This is not a game, it is a poem. No! It is a work of art! Seriously. “The End of the World” is a very short game, it probably takes 5 to 10 minutes to play it until the end but these 10 minutes will make you nostalgic and will make you question the meaning of life.
What this game shows is that true love is life. Love IS the world and when you lose it everything around you starts collapsing. Literally.
*spoiler alert* : I recommend you play the game first and then return to this page to read the rest of the review. Download the game for free on your mobile app store. Click for Android. And here is the Game website.
The game is an allegory. If the human psyche was the physical world around us, what would happen to it when true love is lost? It starts collapsing. The world starts losing its coherence. Buildings become rotten, demolished and whole cities crumble to dust. No matter what actions the player makes, they do not affect the final outcome which is freedom. Freedom from life or freedom from memory and sometimes a metaphysical hope in the eternity of memories.
One of the most clever concepts of the game is the interaction with the past. Places have clocks and when you keep pushing the clock, the area becomes a fuzzy dream showing the memories of the past that bind the player to that area. When you let go of the clock, the colorful memory disappears and you are confronted with the grey and isolated reality. This goes on and on until what was your present when you started playing the game, becomes the past at some point.
This is a very unusual and unique game with a few different possible endings. The combination of artistic graphics, the choice of music, the clever weaving of the past into the present and the everlasting truth of love, contribute to the birth of a small masterpiece. The world needs more games like this one.