Distraint: TIL that “Distraint” is a Real Word
Distraint caught my eye on Steam mostly because it was dirt cheap. The visuals looked cool and it was also made by one guy (Jesse Makonnen) so I was curious to see what a single- person dev studio could put out. I thought the name was…interesting. By that point though I was sold and Distraint was added to the giant pile of games amassing in my Steam library. There it sat for maybe a year? Maybe two? Who knows. I have a really bad habit of buying a bunch of cheap games at once and then completely forgetting about them. It’s sort of my MO, just ask the hundreds of books I own and haven’t touched. Anyway, I still had no idea what the game’s title meant, but was oddly intrigued so the other day I finally clicked “download” and googled the word for a definition.
Why would anyone care about what a game title means, you don’t ask? Well, I love words and I love finding out the meanings behind them. I frequent etymonline.com to trace the history of words and how they’ve evolved from language to language throughout history. I’m not doing this to win a bet with any one of my imaginary friends. I’m not doing this for an assignment at school — even though that would be pretty cool. No, I do this casually and for fun and my own personal edification. Ironically, “distraint” is not found on that website (lol), but I told you all of that to tell you that I also love when interesting words are used in a way where I legitimately learn something. One of my favorite learning moments was when I looked up “salubrious” while playing Diablo II back in the day. Turns out it means “health-giving” so of course it would make sense to put that word onto items that granted health regeneration. For some reason this blew my 12 year-old mind and I can’t think of anything Diablo-related without thinking of “salubrious” to this day. However, I am not here to wax nostalgic about Diablo. I’m here for Distraint. In this case, I learned that it’s a noun meaning “The seizure of someone’s property in order to obtain payment of money owed, especially rent.” And guess what this kind of fucked up, pixelated adventure is all about?
If you guessed pizza…you’re right! Now go get some pizza! You’ve earned it, buddy!
Alright, now that Jerry is distracted, let’s get down to business. In Distraint, you play as a young guy aptly named Price who’s trying to make his way in the world. To begin his hopefully long career, he takes a job at McDade, Bruton, and Moore. They specialize in repossessing property from people after they’ve refused to sell it and/or can no longer afford the property. They just take it apparently. Yeah. They’re fancy repo-men who don’t care about the people that live on the property and Price is the one who gets to do all of the dirty work on their behalf. It starts out innocent enough as Price just wants to do his job and make his parents and employers proud. However, you soon realize that Price is destroying people’s lives in the process and the dark thematic elements of Distraint become more apparent. Does Price continue to be loyal to his employer and become jaded and indifferent toward the suffering of others? Or does he quit and try to save himself from a life of amorality where the only driving force is monetary gain? These are some of the surprisingly deep questions I found myself asking while playing.
What really helps drive some of the darkness home is the graphics style and sound design. They both add a weird layer of…weirdness to the whole thing that gave me Burton-esque vibes (in a good way) while playing. The characters have these big, pixel-graphic heads that look way too big for their bodies and the eyes are dead, black coals. It’s eerie. The color palette is another interesting choice as everything looks like it could be bright and vibrant, but everything ends up looking washed out and grimy like someone smeared a greasy rag all over the screen. The browns are muddy, the greens are sickly. Even the bright neon blues and pinks look dirty which adds to the unsettling atmosphere of the whole thing. Also adding to the ambiance is the music. Every character has its own theme and the tunes used range from some weird, slow carnival-ish type music for McDade, Bruton, and Moore to minimalist dark ambient-type stuff that would be right at home in an indie horror film.
The gameplay mechanics are simple. You walk around and talk to people and explore whatever building you’re in. Some of those people ask for things like flowers or resetting a blown fuse to get the lights back on. One guy asks you to help find his dog. There are a ton of these tasks that need to be completed before you can progress through the level. Thankfully, the game was fairly short and there were only a couple of times where I felt stumped or lost so the gameplay never became egregiously repetitive. Towards the end, I was getting antsy for something new though and my prayers were kind of answered in the form of a timed movement puzzle (for lack of a better phrase).
This “puzzle” consists of having to inhale some glowing green smoke that allows you to move a little faster and access areas that you previously couldn’t. After inhaling the smoke, the color palette changes, your eyes get all swirly and weird, and you start hallucinating things. One of the gas-induced hallucinations involves seeing some red and white mushrooms (yeah that kind) on once-blocked doorways that you can now magically traverse. The effect is timed, so most of the time you’re trying to find out where to go next while remembering which doors you already went through. Yeah. It gets strange. It wasn’t an amazing change of pace, but it was a refreshing necessity after spending most of the game just walking around and talking to people. However, because the effect is kind of sprung on you without any real explanation, the whole section relies heavily on trial and error to get through it and was probably my biggest road block.
All things considered, I really liked the game. I can knock the gameplay all I want, but Distraint is primarily about themes of morality, greed, and loyalty which it certainly manages to deliver on in such a short time frame. The graphic style, color palette, and choice of music also help contribute to make Distraint one of the more thought-provoking games I’ve played in recent memory. Price is like most of us. He wants to be successful and live a happy life. The only problem is the system most of us enter after school is an uncaring entity that only thrives on profit and numbers. We get caught up in the “machine” if you will, and a lot of us get chewed up and spit out as nothing more than a shell of our former youthful, happy-go-lucky selves. It can get very dark, very quick and the ending of Distraint was a bold conclusion to Price’s story. There is nothing more to say other than pay attention to your surroundings in the beginning of the game when Price is just starting his career and the ending will become that much more impactful.
Random Stats and Stuff
Word of the Day: “Distraint”
Favorite Word Ever: “Salubrious”
Lesson of the Day: I miss Diablo 2.
Estimated Time to Beat: 2 Hours
Time Played: Just under 3 hours :(
Recommended to: Fans of games with pixel-graphics that have darker themes a.k.a. not for kids. People who like a little moral and existential philosophy mixed in with their games. People who enjoy darker themed stuff in general.
Rating: 3.5 unfortunate souls getting unwillingly removed from their homes out of 4.
Next Up: Dungeon Siege
