Nothing else to add really. I just thought the board needed more topics like this in case anyone who hasn't played the game was under the impression it wasn't. So that's cleared that up. I'm currently on my first play-through and was going to post this earlier, but something incredible has just happened during the 18th cycle and I'm glad I waited because this is just so...

Seriously guys, you're the best games company out there by a mile. I've been waiting years for games like this ever since the demise of Looking Glass but even they wouldn't have come up with something like The Void. To mention just one thing, the aesthetic sense you guys have. You're like painters. The trees in this game, filled with colour, would become iconic if it wasn't too esoteric for commerical acceptance. Just like Pathologic's bird-masks would be as well. Such images! Nothing else around comes close. Then there is the sheer experimentation, the maturity, the daring. To trust the player like this, to let him figure out how to live, in a time when games are more safe and more signposted than ever. To create such beautiful themes: you are literally consuming the world. All of life is passing through you when you fill yourself with colour and the parallels that has, with blood, with Gaia, with various spiritual schools, and of course with sex, as shown by the sisters, not that it's so explicitly shown to be sexual but there is an element of eroticism in there too (I mean they are naked). The writing is beautiful; the brothers are beautiful; the sisters; the enviroments. The FEEL of the thing. If I was younger I'd be dreaming about it.

Playing Pathologic was strange because you could sense genius under all the flaws. I was fascinated to see how The Void would turn out, and well...knowing Pathologic well and the kind of feedback it got, the decisions you made about your second game, what it should be like, etc. suggest to me a collective intelligence of a pretty awesome degree. That's all I can say.

If you haven't played this, The Void is one of the most interesting games ever made. FFS buy it.

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Now that I've had time to think about it, only an independant studio could have produced a game like the Void. There are so many aspects of it that would be commercial suicide - the hellish difficulty curve, obscure game concepts, the unexpolded bomb of the nude scenes....the list goes on. Had they gone to a big publisher, the changes that they would have demanded would have changed the game into something terrible. Take Mirror's Edge - I suspect the game was initially pitched as a free running open world sports sim but EA didn't buy it and shoved in the gratuitous gun fights and combat, neither of which feel in place.

After The Void, I'll be keeping a much closer eye on independant stuidos.

Yep, I thought the same and treat Ice-Pick Lodge as more or less like an indie studio for the sake of spreading propaganda--uh, spreading the word about the game. Still, The Void does have an edge over most indie games in that it's got a bigger budget and can afford, if not cutting-edge graphics, stunning visuals and pretty good voice-acting.
I actually want it to explode, honestly, because then the game'd get plenty of attention and sales from people who think "oooh, naked boobies!" Admittedly most of them will be disappointed and probably too dense to "get" the game, but a sale is a sale.

Thats an great idea to get some free PR for the void.
Alright IPL tell me when you're ready and we'll send emails to news stations telling them about the glorious nudity in the void

Ps: MUAHAHAHAHA