Game Review - Where the Goats Are
Where the Goats Are is an indie game developed by Memory of God originally released in 2017. The game follows Tikvah, a woman surviving in a lonely world that's quickly falling to pieces.
What would you do if your world was falling apart, and there was nothing you could do to stop it? Would you try to flee, spend time with the ones you love, or would you go about your daily life for as long as possible, despite the chaos encomppasing you? Such is the question posed by Where the Goats Are. Tikvah is a lone farmer who cares for her goats and chickens, and trades cheese with the postman, Gustavo. As told in letters she recieves, everyone around her has moved away from the country, to the cities, citing an uncertain threat as the reason. Tikvah doesn't leave however. She stays, choosing to face, or perhaps ignore, the oncoming danger, and no matter how the player chooses to spend their time in the world of WTGA, after a few days, the danger arrives. Haunted figures stalk Tikvah's farm, dead birds litter the ground, and her goats, and eventually Tikvah herself, succumb to death. It's a very dour experience, but one that poses a fascinating question to the average gamer: With no incentives, no lofty goals, and an imminent end on the horizon, would you still play along with the 'game'? How would you spend your remaining time?
One of the most striking things about WTGA is its simple yet striking artsyle. The world is constrained to a single screen, depicting only Tikvah's home and its inhabitants. Everything in the game is depicted with simple polyganal 3D objects, inviting the player's imagination to create their own image of the world.
The game itself is simple enough to control and play. The player directs Tikvah by clicking objects on the screen, and she'll slowly plod around her tiny farm, picking up objects and carrying out simple actions as the player dictates. The only customization the player has over the experience is when they first enter the game, where they can change the resolution the game will display at. I think this is fine for what the game delivers, as it's more important to control how the game is consumed when it's as short and story-focused as this one is.
On the screen the player is confined in, there are a number of actions they can take. By milking Tikvah's goats, you can make cheese to trade with the postman, and by walking to the watering hole, you can water a plant and watch it grow over time. There are other tasks that must be done, like feeding the goats, but all these actions are pointless in how the game plays out. It may seem unengaging for the player to have their actions be pointless, but the focus of the game is its story, and the futility of the player's actions factors into the hopeless tone the story paints.
The story itself is engaging, but morose. Told mostly through letters that Tikvah recieves from friends and relatives, the world seems to be falling apart, as numerous letters warn of a scourge sweeping the land, coming for Tikvah and her goats. I appreciate how the hopeless nature of the world Tikvah inhabits is reflected in the game's orienteering. The entirety of Tikvah's world is contained on a single screen, one that Tikvah cannot escape. In the same way, Tikvah's entire world as a character is on her farm, as through the actions the player can take in the game it's shown how much Tikvah cares for her goats. Moving to the city like her correspondents would be impossible without leaving everything she has, a choice that is impossible to make, both for Tikvah and the player.