Alawar and Warm Lamp Games have announced that their dystopia simulator Beholder is now available on Steam (http://store.steampowered.com/app/475550) for Mac, Windows, and Linux systems. The game puts you in the shoes of Carl, a state-installed Landlord tasked by a totalitarian State to spy on his tenants.
Here’s how the game is described: “As Carl, the landlord of an apartment house employed to serve the state, new tenants are moving in and out, and at first impression, your daily routine is simply to make the property attractive to its tenants. Little do they know that as a servant of the the state you have ulterior motives and will use any means available to observe, whether it’s spying, eavesdropping or wiretapping as you build tenant profiles to report any illegal activities to the authorities.”
“Inspired heavily by George Orwell’s groundbreaking 1984 the philosophical narrative of Beholder, opens up questions around issues of social and moral values. If you are given power to destroy privacy, should you follow the orders of the giver? Or should you treat those that you spy on the way they deserve? Who decides what is deserved? And what if two different people deserve to be saved, but one has to go? Who will you choose? “
Beholder is on sale for $7.99 through Nov. 16. After that the price is $9.99.