welcome to heaven

One thing most religions have in common is the belief that this life is not final, and that there is something waiting for everyone after death. In some cases it’s another life in a different form, but more often than not what happens to you after you die depends on how you live this life. Thus, religions like Christianity say that there’s a judgement before you are sent to either hell or heaven, depending on your sins.

  welcome to heaven is a simple first-person adventure game in which you have to talk to various characters and judge their sins in order to decide whether they can be admitted to heaven or not. The game is quite abstract in almost every regard, so do not expect a very deep experience, given the simplistic writing and disappointing graphics. However, the short playthrough might just improve your mood a little bit.   Although the main character does not have a name, everyone in heaven calls him the chosen one, because apparently God himself has picked him to select the ones worthy to enter the garden of Eden. Hence, the whole game is about talking to a handful of characters that present their sins to you, and your task is to decide whether they can be redeemed.

In order to judge people you have to interact with a couple of black holes spread around the map, which lead you to another dimension where there’s just you and the person in question. The dialog is very simple, on the other hand, since they tell you everything about their life in a handful of sentences, which is quite disappointing. It would have been a lot nicer to have more options along the way, especially since there’s nothing else to do anyway.   Lastly, the graphics are about as simple as they can get, especially in terms of textures, level design and special effects. Heaven looks like a floating island in the middle of nowhere, and it is filled with a few trees, a weird maze and a couple of uninteresting characters. Although the game is meant to be abstract, this is not really to go, because it looks lazy instead.

In the end, welcome to heaven is obviously too simple to be memorable, and the whole concept is far from well-executed. However, at least it doesn’t overstay its welcome, so you can go through it in a matter of minutes and focus on the concept itself instead of the execution.