backwards in time to see different scenes in the area you are in but mostily it is just a walking sim where you sit back and enjoy the ride. It is powerful, deep, moving and feels incredibly relatible with the pandemic and how we all had to survive with the loneliness and isolation but also shows them few special moments that happened because of it. It also brings in other real life events such as the Hong Kong riots of 2019-2020, an event that also brought the world to a stand still especially for the people of great britian since it was us who in some sense left them. One scene in particular where a character talks about the riots is extremely emotionally impactful and just makes you realize how much struggle these people went through.

The story is a masterpiece and is something you need to experience for yourself.

Developers + Cast : Interesting styles mixed with powerful performances.

I love it when a special game was made by a special studio and this is very much one of them cases. The studio behind 1000xResist is Sunset Visitor, a small four person development team that is based in Vancouver, Canada. The Studio has an interesting story, it was created by Remy Siu who along with her team had a strong background in theatre, new media, dance and performance arts. When the Covid Pandemic hit they were unable to perform so decided to move into video game development instead. A wild jump but one that paid off massively as Sunset Visitor's first and currently only game was 1000xResist which was realeased and nominated for multiple awards in 2024 as well as winning the Peabody award in Interactive & Immersive Category.

In a reddit post Remy Siu said they chose 1000xResist story with cloning due to the idea of nature vs nurture, how we can become different human even if we are a gene to gene copy of the original. It is an extremely interesting concept which they do bring up often in the game. The other reason was an incredibly honest one which is scope. They are not a large studio and wanted their to be a reason why multiple character models look similar, a rather genius idea of making a great story point out of what others might see as a set back.

That seems to be Sunset Visitors style though being able to think outside the box. Not only is this shown in their story writing but also in how the game is developed. I will admit the game doesnt look very pretty graphically but I will say that it works so well with the story. It fits the narrative perfectly with these people and locations looking generic in communions as that is exactly how Iris saw them, the maps and pictures being actually hand drawn also added to the idea that you are dealing with a child who has too much power instead of someone who grew into the role. It does a great job adding to the charm of the game and works nicely in the multiple enclosed spaces you encounter.

I also want to highlight that the voice acting in this game is (mostly) brilliant. All the sisters, Jiao, Iris and the mother and father had extremely strong performances. Obviously Aliyah Rayner who voiced Iris and Nhi Do who voiced Watcher was absolutely world class with both really breaking down their character and expressing the raw emotions of them throughout the game. I also want to shout out Jasmine Chen in particulate who managed to express the constant seriousness of Knower while being able to portray how she was having an inner battle with herself. For me the highlight however was both Maiko Yamamoto as Principal and Lily Tang as the Mother of Iris. Their performances always stole the scene for me and it was just a true pleasure to listen to them. They were captivating and demanding of your attention even when it was emotional and deep. I really enjoyed them and hope they do more voice acting.

While all the main cast did an extremely good job, I do feel like some of the side cast did fall flat on their performances. Their is a moment in particular where you are exploring what happened to a crew later in the game and the performances of these crew members kind of took me out of the game because it was so flat. It was actually the first time I noticed that the character models lips dont move when speaking which is a crazy achievement to the main cast as this was about 90% into the game and had only noticed due to the crew members performance. Their are also one or two other moments where side characters felt a bit out of place with their performances but overall only the crew members section was a part that I felt like it affected my experience.

Gameplay: Sometimes it's best to let the story take the wheel

I dont really have much to say about gameplay since it is very much a walking simulator / visual novel like game so their are hardly any actual gameplay mechanics. I will say the two mechanics you do have are very fun. The time travel in areas is clever and smooth, I go from sitting in a classroom full of students giggling to a quick press and I am sitting in a dark empty glass room with an omnious red glow. As you progress through an area you unlock more moments in time you can travel to allowing you to replay whole events again to see what really happened. It is a fun and clever way to get players to feel engaged in the story. The other mechanic is a simple grapple hook like mechanic that your secretary allows you to do. This is often the only puzzle part of the game as you have to figure out what are the correct points to grapple too however it is never difficult to figure out. I did enjoy both mechanics very much and found the time travel mechanic actually quite clever in how it worked, making it easy to transition through moments of time.

However I did have some annoying moments when it came to navigating the Orchid. The Orchid is a massive hub where a lot of the game takes place and while it is very cool to look at, it is a pain to get around it. I never got comfortable with knowing where places are due to their being a ton of corridors and stairways in the area. The map as well while being clever in its design as it is a fun childlike drawing it did no help me to navigate at all and often got me more lost. I also had issues in the game where I was also told to go to an area but was not able to open the map to locate it so I would just run around aimlessly until I finally stumble across it. It never got to the point where I got infuriated by it but I did have multiple moments where it was frustrating.  

Okay so now to spoilers...... please please please play the game before reading on!

SPOILERS

My thoughts - The pressures of being alive

This story is wild. From Iris becoming a pyschopath killer who is basically ends up in a realtionship with an alien god called the Occupant, to you finding out that when you wake up as Blue you've just been communing with Watcher all the way up to this point meaning everything you did in the game beforehand was just memories from Watcher. Its just such a crazy coplex but incredible story that feels so satisfying as it all begins to piece togehter. I will just highlight some of my favourite points just because their is too much to write about.

First is obviosuly Iris, throughout the whole game you basically find her as quite frankly a bitch who got extremely lucky by not being affected by the virus. She is a horrible best friend to Jiao (Even if their are moments of compassion) and she abandons her family to join a crew to save humanity but realisticly just wanted to eascape her mum. She then kills the entire crew with help of an Occupant who she starts a relationship with and goes into a deranged state talking to a picture of Jiao when she then decides to start cloning herself before calling herself the ALLMOTHER. It is obviosuly a lot more detailed but yeah she just seems a horrible person who was given this incredible power..... but then you get to the end of the game. You suddenly remember that Iris is just a child and never really grew up from that yet became a mother to her clones. In an incredibly hearfelt moment you see how she still felt trapped and even went to speak to her mother again at some point to ask how she manages to be a mother and also deal with the stresses that come with it and work. Her mother said she relied on Iris father to keep herself centered and I think that lead to Iris feeling like the Occupant was her only anchor as well. You could tell she loved her clones like children but had such random outburst of anger that permently damaged them such as with Youngest.Their is also a hint that the Occupant started to actually manipulate Iris herself causing her to become more deranged and aggressive. However I do think in the center of all this is that their is an immature child who just couldn't handle the incredible pressure she was put under and it all started to fall apart.

Second is the parents which was an incredibly moving story but I have to admit the ending I didn't like. The struggles the mum and dad of Iris had to go through knowing that not only they have to survive through a pandemic (which the mother is also immune too) but also accept the loss of their daughter who will keeps promising too return but never will. These sections always felt so powerful to me as you watched the mum and dad do video recordings to their daughter who would never watch them, the mum constantly tidying Iris room and the dad starting to feel more and more isolated from the world. I felt that build of frustration and isolation was all too real as we I think we all had that moment as well. The mum seemed like a hard lady as well being strict and quite rude when speaking to her husband and to Iris before she left. When things finally began to snap between them he finally asks what the mother wants and she said to be kissed and held by him which leads to them properly embracing and having what seemed to be a week long party of drinking and dancing and sleeping in living room. It was a special moment in the game that I think everyone who was isolating with their partner had during the pandemic. I remember making a resturant in my apartment because me and my ex was so desperate to dress up that I decided to make a date night that had a red carpet and karoke and everything, these are the kind of moments that the parents in the game really shined at showing. It was also incredibly personal hearing how they both want to go back to Hong Kong (especially the farther) but were unable too due to their involvement in the Hong Kong riots, this eventually led to the suicide of the farther which I really thought was an uneeded turn because it just felt out of character for him. But yeah I really do think the parents showed the true side of humanity, no matter what the situation is all what matters is who is standing next to you throughout it.

I have 100s of more thoughts about this game with the sisters, blue, the youngest, knower and everything. If I would have a good voice I would put out a 10 hours podcast all about it but luckily for your sake my voice is not that great. So maybe I will talk more about it in the future but overall this game is a masterpiece to me. I was so wrapped up in the story that I finished it in one sitting and was just a complete pleasure to play. It does really feel that the team at Sunset Visitor used the theatre and artistic talents to tell a story in a fresh and powerful way and I am really excited for what they h

ave to offer in the future.

All what I can say is 1000xResist is a must play.

Red To Blue.