MOLDRISE Review (PC)

A terrible foot fungus exacerbates the symptoms of an inescapable sense of fatigue, yet thirty long floors of peculiarities nudge you on an upward trajectory, not towards a clinic, but to a perpetual purgatory that has no intention of easing the burden on your body. A towering block of apartments idle before you, as do countless guests who seek refuge in your actions. An underlying concoction of exhaustion, hunger, and fear drive you, but your brain tells you that the only way to erase the pain is to climb higher and higher, into the perilous depths of an endless cycle. You don’t want to ascend the block, yet you have absolutely no control over your own destiny. The infection has you, and it isn’t planning on letting you go.

MOLDRISE is a classic example of how one wrong move can illuminate several different possibilities. In a matter of minutes, it asks you to make daring trades that can either help you to carve deeper into the block or set you back to the doormat. At no point does it tell you what to trade, or even what you should collect as you gradually ascend through the floors. Rather, it tells you that, if you’re unable to quench your fears, your hunger and your turbulent mind, then you will need to start from the beginning. With that, you have a rather simple plan: to roll with the punches, and to locate as much information as possible before starting the ascent from scratch.

The whole purpose of the game is simple: you traverse each floor, gather information from various people, unlock trade routes, and then dial your senses back to the beginning to make better decisions in the future. For example, an item that you collect may not seem valuable on the first floor, and it may just be that you decide to part ways with it before it becomes essential for your journey. The point, then, is to unravel more and more of the story, and to figure out how certain trades can bring you closer toward your goal. The only problem is, you’re knocking on death’s door, and everything that you do is effectively marred by a disease far worse than death itself.

MOLDRISE is like a canvas with a dozen layers of paint, in that it obscures its greatest secrets behind a handful of layers, yet only allows you to peel back one layer at a time. Initially, it requires you to fail. But, as you learn more, it grants you the opportunity to go a little deeper into its world. The rot slowly consumes you, but little by little, you find a way to quell the pain and unlock more opportunities to climb. And with a total of thirty floors to climb, you clearly have your work cut out for you.

While the game is presented as something of a horror flick, at no point does it ever shovel meaningless jump scares or traumatic moments down your throat. No, if anything, it channels its energy into making you feel at a complete loss. Nobody wishes to help you, and at no point does the game ever reach out to offer you a helping hand. Rather, it tells you that you’re doomed, and that your only saving grace is at the apex. But of course, it never tells you how to ascend the tower. Instead, it presents you with a series of clues, and a stream of corridors and otherworldly locations that each house a needy resident. It’s your job, as a poor and helpless soul, to solve the riddle and to make trades that can aid your conquest. Again, this is a lot easier said than done.

Behind each layer that you peel back in this world, another often crops up to give you something else to think about. Typically, you’ll spend your time running through various a-ha moments, either when an item is finally brought to the table that made no sense in the previous exploit, or when you knuckle in on an area that you thought was irrelevant, but was really the most obvious path forward. As a game that prides itself on being a total headache, it delivers a solid and thought-provoking experience that lingers on your mind long after the final floor. Does it always do a good job of capturing your attention? No, but it does give you plenty to think about.

Suffice it to say that, as far as experimental games go, MOLDRISE makes for one of the stranger pieces of art on the slate. Visually, it likes to take you on a trip, oftentimes with imagery that goes beyond the average apartment complex. Mechanically, it keeps to a fairly simple first-person perspective, with the traditional walking, observing, and light puzzle-solving facets. But of course, MOLDRISE doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel with the contents it has at its fingertips. Simply, it chooses to pull you into a bleak world and then forces you to raise questions that lack answers.

If you’re all for the idea of delving deep into a peculiar abyss of questionable trades and back-handed tricks, then it’s highly likely that you’ll enjoy ascending this particular tower. It’s an odd journey, but one that you’ll most definitely remember taking, for better or worse. If that doesn’t put the spring in your step (or the fungus in your toes), then I’m not sure what will.

Verdict

MOLDRISE takes the high ground in an attempt to veer your thoughts and stockpile your questions, all whilst simultaneously presenting you with a bleak world that’s as equally teeming with clues, paths, and trading possibilities that, while nonsensical at first, all culminate in an eye-opening experience that will stick with you way after the apex.

Above all, MOLDRISE delivers a slightly challenging yet oddly rewarding game that touches on all of the right bases. It might not go one step further than the average dilemma-soaked rogue-like experience, but it does breathe a lot of life into a formula that works well with the context. To that end, I’d say that it’s a trip worth taking.