I’d never heard of Moirai [Steam page] until half an hour ago. Which is a crying shame, because now I’ll never get the chance to play it. The free game had a really interesting concept: it was a multiplayer game that pretended it was single player. Basically, the game ended with you typing out responses to questions from another character. Then, the next time someone played it, they’d meet past you and be presented with the answers you came up with, thinking that they were talking to an NPC. That player would then decide, based on your answers, whether you should live or die, and you’d be emailed the outcome later on. And then the next player would decide their fate, and so on.

I’ll explain it in a bit more detail in a mo, but the important bit is this: the game is now no more. The creators decided to shut down the game last week because of hackers targeting their database, putting to bed a game that’s been going strong for four years.

As Waypoint pointed out, the developers announced Moirai’s shutdown last week.

“Since launching on Steam our database has received several attacks. We’ve worked hard (and sometimes with supportive community members) to update our system to a more manageable state and minimise the likelihood of attacks. “However recently our database was under a repeatable attack that ruined the game experience for a few players and resulted in it going offline. It’s important that you know that no email data was compromised in this attack. However this vulnerability means that we are subject to future attacks. We’re not a large studio and we don’t have the resources to properly prevent against these attacks so we’re going to pull the game from the store.”

There are some sad, sad people in this world.

I promised you a more in-depth summary of the concept, so here goes. You, the player, are searching for a missing person in a creepy town. You’re led to a cave and come across a character covered in blood. You question them, and then decide whether to kill them or walk past. After you’ve found the missing person in the depths of the cave you find yourself smeared with the red stuff, stumbling out towards the exit only to be accosted by another character, who asks you questions. You type your responses, and they decide whether to let you live or die.

As I said, it’s players making all the choices: what to say to you as you enter the cave, and whether to kill you as you leave. It’s a really fun concept and also a decent social experiment. Only 41% of players ended up dead. Predictably, 52.85% typed responses containing bannable words.

It’s still on Steam but you’ll get stuck at the title screen if you launch. Maybe it will be reborn in the future, who knows? But for now, here’s a let’s play I just found:



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