Oddbean

Released in 2014, Mountain bills itself as an “existential nature simulation”. But I’m calling BS on this one. In reality, it’s a hardcore casual game. Wait. Can casual games actually be hardcore? Oh yes, they can – and Mountain proves this. Mountain is so casual, it puts Bejeweled to shame. You don’t so much play Mountain as you watch it. There are a few things you can interact with, but you can only do so very minimalistically. At the start, you’re asked to draw some stuff. So you do, and this aspect of the game doesn’t seem to have anything else to do with Mountain except for when you initially start up. There is not really much of a story here except the mountain seems to be sentient and alone. Occasionally, it makes quips about its emotional state. The game claims you’re the “god” of the mountain. But you’re no god. You barely can impact the mountain at all. Sometimes you can click on a tree which disperses a few birds, but that’s about it. A bunch of junk occasionally falls on your mountain. I once had a plane crash. A smartphone fell from space and buried itself in the forest. And then, one other time, a pipe suddenly showed up. You can click on this stuff, but clicking does nothing except wiggles the object and makes a sound. After awhile, I realized that my keyboard can play musical notes. So I started playing some music. There we had it, Mountain became a synth with some ambient “mountain in space” visuals. This is the most deep the game ever gets. At times, I zoomed out to see the Mountain as it appears in space. I also zoomed in to see if I could encounter any detail – which was few and fleeting. After awhile, I just kept Mountain on as I did other things. It essentially existed as a screensaver. I made coffee, washed dishes, jogged on the treadmill. Mountain was just there in the background doing its thing. The graphics are low polygon with very little texture detail. Mostly it’s green. Occasionally, there will be variations in lighting indicating shifts in time. The sound is driven by an ambient, almost Brian Eno-like music. But truth be told, I preferred making my own music. Once I realized this could be a synth, that’s what I chose to do with my time. You don’t need much in the way of hardware. Mountain requires a 1.7Ghz single core CPU, 2GB of RAM, 256MB of VRAM, and 200MB of space. It has native support for Windows, Mac, and Linux. In addition to PC, Mountain has also been released for iPhone, iPad, and Android. David O’Reilly developed this game. He also made Everything, a simulation in which you play the universe. On Steam, Mountain has an 89% approval rating. The most common complaint is that Mountain is not a game, just a waste of time. And I understand this view to a certain extent because if you’re looking for a game, you want something interaction. There’s no skill involved. There’s no push to beat the high score or “levelling up”. Mountain doesn’t really change from one moment to the next. But if I were to pinpoint what Mountain is, it’s an ASMR experience. Mountain is exactly what it is: a mountain that you watch and observe. If you live on the prairies or just general flat land and have never seen a mountain before, Mountain will give you the experience of looking at a mountain. Nothing much happens with mountains in general but they’re a nice view. Mountain isn’t for everyone. If you think Solitaire is too tedious, then Mountain will be torture. However, if you just accept Mountain on its own terms, then you might enjoy it. This could be your abode, an escape from the daily grind. Or it can simply be something you put on while you do something else. https://atomicpoet.org/media/18cf2c76-000f-4275-b838-f84e5b9763e1/Mountain%201.jpg https://atomicpoet.org/media/5f10819f-010c-4930-829b-11f187d8a176/Mountain%203.jpg https://atomicpoet.org/media/11844c74-961a-4e8d-8003-f274023a79c3/Mountain%204.jpg https://atomicpoet.org/media/8d8a2fc3-deb2-4fd2-8b40-bc82608397c9/Mountain%202.jpg