A new game on Steam turns you into a cyber detective – or maybe a creepy stalker? The lines blur quickly.
Cyber-stalking is quite a serious and mostly extremely creepy issue. Those affected suffer greatly. Is this topic even suitable for a game? This is a question that the developer HIJIKI seems to have asked, creating the small game “Pricolage -IDOLIZED-“.
What is Pricolage -IDOLIZED- about? The story is relatively simple to explain. There is a rumor that the popular K-POP star Sena, a member of the band “7uster,” has suddenly disappeared from the scene. She no longer posts on social media, there are no more appearances, and everyone is worried.
As a true hardcore fan, you take it upon yourself to solve the case of the missing stars. Of course, as modern keyboard heroes do, mainly through research on the internet.
What does the gameplay look like? The gameplay is relatively simple yet engaging. You sit in front of a virtual PC screen and have Sena’s social media pages open. You can view and examine the superstar’s photos and posts closely.
- The reflection on the back of a spoon reveals which café Sena was at.
- If you search for the band name “7uster”, you’ll end up a few clicks later in a shady forum where the addresses of the other band members have been leaked.
- The snippet from a small packet of medication can be used in the “Reverse Search” of the image search to find out that Sena apparently used sleep medication.
On one hand, this is quite an exciting detective game where you hop from one clue to another and often end up hitting a dead end. On the other hand, there is also something else: creepy.
Especially because Pricolage -IDOLIZED- deals with a rather unusual theme, the game is quite educational. Because even though the setting is of course fictional, the game impressively and frighteningly demonstrates how easy it is to draw conclusions about a person’s whereabouts, preferences, or lifestyle based on various social media content.
Because even if the motivation of the character you play seems fundamentally “good” – this story serves as a cautionary example of how easy it can be for people to find out everything about one’s life. Seeing a specific case of how someone – regardless of whether with good or bad intentions – can hop from clue to clue to gradually uncover one’s own life, has an impact – and it’s definitely creepy.
Who is the demo suitable for? Basically for everyone who has a bit of a penchant for classic “point & click” adventures or detective games. However, you should also be able to handle the somewhat strange feeling of feeling like a cyber stalker the whole time – which can indeed be unsettling.
The full version of Pricolage -IDOLIZED- will be released on February 19 – but until then, you can dive into the demo and at least solve the first puzzles.
Even if the full scope of the game is not yet known, one shouldn’t expect more than a few hours of gameplay – but at least there are different endings depending on how you conduct your research.
