Essays on Empathy

Upon release, Essays on Empathy received generally favorable reviews, with critics praising the game's ambitious narrative approach, treatment of complex themes, and additional making-of features, whilst critiquing the short duration of games and the absence of bugfixes and quality of life features.

• Title — Essays on Empathy • Developer — Deconstructeam • Publisher — Devolver Digital • Platforms — Windows • Released — 18 May 2021 • Genre — Adventure • Modes — Single-player

Essays on Empathy is an anthology of ten games developed and released by Deconstructeam, with the exception of one title, De Tres Al Cuarto, being a new work created for the game. Games are presented in a menu, with each being playable in any order. Selecting a game allows players to access a submenu that contains the game and an accompanying soundtrack, production sketches and documentary outlining the creation of the game.

• Title — Original release date — Description • Underground Hangovers — 20 April 2015 — A metroidvania-styled platformer in which the player assists a group of miners abandoned on the planet they were excavating. • Supercontinent LTD — 30 August 2016 — A point-and-click adventure game in which the player is a hacker investigating the titular corporation Supercontinent. • Behind Every Great One — 23 August 2018 — A narrative-based management game in which the player is Victorine, a housewife living with her husband, an artist. Victorine has a limited time each day to undertake household chores, who is increasingly frustrated and reproached by her husband on her failure to complete all of the tasks on time. • Eternal Home Floristry — 4 December 2018 • The Bookshelf Limbo — 20 February 2020 — An interactive fiction game in which the player browses a shelf in a bookstore to find a book to gift their father. Players select books on the shelf and can browse the synopsis and quotes on the back, and check online reviews. As the player character considers their options, they wrestle with their own doubts on the meaning and impact of their gift based on the books selected, revealing personal insights on the character's relationship with their father. • Zen and the Art of Transhumanism — 2016 — Described as a "cyberpunk pottery game", players operate a transhumanist workshop and operate a lathe and tools to sculpt body implants that enhance human traits. Gameplay consists of players taking orders from clients presenting with a personal problem, selecting databank modules that reflect the shape of the desired implant, and using the tools to shape it into the form required. Players are given decisions to make on which implants best resolve the personal problems presented by the client. • Engolasters January 2021 — 1 August 2017 — An exploration-based mystery game in which players assume the role of Meritxell, a paranormal researcher attempting to prove the existence of extraterrestrials. • 11:45 A Vivid Life — 25 October 2018 — A narrative horror game in which the player character, Laynie, believes her skeleton does not belong to her and undertakes an operation to remove foreign objects from her body. Players operate an x-ray machine to identify foreign bodies and can remove the objects from her body at a picnic basket. The player has multiple choice options in dialogue to react to the findings, each influencing the end conclusion the character makes about her body. • Dear Substance of Kin — 30 April 2019 • De Tres Al Cuarto — N/A — The player is Garza, half of a double act with his comedic and romantic partner Bonachera who are making ends meet performing stand-up comedy shows Mallorca. Players alternate across several days of performing comedy sets and selecting activities to spend the night after the show. During comedy sets of the game, players, draw, select and play cards representing the delivery of the duo's performance in a manner similar to a deck-building game. Cards have different effects on money earned by the player, such as a successful joke being delivered with a 'Poor' or 'Punch' card, or a 'Build' card that increases the value of the joke and provides the player with a new hand. Money earned by the player in a comedy set can be used to remove, upgrade or purchase new cards.

Essays on Empathy was developed by Valencia studio Deconstructeam, a trio of writer and designer Jordi de Paco, artist Marina González and musician Paula Ruiz. The compilation, containing titles developed between 2015 and 2021, had the stated aim of giving the studio's short games a wider audience, as they had received less attention. The compilation was assembled as a side project and "therapeutic" exercise during a creative hiatus for the studio, who had paused work on a larger title, The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood due to the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, which had a negative psychological impact on the developers. The title of the compilation was set to reflect the "different characters" depicted in the various games and the overarching design process of the studio, with de Paco discussing that the team began purposefully developing games with a "heavy" narrative focus over time to explore complex situations or questions that require the player to "put themselves into the game". Most of the games for Essays on Empathy were previously developed and released for short-term game jams including the Ludum Dare, with the games largely presented as they were originally released in terms of content. The compilation was announced on 30 April 2021 with the release of an announcement trailer for release on May 18.