The Other Line

The game The Other Line follows the story of an explorer trapped inside a cave. The player is thrown right into the story at the beginning of the game by the use of text and of the opening scene. The text is written as though the explorer is talking to themself, letting the player know what they were doing before the beginning of the game. The opening then shows the situation the explorer has found themself in. The design of the opening scene does a good job in showing how dire the explorer’s situation is. The space is small and mostly empty with only the explorer’s bag, an old crate, a crowbar, and a large boulder that is trapping the explorer inside the cave. The player can move around the cave as they please, though there is nowhere else for them to go.

The story is continued once the player begins exploring the cave and interacts with the objects inside. The player can pick up the crowbar, which opens the crate and provides more items that progress the story. The most important of these newly revealed items are the journal, the bed, and the walkie talkie. Using the journal makes text appear in the form of journal entries, detailing the misfortune of another person who was trapped inside the cave before the explorer was. It is implied though these journal entries that this first person was unable to escape and died inside the cave. Using the bed makes time move in the game, allowing the story to move forward. The walkie talkie lets the explorer make contact with another person who is in a similar situation, trapped in a cave with no way to escape. Using the bed and the walkie talkie, the story continues. The explorer and the person on the other end of the line continue to have conversations as time goes on and their situations go from bad to worse. Eventually there is a final call between the explorer and the other person trapped in the cave. Here we learn that the explorer has been talking to someone who died in the same cave decades earlier and that this person is also the one who left the journal from the beginning of the game. This final conversation also opens up a small opening near the boulder that allows the player to move to a new section of the cave. There is where the bones of the other person who was stuck inside the cave can be found. The game ends after this scene, and text fills the screen with the explorer’s thoughts as they die next to their friend.

No skill is required to play this game as it is mostly story based. The player only needs to be able to move around the screen and be able to locate the objects that, upon interaction, move the story forward. Nothing in the game prevents the player from moving forward in the game, and most objects that further the game are fairly easy to find.

Within The Other Line, the player takes the role of a lost explorer who is stuck in a cave. The game progresses with the player having to find a crowbar within the blocked in room in order to open up a metal crate that contains some items. The most important items are the walkie talkie as well as the bed that appears after the crate is opened. The game then progresses with the player talking to someone on the other end of the walkie talkie who is also stuck and trying to escape. The story continues to develop as the player talks to this unknown person on the other end of the walkie talkie. Moreover, there is some background to the story through reading the journal that is also within the metal crate. The game then ends with the player finding an opening in the room and finding a dead body next to the other walkie talkie, to which the player then realizes their mental state and lies down next to the walkie talkie and the other person’s body. Overall, this game is a RPG-styled game that tells and progresses through a story through the player interacting with objects that are within the game world. The main actions of the player are running into these objects which trigger dialogue boxes that explain what is happening, what it is the player ran into, an obstacle that the player is facing, etc. No physical skill goes into this game, and the only sort of puzzles that may occur are finding the crowbar at the beginning of the game as well as the opening in the room near the end of the game since both the crowbar and the opening have the same color as the room’s boundaries. Thus, this game is heavily story driven, and solely aims to tell a story that progresses as the player continues to find new ways to perform the action of interacting with the game world’s objects in some way. The most important part of the story, though, seems to be the tailing end of it where the character is questioning why they did what they did to ultimately come to the fate of death. Moreover, why they had the walkie-talkie in the first place and its purpose were the main questions. This open ending leads the player to interpret the story in many ways after the game has ended, such as trying to figure out this potential purpose and along with the true meaning and/or moral of the story. Considering the high emphasis on the story, it would only make sense for the player to assume that there is some sort of deeper takeaway from playing this game due to the open questions that the ending implicitly and explicitly poses. Altogether, The Other Line provides the player with a gameplay experience that leaves the player focused entirely on the story, and considering the game’s loose ending, purposely leaves the player pondering their gameplay experience and interpretation of the story. Thus, it would only make sense for the player to play the game once more to either confirm or deny end game thoughts in order to answer the questions of the late game story.

The game The Other Line is one driven by the player’s uncertainty and desire to find out what happened to them. It makes good use of the prompt it is given, a world where two walkie-talkies are linked and the two much wait for the other to pick up as the only means of connection. The game begins with the player having woken up in a cavern that they have fallen into, the only exit blocked by a large boulder. At first everything seems planned by an outside source, as indicated by the crate of supplies that lie there when they awake. They fix an old walkie-talkie and are able to make connection with someone outside, though, they too are trapped in a hole. They have no idea where they are in relation to each other, and are only able to sit and wait for time to pass and something to happen; whether than be salvation or their own demises. The person on the other side of the walkie-talkie stops speaking one day, the same one where the player finds a whole that leads elsewhere. Exploring the hole, the player learns that the person on the other line has been in a hole feet away from them with the other walkie talkie. Though, the person is bones and when speaking with the player they had alluded that it was 1951 rather than 2021. I can only perceive that this means the player was speaking with the other bodies ghost, rather than a person. Or alternatively, that that person was alive and had been trapped there for so many years and had just died. Whatever the answer may be, it has left me with a lot of questions. The game is both horror, because it’s unknown how they got there and what is keeping them, as much as it is fantasy.

As for the environment of the game, the player is limited to moving within the space of cave that they are trapped. Each day they are limited to one or two action to complete, ones that if they do not do then the game does not move forward. I think had the addition of choice be given to the player and multiple endings, this game would have been even stronger. Having the choice to not fix the walkie-talkie or perhaps dig would have made for an interesting diversion from the story and allowed for multiple play throughs. All in all, the game has left me contemplating the story it is trying to tell, as well as how it could be improved upon for more installments or building off of this one.