We are truly in the renaissance of full-motion video games since the genre first arrived in the late ’80s and early ’90s before dying an ugly death due to the poor quality of those gaming experiences as well as the poor quality of the actual video itself. Nowadays resolutions are nice and high, filming equipment is affordable and readily available, and digital distribution means you aren’t compressing your precious game to high heaven in order to cram it on a CD-ROM. This has meant lots of very good quality FMV games have released over the last decade or so, and continue to release at a decent clip.
One new one on the horizon is called Of Two Minds from Burgeon & Flourish, a game where the player will psychoanalyze various characters and their personal lives while pinpointing connections and motivations between them. In a very interesting twist, all the footage in Of Two Minds was filmed by Burgeon & Flourish founder Michael Bergmann back in 1989 but was never used until this upcoming game. That means that not only does the game take place in a late 1980s New York City, but its content is actually authentically from that era. Check out the trailer.
I’m definitely intrigued by the thought of psychoanalyzing this cast of characters, but I’m also really drawn in by the entire concept behind reviving 30+ year old footage and then making it into a brand new FMV game. Bergmann says he filmed more than 3 hours of footage back in 1989, but seemingly not with the intent of having branching stories or different endings like many FMV games nowadays. However, while the overall story is the same, the way everyone who plays gets to experience it will differ from person to person based on how they analyze each situation and which conclusions they draw.
It’s a pretty interesting development story, regardless of how the actual game turns out. The only thing I can think of that was in a similar situation is Clockwork Aquario, which was nearly complete when it was cancelled in 1992 before being finally finished off and released in 2021. While no date has been set, this 30 years in the making project definitely has my attention and I’ll be looking forward to Of Two Minds whenever it does finally see the light of day.
