Beware of the Bergson family 

CHENNAI: Children of Morta is the story of the Bergson family. There are nine people in the house. You would not like the Bergsons as your neighbours. John keeps waving his sword and shield around. Linda is alright at singing, but I would best keep a distance because her arrows are sharp. I thought Lucy was quiet and happy in her corner, but then she throws fireballs.

I wouldn’t trust Kevin unless his knives are in sight. If you can’t see the knives it means you’ve already received a hit. I would not take any of Grandma Margaret’s cookies if she offers them — she spends too much time in the alchemy room. Quirks aside, you still wouldn’t want to be a neighbour of the Bergsons. They use their powers for the good, to protect Mount Morta from the ever-expanding corruption. Now who would want to be the underachieving, overlooked house in the neighbourhood.

Children of Morta is a rogue-lite game. Each level involves numerous dungeons, procedurally generated — so they look different every time you re-enter them. It is ‘lite’ because you don’t lose everything when you die in the game. We carry over experience points, skills, and coins over to the next level. As an RPG, Morta allows for a lot of variety in its combat, because we can play as any of the Bergson children. I want to appreciate the animators here. It might seem like a small addition, but the level of detail provided to the combat movements — it makes my heart sing to watch the monsters being blasted into nothingness. 

The Bergson household cutscenes are its own high-fantasy reality show, and I am here for it. It’s almost worth staying alive for just one additional level, and then promptly dying. Because every time we progress a little further into the dungeons, a new cutscenes unlocks. Now there comes a point in the game, where the levels begin to get a little too difficult. Normally, this would call for the dullest part of a rogue-lite game — the grind. That means leveling up the individual characters, unlocking skills, gaining gold, and hoping to get some lucky power drops.

Although easy, this is time-consuming. But if you are looking to play Children of Morta - there is no better time to start. The PC version of the game has now enabled co-op. The difficult levels will get easier — and perhaps more fun with a friend around. I rate the game 7/9 for the consistently interesting Bergson family life stories.

Anusha Ganapathi

@quofles

(This economics graduate spends her leisure time preparing for the zombie apocalypse)