It's not a great sign that I was able to complete my second run of Consortium in 3 and a half hours. At that rate, I'll need three more full playthroughs and the better part of a sixth. If I come to be even more efficient . . .
But that's a problem for the future. For now, I'm mostly concerned with teasing out the secrets of the Consortium universe. It's not going well. Having played through the game a second time, it's become clear to me that it is mostly a series of conversations, with some flexibility on the order, but only minimal cross-influence between them. I did see a whole new scene because I allowed a certain character to believe we were speaking confidentially. The first time through, I told him we were being monitored because I assumed the game would find another way to give me his information as a reward for being honest (though I now realize this isn't that sort of game). However, the additional scene wasn't particularly enlightening. I met with Knight 15 (don't ask me about the Consortium's rank system - everyone keeps yelling at me every time I try and get some clarification) before the traitor attacks, instead of just going directly into the confrontation.
However, that confrontation was short-circuited because I correctly guessed the traitor's identity and Rook 25 (again, don't ask) cornered her before she could hack the power armor and make it go berserk. I'd love to credit my amazing deductive skills for figuring out the answer to the game's central mystery, but honestly, I had no evidence and I just played a hunch - someone once told me that this character couldn't possibly be the traitor because of her backstory, and I was like, hmm, why would the game go out of its way to make her seem innocent when, in fact, there is no evidence against anybody?
I mean, there's probably evidence to be found somewhere in the game, but after two times through, I haven't seen any. Which is kind of the opposite of how a locked-room mystery is supposed to go. There should be too much evidence, and everyone should have a motive, and as the heat turns up on the investigation, they should turn on each other and attempt to convince the investigator that it was anyone but them. But Agatha Christie this is not. The crew of the Zenlil stayed loyal to each other, refused to believe any of them could be a murderer (one of them even doubted a murder had taken place), and consistently counseled me to just wait until we landed so the authorities could handle the matter.
Like I said, Consortium is not that kind of game. It seems to almost resent the fact that it's a story. The biggest culprit is the framing device. I guess I understand why it's there - if you want to establish a theme of choices and consequences, then the concept of multiple close-copy alternate dimensions is a tempting one to play around with. And if you're doing a many-worlds setting, then leaning on the fourth wall and saying that the real-world player is, in fact, simply watching from another, more distant dimension, and thus part of the game's story in a much more direct way than usual would seem like a fun extension of the same basic idea. However, as near as I can tell, the only reason this alternate dimesion stuff is included in the game is to make the player feel like an idiot.
It occasionally crops up in your dialogue options, but almost without fail, if you pick those options, the people around you will react negatively - either thinking that you're dicking around amid serious business or that you're purposefully being evasive, or that you're losing your grip on reality. Which would be fine if it only came up as a smart-ass dialogue option, but sometimes it's a major plot point. There's a guy who asks you your name, but that's not something you know, because everyone always calls you by your code name, Bishop 6. Try to dodge the question and he calls you out on it. And then he asks you again. Select the dialogue option where you give him a name, and it turns out to be the wrong one. And then he asks you again. Tell him the truth and he acts really smug about it . . . and all the other witnesses think you're fucking around.
And don't get me started about your meeting with the AI that runs the Consortium. He not only knows your true origin, he gets upset if you don't know about the real world Consortium ARG. I mean, come on, that's a 1% reference at best.
Anyway, my next move is to replay the whole game, but always pick the "say nothing" response. Given how resistant this game has proven to respecting quality of life video game tropes like random NPCs being happy to lecture you about the basics of the setting (seriously, Rook 25 responded to a simple history question by taking an attitude hit and telling me to read the codex), it seems likely that being a "silent protagonist" is not going to win me any friends.
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