![]() And we wanted to make sure that that also was portrayed in the characters in 'Spiritfarer.' For the example of Giovanni, being someone who can't, for the life of him, be faithful to his wife. "Many people in their lives did terrible things, had s**tty behaviors. Halloween decorations adorn the mantle behind him. It's with rosy glasses about someone's life," he explains over a Google Meet call from Quebec. But of course, it's a bit of a hypocritical thing. You want to talk about someone and only talk about the nice things they did. "When you talk about death, generally you want to do an apology. Guérin says this approach helps make the game more believable for players. Another character, Buck, who stays with you through the end of the game, is an avatar for a friend who died when they were teenagers. His grandmother can be found in a lynx called Astrid, whose philandering husband Giovanni reflects the struggles in marriage that Guérin's own grandparents had. As were the other characters, says Nicolas Guérin, the game's creative director. She was shaped in part by stories shared by the game's development team. Watch a trailer for "Spiritfarer" via YouTube. ![]() But Gwen seemed real, her pain seemed real. Maybe this is how I'm channeling the collective feelings of loss that we've all been accumulating. She crosses over, her spirit rising to become a constellation in the night sky.Īm I sad that Gwen has moved on? Am I happy for her? Gwen's departure leaves me melancholy and I wonder at the emotions I feel at a simple video game. "I can't hold it any longer," she says and I ferry her through the last few feet. Would that make me a better person?" she asks me as the game's quiet music lets me hear the splash of my oar, cutting through the red water.Īs we approach the Everdoor, she tells me her questions no longer matter, because I'm there with her in the end. Find that last shred of strength left in me. "I still don't know about Father," she tells me as I row her through her final passage. On the way she thought people went through life without caring about each other but she knows better now. They bring challenges that I must help them with, by creating safe and cozy homes for them on my ship, taking them to places they used to visit, and helping to move their stories forward until they feel the pull of the Everdoor.Īs I row Gwen through her final crossing, she reflects. With them, they bring joy and love, but also regret. We pick up other spirits as we sail - my old mentor, a loving uncle, a neighbor suffering dementia, a pair of criminals looking to pull one last job. No relief."Īs she begins to work through it, we set sail back to her old haunts, her old home. "When he left with Doug, I didn't feel anything. "I've been thinking about Father recently," she tells me from her cabin on the ship, as the sound of waves plays in the background. But before she's ready to cross through the final threshold, Gwen has to first confront the painful struggles of her life.Īnd the pain takes me by surprise, pinching in my chest as I read her dialogue, relating to a rift in her family, which seems to be her unfinished business. ![]() In it, I am Gwen's friend Stella, come to ferry her soul through the afterlife. I'm playing a Nintendo Switch game, " Spiritfarer," released in August 2020. And then I found more ghosts, this time through a smaller screen.įrom a cozy seat on my couch, I watch my best friend Gwen, in the form of a beautiful animated deer, take a drag from a cigarette as she reminisces with me about our youth shared in Europe, before turning solemn as she considers unresolved feelings about her family. And in a year of widespread loss and grief en masse, I have struggled to feel like a good friend, a good partner, a good daughter. I've never learned to help people through their grief, or even to navigate my own. I imagined the ghost of the old man peering back at me from the tent set up in the middle of the graveyard - now, too, burdened with the secrets I'd been unraveling.īut I can't help his ghost. Then curiosity got the best of me and I found myself down a 23&Me rabbit hole that ended with me staring at the livestream of a stranger's funeral, watching my dad's estranged father mourn his own. First were the family ghosts, the scenes and snippets of stories that I found at the edges of my memory, as isolation stretched on and the rooms of the house grew more and more dull. ![]()
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