The End of the World Review

Well well well… I didn’t think I would ever find a game for my phone that I would enjoy as much as I enjoyed End of the World, by Sean Wenham.

My First Time:

When I downloaded The End of the World I was not prepared for the constantly raw and emotional, perfected mix of art and storytelling I would experience throughout the game.

My first time playing through nearly destroyed me.
As I continued to reveal the main characters past, and realize his present, I felt bad for him! I hardly ever feel sympathy for fake people/characters, but Sean Wenham captures the tragic feeling of loss and helplessness that comes hand-in-hand with a one-sided breakup almost too perfectly.

The game was short, but never sweet.

So short it felt like I had missed something… so I went back and played it through again.

Hot and Cold World

In this game you play your male character through a few short days of his now-life (a life where his girlfriend has recently left him) every once in a while allowing you to see into the past-life (a past life that shows this character and his girlfriend cuddling in bed on morning one, reading in bed on morning two, and him reading in bed and her looking in a mirror on morning three.)

Everyday you help your character get out of bed, drink a little coffee, smoke a cigarette, and then make it out side. Every once in a while you’re able to look back to a his past-life, a look back at rich red and creamy brown memories.
You walk down streets lined with tall, deteriorating, blue and grey buildings; the wildlife sharp and dead.

The buildings that are accessible hold memories waiting to be revealed to the gamer. These memories slowly piece together the sad story of your character’s girlfriend falling love with him, and then eventually leaving him.
You begin to realize that the world has not ended, HIS world has ended.

Each day you wake up the surrounding deteriorate a little more. The bedroom walls begin to disappear, furniture ends up on its side, trash begins to accumulate.

On day four, your character wakes up into this completely black and blue pixelated, pieced together world. Your character has fallen to his lowest as he relives his last memory of his girlfriend: her leaving.

Walking through the scenery you find your memory-self sitting in the living room, head in hands.
Walking passed your memory-self your character finds his ex by the elevator, but when you try to interact with her you fall down the elevator shaft and wakeup outside.

When your character wakes up outside (at the bottom of the elevator shaft) the outside world is still a mess of grey and blue deteriorating buildings, but now there is other people walking happily down the street.
Your character was never actually alone in an post apocalyptic world, his sadness shut everything else out.

If you haven’t discovered the Alternative Ending by this point, then there is two (2) directions you can go in from here: Left or Right.
Left is a burning hot mess of past memories, while the Right is a calm walk through the city in your underpants.

Life or Death or… Alternative?

Life: It’s simple really. You play out the game as your character, you don’t drink any booze, and you uncover every memory you can find during your walks.

Once you fall down the elevator shaft, turn right and go for a walk. When you reach the end of that walk you will find a table to sit at, sit at that table and your character will have chosen to move on with his life.

Death: Once again, pretty simple. Play out the game as your character, drink heavily one night, smoke a little, collect all of the memories.
After you fall down the elevator shaft and wake up outside, go left and chase the memories until you jump off of a ledge and disappear…

Yup, suicide.

Alternative: So to get this ending for the game, you’re supposed to drink everyday the game allows you to.
So on the first day, go down the elevator shaft to outside, go into the first building on your right.
There you will find booze and memory of you and your sweetie drinking.
Keep visit this bar every time you wake up, unless you wake up in a location where you can play a memory; play the memory.
Then once you wake up from that memory, go drinking!

Eventually your character gets so drunk he ends up on a boat and washes out to sea, to (maybe) start a new life…

Sounds like a pretty wicked game, huh?
I’d have to agree with you, go play it for yourself.
Though it sounds like a waste of time I assure you that it is not, it’s short but it is an amazing adventure.

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I pulled the picture straight from Sean Wenham’s Twitter account, HERE!

Watch to check out the game for your self?
You can download it from the iOS Store, or find it on the Google Play App.