Voices of the Void

Voices of the Void is a video game in pre-alpha, according to its developers. I had no idea what this game was about when a friend suggested that I play it. Little did I know, I was about to install a piece of software that would haunt my brain as well as my computer.

This game is highly unsettling. It's difficult to explain, but just the way it looks feels off-putting. It is inspired heavily by Valve's Source Engine; it even uses the same (or similar) sounds from Source. The game's physics and control scheme are reminiscent of how games like Portal and Half-life play. The textures are much more akin to the quality of the original Half-Life; they are low-resolution and pixelated, even at the highest graphics settings.

I think the best way to describe how I feel when playing this game is comparing it to Source games. When I stand out in the middle of the woods in this game, it feels the exact same way as when I would be alone in the gm_construct map from Garry's Mod, with no other players or entities around. It is just you, alone, in a seemingly empty place that is supposed to be occupied. In gm_construct, there are a couple empty office buildings. In VOTV, you are left with a vacant observatory filled with trash.

Garry's Mod is meant to be a sandbox, of course, so it makes sense why it feels so empty; you're supposed to populate it with the infinite amount of props and entities you can spawn. But if you just leave everything as it is in gm_construct, it is incredibly liminal. In my opinion, that exact same feeling exists within VOTV. It is completely devoid of human activity when you arrive to the observatory, yet it is clear other humans were there before you. It is filled with trash, and the murals and posters on the walls are decaying. The building holds memories of a time very far gone.

These liminal spaces are core to the horror that VOTV exemplifies. Everything is abandoned, decrepit. You are, seemingly, the only living thing around, left with little instruction or direction in the world on what to do with everything around you. It only adds to the horror when you start to see signs of activity around you, when you hear several new radar blips several days after detecting nothing but the drone that brings you rations every night, or when you find an object in the woods that you know for sure was not there the day before.

This lack of life drives liminal spaces. These are spaces meant to populated by people who maintain them, yet they are all gone. These empty buildings still remain, slowly decaying over time as they are reclaimed by mother nature. This is so horrifying to us because, in my opinion, it reminds us that we are temporary. Humans have constructed so many amazing things, and the only reason that any of it continues to exist is because we still exist. Without humans, all of our creations will fall to the wayside and become dust. Everything we've ever done only has meaning because we are still here to give it meaning.

Ultimately, VOTV is a game about scanning signals from outer space in an attempt to find signs of alien life. It is now that I've come to realize that the search for life in the void is a desperate attempt to ensure our creations survive. If we know that we are not alone, then we know that our efforts were not in vain. Our buildings may crumble, but at least they will still be there when something else discovers them. Hopefully that something else cares enough to remember.