Spiritfarer Review
Made by Thunder Lotus,
reviewed by Logan Brown.
mild spoilers ahead, but nothing I feel disrupts the game for a first
time player.
Spiritfarer is a cozy game about dying.
You sail the seas as Stella, a spirit who has been appointed the role of
Spiritfarer, essentially a carer for those existing within the temporary
afterlife you find yourself within. You have a cat called Daffodil, who
likes to follow you wherever you go, and sometimes assists you in
chopping down trees.
Your job is simple, on paper. You gradually make progress by granting
the wishes of the dying spirits, and then, when they are each mentally,
emotionally, and spiritually fulfilled, you sail with them to the
Everdoor; a place where they ascend to, seemingly-
…the space that occupies the universe itself; so fragile and… empty,
perhaps.
But as you sail with them to the Everdoor, the ruby red waters shimmer
with the reflections of you and your newfound friends.
They talk, as you row them towards their end.
The conversation helps. You as much as them. It’s a game that expects a
lot of you, and you may find yourself surprised that carrying such a
weight might feel like levitation.
I… struggle with empathy. But here, in the world of Spiritfarer, I felt
present. Awake to something I have always pushed away. Always mindful,
and always learning.
A thought came to me, after just under forty hours of playing, as the
ending credits song bloomed, an auditory metaphor for the spirit flowers
each guest upon your boat produces upon their passing, to be found with
melancholy in their miniature lodgings. Said lodgings comprise the
gradually increasing in size, floating city Stella and Daffodil’s boat
tentatively becomes, each lodging remaining long after their spirit’s
final trip to the Everdoor… unless you wish to salvage the raw
materials. But something about this premise of destruction filled me
with unease, so I instead opted to keep all the houses on the boat in
their flowering stasis.
But yes, a thought came to me, for it is so common to wonder, awkwardly,
upon hearing of another’s death, well… how did they die? But the ending
of Spiritfarer, or rather, its soaring middle and beginning, that lay
the groundwork for the ending to deliver in almost all ways possible,
awakened a new question within my mind.
How did they live?
Which brings me to the spirits themselves.
Their deaths as the game progresses, are full to the brim of mental
health crises, heartbreak, and illness. Suicide, cancer, and dementia
are fairly common themes within most spirits’ passing. All of these
things are handled sensitively, but they are raw to the touch, and some
may find the themes of the game painful at times.
But the lives of the spirits, their lives, are full of laughter, and
food, and musings, and requests.
Oh my, the requests! They will invite you upon voyages for dungeons and
dragons campaigns, which finish with regular mock battles against
monsters that are rather sprightly, considering they are actually
cardboard cutouts… and they will challenge you to dash, leap, and fling
yourself across your ship once more, to catch lightning in the glass
bottles bought at specific islands or obtained in crates stranded in the
seas…
But no matter the mini-game and resulting treasure, (for there are a
bounty of platforming mini-games, and in turn, crafting mini-games,
associated with the different spirits that join you on your adventures,
and the differing treasures that can be gained from them;) they allow
you to craft the needed items to fulfil said spirits requests.
And when a spirit’s requests are fulfilled, most will welcome the
Everdoor. They will ask Stella to ferry them across its seas, rippling
ruby red, with open arms.
There they will ascend, glowing golden in midair, after having passed on
their final thoughts to Stella, (and Daffodil, of course).
And so, Spiritfarer is a cozy game about dying.
Yes, your job is difficult, in more ways than one; exploring endlessly
across the seas to gain and refine materials to grant the last wishes of
the people who you meet, and then ferrying them to the precipice of the
void.
From there onwards, they become constellations, to be admired in the
night skies as you go.
A hummingbird who carries around a fully grown bull through the airways,
in a rather comic fashion. A fruit bat, who shares with you an insight
into her psychosis; a shimmering rainbow dreamscape filled with
melancholy melodies. A jolly frog who will teach you how to work wood,
and a snake besieged by dreams of a dragon awoken from slumber.
They are many more, and they are all joyous and beautiful in their self
concept.
Spiritfarer is quite possibly one of the best experiences I’ve ever had
in a game. It does what it longs to do, so skilfully, so intricately,
and so gently.
And it makes me realise how, more than ever, actually, actually…
Spiritfarer is a cozy game about living.
Animal Well Review
Made by Shared Memory,
reviewed by Logan Brown.
mild spoilers ahead, but nothing I feel disrupts the game for a first
time player.
Animal Well is an enigmatic game about animals in an inhospitable
wilderness.
A space decorated with four unlit torches provides the focal point to
your adventure through Animal Well. An adventure made up of a maelstrom
of weaving and winding paths, in every which two dimensional direction.
The creatures you encounter on this journey remain in the mind for long
after. A particular example, two gigantic wading birds, initially
cordoned off screen, invite said mind to ponder upon not only their
disposition, but the interactions you may have, if you were to trespass
upon their respective world.
And so you think, will you be able to meet them? And then, an even more
pressing question. Do they wish you harm?
For, in Animal Well, you will evaluate the turning points of your
intricate relationships to the natural world, as you venture forth into
it, often hesitant. You will curse your hesitancy until you realise, a
new question forms, as much as you will to deftly avoid it.
And that question is, why are the animals there?
Underneath Animal Well’s soft and mysterious surface, and further below
its fairly spooky and mysterious segments, lies a horror game’s heart,
thrumming in its depths.
I feel like it shouldn’t be there. But I think that’s why it works.
There is a part relatively near the end of the game, where you discover
a vault of creatures that will make you think that they move, when you
move. So you may choose at this point, to stop moving. And then you will
discover that actually, actually, the pauses and the motion interspersed
between one another, have nothing to do with your freeze or flight
reflexes.
And so you start to move faster.
And that’s when the creatures accelerate.
Most of the game is less scary than this. But it is worth knowing that
it coalesces with the horror genre after you light the four flames, and
in parts before that, before you play.
I think, that in Animal Well, its greatest strength and its greatest
weakness are one. It is always more than it seems.
I realise I have somehow neglected to mention the puzzles. There are
lots of them, and they are very, very good. You will likely manage to
solve them, and they will necessitate your time, and a perfect balance
of your care and your experimentation.
In addition to this, there are shortcuts and items to unlock, and
they’re all, once again, very, very well designed. They will make a very
difficult game, a bit more manageable, and provide further puzzles
within those puzzles, figuring how to utilise them well.
I should also mention that the graphics are very, very good, and the
music is very, very good too. I skim over these very, very good things
for very, very good reason, because as much as they make the experience
better, everything worth playing about Animal Well is simply about what
happens to you as you experience it.
For the further in you venture, into this varied biome of the natural
world, the less you have to cling onto.
It left me feeling adrift, from something unknowable. I would unlock a
new item to depend on, and the world would shift. My knowledge of what I
was facing slotted into place, and it was a place that was primarily,
still an uncertainty.
Animal Well is an adventure. And like most adventures, it will shape you
in its design with little remorse. I am glad I experienced it. I am also
glad I likely never have to experience it in almost full again.
And despite this, I love it. I love it a lot. But I have come to
understand that I have learnt to love it. To see it as part of me.
If video games were medical conditions. Animal Well might be best
represented by my own personal experience, of my own schizophrenia. It
is so intricately a metaphor for my own personal feelings in regard to
my schizophrenia, that someone else would not recognise it as such
without that knowledge.
I feel that if someone connects with this game, it will be intricately
personal to whoever is playing it.
For me, I now realise that Animal Well makes me feel like an observer of
my own habits, repeatedly looping in the search for something. Something
else, perhaps. Or more precisely, something more.
The wading birds stretching their long legs forward into the next step,
travelling from one side of the screen to the other and back again. An
ostrich running and running endlessly in a hamster wheel. A house-cat,
initiating chase at a moment’s notice.
Their behaviour, their motivations, and their eventual reprieve from
such an inhospitable wilderness; is actually a reprieve from their own
self concept.
And, as an expansion to that, in Animal Well, change flows in such a way
that it is almost cyclical. Living and breathing, its pixelated format
is a mere obscuration of human nature itself, and the ways we repeat
ourselves, ad nauseam, until we experience the contrast of change
itself, pushing us forward, settling us back.
And so, Animal Well is a horror game about time.
And I feel like it shouldn’t be.
And I think that’s why it scares me.