A small town, a mysterious disappearance. A wary priest, a frightened mother. Blood-spattered clothes, an unusual altar. These are all components of a pretty common formula; the spooky rural horror story, the metaphor for every shaded secret an unassuming community can keep.This isn't where the cleverness of Moirai is found. Unlike so many short-but-sweet indie games it's not going to dazzle you with storytelling or language. Likewise the art style won't turn many heads. It's primitive at best—just enough to serve the game's purpose and not an ounce more. But when people talk about Moirai, they talk about it with curiosity and conspiracy, and that's not at all underserved.If you've only ever heard about Moirai then you're probably familiar with the standard lines: "Just play it for yourself," "I don't want to say too much," and the evergreen "you'll see." Hear them often enough and it's tempting to dodge the game purely out of spite, which is exactly what I did until recently. At the risk of adding to that ambiguous chorus, though, I have to say it all. Play it for yourself. I don't want to say too much. You'll see.
But I'll also give you a little more meat to chew on than I had before I played. As I said, it's not the art or the story that stand out. It's where the art, and the story, and the mechanics of the program itself intersect that things actually get interesting. It presents you with a little knot. A twist. An "oh, huh!" moment that upended my presumptions and reminded me that games are constructed, and that construction can have a purpose beyond what's immediately obvious. We get used to mechanics that don't lie to us. We get used to structure being more or less transparent. Games seldom take advantage of that.And for good reason, because it's very hard to pull off. Moirai manages it because it's built around that intention. It wants to do one thing, and it does that one thing with nearly no embellishment.It takes all of five minutes to play Moirai from start to finish, so if you're at all interested in the kinds of things that games can (but seldom) do, you'll definitely want to give it a shot. Moirai is free on Steam for both Mac and Windows.
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