Tag: loss

What Remains of Edith Finch – Falling From The Family Tree:

Posted on by in Gaming

For those of you who have been with MindGames since the beginning, you might remember that shortly after starting the site, I wrote an article for CheckPoint about one of my favorite games of all time – What Remains Of Edith Finch. Whilst clearing out some space on my hard drive, I came across the draft copy of that article and decided, you know what, I’m going to put it up here (with some additions) for you all to enjoy. It’s a game that’s worth revisiting with masterful storytelling and the strongest depiction of the consuming nature of some mental health conditions that I’ve seen in the gaming scene. Plus, it’s on GamePass so… free emotional experiences for you to try?

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Throughout the history of humans, the concept of family has always been the central part of our lives. From autobiographies to twitter threads, we like to share tales from our lives with those we care about, be it close friends and family or just the internet in general. Video games take this concept and run with it, building extravagant worlds and telling fantastical stories that boggle the mind. A lot of these stories have deeper meanings beneath the surface that you don’t always see, but there is almost always a sense of family in them, be it your blood relations or your crew members. It is my belief, that games that take a step back and think about the nature of human relationships are ones that will leave their mark on our hearts.

One such game is What Remains of Edith Finch. Released to the major systems in 2017, this adventure game received high praise from critics, players and reviewers alike who all praised its storytelling, presentation and commonly use it as an example to prove that video games are an art form. As a gamer who has a fondness for story-driven games, I was immediately intrigued and decided to take a weekend to just sit and immerse myself in the game. By the end of the game, I was sobbing at this masterpiece of an experience.

To give you some context, the game follows the character Edith Finch who has returned to her old family home after the death of her mother. Right away, many players can relate to how Edith feels – how it feels wrong to be there without her mother, how everything is familiar yet strange. When I lost my grandfather, we went to his flat to collect some mementoes to remember him by. If you read my Unpacking article, you’d know a bit more about what I took from that place and the memories that I associate with them. Yet, when walked through those doors and it was just… off. Everything seemed too quiet without him. I noticed tiny details that were wrong in my memories of him such as the plants not being watered and the tea bags being left in the cup for too long. It was his place, yet not. Much like Edith’s family home.

As you explore the uniquely constructed Finch home, you go from room to room piecing together Edith’s family tree. Various flashbacks and playable sequences have you experiencing the passing of each of her family members, from flying off the edge of a cliff to being poisoned by holly berries. Each tale gives you an insight into what person was like, from their stubbornness to their struggle with mental health. Although this is a game about loss, how Edith speaks of her family is truly uplifting. Each one of them is so unique and had such a profound impact on her upbringing, you can feel the pure love in her voice as she talks about them.

Now, I could dedicate an article to each and every one of Edith’s family members and their stories. From the crushing impact of losing little Gregory on his parent’s marriage, to the survivor’s guilt and traumatic memories of his sister Barbara’s murder that drove Walter to live underground for decades; there is so much to unpack here. All these deaths lead people, including some of the family members, to believe that the Finch family is cursed to perish in unfortunate circumstances. To grow up, surrounded by death and the specters of those you love, has ripple effects on the environment around the young ones, like Edith and especially, Edith’s mother Dawn.

Who I want to talk about, however, is Lewis, one of Edith’s brothers. The game hints at the two being close, with him playing video games with his little sister, showing her secret passages in the house and being everything, you’d want in a big brother. However, after a battle with substance abuse and having to go through rehab, he began to struggle with his mental health. His boring daytime job at a cannery was slowly wearing him down and so, he imagined a fantasy world – where he achieved great things. It began to consume him, to the point where he’d not speak to anyone for weeks, causing his family and therapist to worry. Eventually, the real Lewis became a hated figure in his mind, and he longed for the fantasy to come true. This culminated in him committing suicide and in Dawn and Edith leaving the family home for good, in an attempt for Dawn to protect herself and her last remaining child from meeting a terrible fate.

Out of the entire game, this story was the one that hit me the closest to home. Many people struggling with mental health conditions often feel like Lewis. The depression, the apathy, the feeling that the life you live has no point to it. We lose so many amazing people who become stuck in ruts as Lewis did, who suffer in silence and retreat into their minds to escape from its monotony. However, our minds can often be our worse enemies and in Lewis’s case, it provided him with an escape that eventually killed him. Lewis lost his sense of self, falling into a spiral of self-loathing and hatred that he sadly, couldn’t escape from.

The pain in Edith’s voice as she talks about her brother is clear. She feels powerless, guilty and the grief is still as fresh as it was when she first heard the news. The loss of a loved one will always hurt, as the hole they leave behind in the world will constantly remind you. However, the idea of someone you love, suffering in silence and deciding that death is the only option left to them, is a heart-wrenching thought. You rethink every interaction with them, overthink every word you’ve ever spoken to them and wonder what you could’ve done better.

The game is told from Edith’s perspective but when you think about how those emotions must be amplified tenfold for Dawn. Once I’d heard all of the Finch family’s stories and looked at the finished family tree, I realised just how much Dawn has lost. The loss of her baby brother, the divorce of her parents, the lingering guilt and grief after finding her other brother dead, witnessing her father die, then losing two children – one to mental health struggles that she felt powerless against and the other whose fate she never had confirmed, it’s no wonder she’s desperate to protect Edith. It makes the line you hear her shout as she argues with great grandma Edie, so much more powerful:

“My children are dead because of your stories!”

Our family can be our greatest support in times of need. They can save us from the darkness, pull us up and remind us that we are loved, we are worthy, and we are capable of so much more than our minds allow us to think. However, if we are deprived of that support, we can feel isolated and worthless, and in the worst cases, we could follow in Lewis’s footsteps. So, be there for those you love. Whether it’s your sibling suffering from depression or a cousin struggling with OCD, be by their side through it all. Appreciate your family, whether it’s the one given to you by blood or whether it’s one you choose. You don’t know how long you’ll have them with you for, so make the most of every minute. Make sure they feel as loved as they make you feel. Sometimes, just knowing someone has your back can make all the difference in the world.

Be kind to one another,

CaitlinRC.

Depression – That Little Voice:

Posted on by in Real Life

TW – Depression and Suicide.

A young girl shuts the door on her friend with a big smile plastered across her face. As soon as the lock clicks into place, the smile vanishes and overwhelming sadness swims in her eyes. She slumps down, barely able to keep herself upright as sobs begin to wrack her body and tears spill down her cheeks. The camera pans away, the piano instrumental swelling to an emotional crescendo. This is what the films showcase depression as, a dramatic display of emotion and sorrow. Needless to say, that’s a load of bollocks.

Yes, this devastating mental health condition can manifest itself in full emotional breakdowns. Yes, there are some moments where I just want to cry in my room until the sun sinks below the horizon. However, it is so much more than that. It isn’t something that is magically fixed by falling in love with some handsome boy who wipes away your tears. There isn’t a “cure”. It isn’t something you can prevent just by “cheering up” or stopping being sad.

Let me explain a bit more. Depression is more than just feeling sad. It is more than the emotional breakdowns where you can do nothing but cry. It’s days where you don’t see the purpose of getting out of bed or doing anything productive, because what possible worth could you contribute to the world? It is moments where you feel guilty for taking time to yourself, where you feel that you aren’t good enough, that your work is terrible, that you are worthless.

Depression is a mood disorder, caused by an inbalance of neurotransmitters in your brain. A low level of serotonin, is associated with a low mood, lack of sleep, lack of appetite, interest in usually enjoyable activities and much more. There are many different factors that can influence whether you develop a mental illness such as depression – there’s a major genetic component. For example, there’s a big history of mental illness in my family, which significantly raised the risk of how likely it was for my sister and I to develop one.

I was officially diagnosed with anxiety and depression around three years ago. Around a year and a half later, I was given the additional diagnosis of PTS (Post Traumatic Stress). Despite all this, I’ve been experiencing symptoms of anxiety and depression for nearly seven years now. Looking back on my teenage years, those moments of anxiety and self-loathing weren’t just teen angst or exam stress. All these people would tell me to calm down, to relax, to stop beating myself up over every tiny mistake. I’d feel guilty for not being able to take their advice, for wallowing in self-pity and guilt.

Now, there are many different types of treatment for depression. These treatments are not a permanent fix for the mood disorder, they are merely ways to cope and manage the symptoms. I’ve tried Cognitive Behavioural Therapy to improve my self-esteem, counselling to try and process the traumatic events in my life, various self-help resources and ground techniques for when I get overstimulated and start to panic. However, therapy isn’t the answer for everyone. In my case, I need to take anti-depressants to keep my mood in check. I couldn’t focus on the therapy or the techniques that I was being taught because I just couldn’t see the point in it. I didn’t see a good reason for wasting my therapist’s time with my petty problems.

Throughout these years, I’ve had so many ups and downs that if you drew my journey on a map, it’d look like a mountain range that even the most ardent of explorers would dread to climb. Some of those downs have been a major dark pit that I didn’t think I’d get out of. I’ve struggled with my self-esteem, dealt with thoughts of whether I should end my own life. It’s terrifying. Genuinely terrifying. You feel like you’ve fallen so far down that nobody could ever find you to help pull you out. I was lucky enough to know an amazing guy at university, who would always make me laugh when I saw him at brunch. Despite me not being a “party” student, he still made an effort to include me and get to know me. Sadly, he lost his battle with depression and took his own life back in late 2018. I still miss him.

Mental health conditions are so much more than just “attitude” or “moodiness”, they are conditions that those who suffer from them will have to carry for the rest of their lives. It becomes a part of who you are, influences the decisions you make and the paths you choose to follow. I know for a fact that I’ve missed out on so many opportunities because I thought I wasn’t good enough or smart enough or worthy of that chance. Heck, even now I still don’t.

It’s ok to ask for help. One in four people will suffer from a mental health condition in their lifetime. You aren’t weird, you aren’t broken or wrong. You are deserving of love and support as much as the next person. Please remember that.

Look out for one another, be that hand in the darkness.

CaitlinRC.

Röki – Walking In A Winter Wonderland (With a troll):

Posted on by in Gaming

Back in October, which seems like it happened a decade ago, I was at EGX in London. After being lucky enough to get a Press Pass for the event, I spent quite a few hours scrolling through my emails, searching for games that I found interesting or ones that I thought deserved a little more love in the indie section. One such game was Röki, an adventure game that follows a young girl named Tove, who is trying to rescue her brother from the claws of the monster that kidnapped him.

In the short demo that I got to play, I was immediately immersed in a fairy-tale world. So, when the full version of the game was released on Steam a few days ago, I immediately threw myself into it. Over the course of a weekend, I completed each chapter of the story, trying my hardest to appreciate and discover every corner of my surroundings. Though I will say that spider is horrifying, I nearly threw my laptop across the room when I first saw it and the NOISES IT MADE WERE TERRIFYING OK.

Look at these gorgeous woods, it reminds me of the woods near where I was born.

Point and click adventures tend to be an experience of trial and error. For games with less well-thought out puzzles, it becomes a rage game, where you try combining anything and everything in a desperate attempt to progress the story. Röki, thankfully, has managed to avoid the puzzle pitfall. The puzzles were instinctive, cleverly interwoven into your interactions with the world. It didn’t feel like the plot was being held hostage until you finished collecting several shiny stones; it instead feels like a genuine obstacle standing between Tove and her brother.

From a technical standpoint, Röki is a masterpiece. Upon opening the game, you are greeted with sweeping vistas of a snowy mountain range. The forest stands out on the snowy background, managing to seem inviting and ominous at the same time. You’re greeted with icy lakes, towering trees, and crumbling castles – the likes of which we associate to the stories that we read to our kids at bedtime. These gorgeous landscapes are enhanced by the lighting engine that Röki implements. When you’re working with the sheer white snow of a mountain landscape like that of Tove’s home, it can be hard to make each explorable area unique enough to interest the player. In fact, arctic explorers must contend with a type of mirage, in which the snow makes it look like there is land on the horizon.

A lovely idyllic house, perfect for a fairy tale to take a dark turn.

Every aspect of Röki has an incredible amount of thought put into it, from the character designs, to the ambient sounds of the forest that you are exploring. The world of Röki is a living, breathing organism that deserves your utmost respect and from my time with the game, I am more than willing to give it that. Footprints will trail behind you in the snow, the wind blows through the trees, ravens will spook if you get too close. The birds sing and the trolls grumble as you walk past. It feels alive and bustling, yet you feel alone. Tove is on her own, in a world that she has only experienced in bed-time stories. Whenever I closed my eyes in Röki, every sound cue and background noise painted an elaborate picture of the world around Tove, a beautiful canvas forged through song.

Although beautiful, Röki is a remarkably dark game when you start to look below the surface. Littered across the forest are trolls that have been petrified by the sun, left frozen and alone until the end of time. A nearby church is filled with gravestones, that on closer inspection are those of children, taken at a young age and never recovered. A tortured soul who drowned in a lake now dwells there, dragging unfortunate souls to meet the same fate. Tove’s journey is not an easy one, it is more than a simple adventure to rescue her brother. It is about forgiveness, empathy, and hope where sometimes we find none.

LOOK AT THOSE MOUNTAINS AND FORESTS. SERIOUSLY. ITS SO PRETTY. SO SO PRETTY.

Personally, the plot hit close to home. It is a layered tale of loss and redemption, told through the eyes of a young girl who has been forced to grow up too quickly. Through exploring a magical forest, filled with whacky and wonderful creatures (plus a few of the more… deadly variety), you begin to uncover the story of a family in distress, whose dispute has had serious ramifications for the forest’s ecosystem and wellbeing. In her quest to rescue her brother and reunite with her father, Tove manages to piece back together the broken shards of a family of powerful beings – the Guardians of the forest.

If you don’t want any spoilers from the main story, then I’d recommend stepping away from this article now, purchasing the game on Steam, playing it through, eating a large amount of chocolate to recover emotionally and then come back to continue reading! I’m going to talk about a big spoiler from later in the game, because I feel it’s well worth talking about.

God I love mythology. And their gods. Ehehe.

So, SPOILERS AHEAD:

At the start of the game, your brother Lars, is taken by a monster through magic portal. Your father was last seen under a pile of rubble and wooden beams, begging you to take your brother and run.  Although not explicitly stated at the start of the game, its clear that Tove’s mother has died – as well as that the loss is recent. Since the loss of her mother, Tove has had to take on the role of caregiver in her household. From caring for her little brother, to stoking the fire, to cooking for the family, this little girl can do it all. Yet, she shouldn’t have to. Her father is deep in grief over the loss of his beloved wife, leaving Tove alone in her own grief and pain.

As the game progresses, you are tasked with waking the three guardians of the forest – the wolf, the stag, and the bear. You learn that there was a fourth guardian, the raven, but she was outcast into another dimension with her son, a result of her falling in love with a human. Each of the guardians were responsible for a season in the year, as well as working with one another to keep the forest in balance. When the family fell apart, so did the forest they protected. Now the raven, seeks her revenge.

Get thee back satan, THIS IS MY BEDROOM. MINE.

With each of the guardians you wake, Tove is forced to walk through memories that she tried so hard to suppress. These memories are about her mother – key days that they spent together and the days that followed her loss. Facing the past, is an incredibly difficult thing to do. Whenever I think back on the people that I’ve lost, the memories that I’ve desperately tried to forget, it brings a tightness to my chest and a pain to my heart that is hard to describe. So, for Tove to face those memories, to battle through them, all to save her little brother from a mythical creature that is most definitely beyond her abilities to win a fight against, is incredible.

This becomes prominent in the climax of the game, where Tove faces off against the creature that took her brother. It turns out that Röki is the son of the raven guardian, who is desperate to have her son accepted by the world that cast them out. She is merely a mother that wants her son to have a normal life, though she really needs to work on her methods because child sacrifice through dark magic is not the best approach. In our eyes, she is the villain of this piece but from where she stands, she’s doing what she must. To her, a random human child’s life is nothing in comparison to the happiness of her own offspring.

Aw sweetheart. Back when you thought it would all be ok.

It is in the finale that one of the most emotional sequences in gaming makes its appearance. I’ve spoken before about games like What Remains of Edith Finch and Drawn to Life, with their powerful plots. However, Röki rockets to the top of that list in my minds eye, because it feels so heartfully genuine and real, that it is remarkably similar to some of the nightmares that I have had due to my ongoing battle with PTS. Tove is forced to relive the day of her mother’s death, which depressingly, is also her baby brother’s birthday. You sprint around a forest, desperately trying to track down the ringing phone that could bring medical help to save your mother. Yet every time that you have it in your grasp, you are teleported back to your parents’ side who beg you to do something, that only you can save her. It’s a harrowing but powerful moment.

Anyways, this review has gone on much longer than normal. If you haven’t played Röki, please do check it out, the folks at Polygon Treehouse are talented and extremely lovely. Have a good week everyone, remember to wash your hands and wear a mask. Remember to follow the site, follow my twitter @OurMindGames and like/comment!

CaitlinRC.

GRIS – So Beautiful It Should Be Illegal:

Posted on by in Gaming

So, a few days ago, I had hit a bit of a writer’s block. I wasn’t sure what game I wanted to talk about, so I reached out on Twitter to you guys (@OurMindGames) for any suggestions. Out of the many awesome suggestions I got from you guys, one really grabbed my attention. It was a game called GRIS, an artistic platformer that had been on my radar for a little while. People have spoken very highly of its visuals, soundtrack and powerful message – so needless to say, it seemed right up my alley. As I’m currently prepping to go back to university for my final year, I have some free time on my hands, so I decided to dedicate an afternoon to trying out GRIS. That afternoon quickly morphed into the rest of the day, until around 9 PM that evening when the credits rolled, and I sat back in my chair – stunned into silence.

The story of GRIS isn’t clearly laid out to the player. It’s told through imagery, visualization, and symbolism that will leave you pondering it’s meaning hours after you put it down. At its core, it’s a puzzle platformer. The further you progress through the game, the more abilities you unlock, which allows you to progress to new areas. It’s a fairly linear experience so you don’t worry too much about getting lost, however, the game does encourage you to explore each area to its fullest – with the key to moving on often being tucked away in a hidden cave or up a series of complex jumps. It’s a game that rewards you for taking your time and looking around, which as a completionist is a very satisfying experience.

This is your protagonist. Though you could argue, you are the real protagonist.

When the game starts, you see a young girl lying in the hand of a statue – seemingly asleep. She awakes and begins to sing, gradually rising into the air when suddenly her voice just stops. Without her voice, the statue crumbles and you are powerless to watch as she plummets to the ground, a seemingly desolate place devoid of the beautiful colours of the sky above. To start with, she can barely walk without crumpling to the ground, gradually regaining her strength and abilities as the game goes on. You collect tiny stars that form little constellations, allowing you to cross gaps and restore colour to the world around you. Each colour you restore opens another section – e.g. unlocking blue restores water to the world, enabling underwater exploration.

Honestly, you could fill an art museum with screenshots of this game, and nobody would question it, as this game is visually stunning. The artists behind this game manage to make even the simplest of colour schemes and landscapes beautiful. When you combine that with the haunting soundtrack, this game is best experienced in a room by yourself, on a big screen. I played it on my switch but honestly, it deserves a fully equipped cinema with surround sound and a ginormous screen to truly appreciate every titbit of detail and love that has gone into crafting this game. The game itself is not very long, it took me about 4 hours on and off to finish a playthrough, including a twenty-minute puzzle section that I was just too dumb to realize the simple solution to.

How is possible to be this gorgeous a game, I’m just saying!

What I really want to talk about though, is what I feel the story behind this game is. As there are only a few little cutscenes and the closest we get to any exposition from the character herself is through song, it’s mostly about how you choose to interpret it. The achievements list gives you a hint towards the game’s true meaning – specifically those related to each “Stage” or chapter of the game. I didn’t notice this until the final chapter when I popped an achievement called “Stage 5 – Acceptance”. This achievement and its counterparts all refer to stages from the Kubler-Ross model, which talks about the five stages we go through when we are grieving. Let me explain each stage and its corresponding achievement in GRIS:

Stage 1: Denial – Often our first reaction is to deny that anything is wrong as if pretending it doesn’t exist will reduce the pain later. In the first chapter of GRIS, you start out barely able to walk – collapsing to your knees frequently and struggling to stand up again. Most players will get GRIS to stand back up, but if you leave the controller and let her stand up again on her own – this stage of the model will be fulfilled, as she herself denies that anything is wrong.

Devoid of colour and life, the world seems to be crumbling around you.

Stage 2: Anger – When we are upset, often we internalize that pain and instead lash out at others. When you are hurting, sometimes you feel like that nobody understands the pain you are in and that the only way to lessen the pain you are in is to inflict it upon others. During the second chapter of GRIS, you gain the “heavy” ability which allows you to smash through unstable objects and destroy various statues/pots scattered around the world. This ability is a clear manifestation of that second stage of grief, which the achievement emphasizes as when you destroy three specific statues, you get the “anger” popup.

When the world tries to knock you down, keep pushing on through.

Stage 3: Bargaining – “Don’t you think after all this time, and everything I have ever done, that I am owed this one?” – The Doctor in the Snowmen, Season 7 of Doctor Who. This quote sums up the bargaining stage of grief for me. We feel that we are owed something, that we deserve better than our current situation presents. That maybe, just maybe, the world will take pity on us and provide that little bit of hope. We beg for it, trying to barter with chips that have no real worth anymore, even though we know deep down that it won’t work. In GRIS’s case, this is seen when you come across a statue in the forest chapter. Her first reaction to it when you try to interact is to sing to it, despite her voice still being gone. She is trying to barter with something that isn’t there anymore.

If you don’t learn to accept things, it’ll weigh you down forever.

Stage 4: Depression – I think the use of the underwater section for this stage is remarkably clever. Often, we describe depression as sinking under the waves, falling further and further from the light that we so desperately try to cling to. In my case, it often feels like a heavyweight is attached to my ankle, slowly tugging me downwards no matter how hard I resist it.  In order to get this achievement in GRIS, you must seek out the statue hidden in the darkness. This section is pitch black and finding this hidden cavern is not easy, as its surroundings are full of creeping darkness that threatens to consume you. That statue is of a woman, seemingly sinking down into the inky depths, like how you fell from the sky at the beginning of the game.

We all sink into the darkness sometimes. We just need to keep pushing back to the light.

Stage 5: Acceptance – After retrieving your voice and escaping the shrouding darkness, you come across a tomb on the remains of the land. In this tomb is a statue, lying down, still and quiet. If you sing to it, the acceptance achievement pops. Although it doesn’t seem like much at the time, to me it reminds me of the songs you sing at funerals. In those moments, you can hear the whirling mix of emotions in everyone’s voices – grief, joy, longing and hope all mingling together as one. It’s a haunting yet powerful experience to be a part of, whether they were your close family, a good friend or just an acquaintance.

To me, this game is a tale of grief and loss. Now, this is just my interpretation, but I think that our young protagonist has just lost her mother. To me, the start of the game seems to be the moment that the loss truly hits her and her whole world crumbles around it, losing all the joy, colour and structure that her mother brought to it. Often when we lose someone, we feel like a part of ourselves has been ripped from us, like a missing limb or a hole in your once full heart. In GRIS’s case, this manifests as the loss of her abilities. She struggles to walk, to move through the world on her own, to begin with. Her voice, which can restore life to the world and heal the cracks in it, has been stripped from her. Every time she opens her mouth, nothing comes out – as if she is on one side of a one-way mirror, slamming her hands against it but getting no response.

Every colour she restores to the world, every demon she faces (looking at you, giant creepy eel thing), brings her one step closer to overcoming the grief that is threatening to consume her. The darkness and demons chasing her, seem to indicate depression and anxiety – the way they appear and disappear, how they creep up on her and force her to flee. She can’t fight it, only try to outrun it. The same is in life, you can’t outright fight mental illness. It’s always there and it always comes back. You learn to coexist with it, to lessen its hold on you, to accept it as part of you. The end of the game leans towards this, with her seemingly moving on – her voice spiraling up into the sky, harmonizing with her mother’s, shattering the remaining darkness and restoring colour to the world. It’s a powerful ending to a powerful game.

Light and darkness cannot exist without one another.

This is probably the most moving game I’ve played in the last year. Having recently lost my grandfather, it spoke to me on an incredibly personal level. Even if you can’t afford it right now, watch a playthrough of it, or even listen to the game’s soundtrack. It is, hauntingly beautiful and something I think we all understand on a primal level. Grief and loss are a part of life, yet I hadn’t played a game that really summed up that experience until I played GRIS.

I hope you all have a great week, next up is Little Nightmares! If you enjoyed this piece, remember to like it, follow the site and comment below any feedback or suggestions for future articles!

Much love,

CaitlinRC

Firewatch – Too many fires, too little time.

Posted on by in Gaming

A few years ago, an indie game called Firewatch was released to the admiration of many people online – including the YouTube gaming community. You couldn’t really take two steps without stumbling across it but somehow, I managed to avoid it. Not that I wasn’t interested, it looked like a game that was right up my alley, but I didn’t want to spoil it for myself by watching someone else play it. Yet in typical gaming tradition, it sat on the pile of games that I wanted to play but never got around to, until about this time last year, where I live-streamed it as a change of content from my usual art streams.

If you’re interested in seeing some of my reactions to the game, I made a little compilation video of some funny moments including me going “mhmm sensual paint” (it makes sense in context I swear… kind of.) You can watch that here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1KbsP7QL8E . Firewatch is the kind of game you should experience yourself rather than watching a playthrough. It’s one of those games that tells a story that we all can interpret in different ways and I’m going to talk mainly about how the various events in the game affected me, so if you don’t want to be spoiled, don’t keep reading.

So, for those of you who are still here, let me at least explain what on earth this game is about. Firewatch is at its core, a story-driven walking simulator. You play as Henry, who has taken the job as a lookout in one of many fire towers in one of America’s national parks. He is to spend the entire summer looking out for fires, stopping people from setting off fireworks (darn teens) and generally just wandering through nature and hopefully not dying of boredom. The only person you really interact with is Delilah, your supervisor who speaks to you over the radio. You never meet her, but she is the one other voice you really grow to love throughout the game, which is one of many reasons her voice actress won an award CAUSE SHE’S BRILLIANT OK.

I cannot emphasise how beautiful this game is.

From the moment you start the game, Firewatch throws emotional turmoil at you. You constantly switch between Henry travelling to the watchtower and a series of screens telling stories from Henry and his wife Julia’s relationship – from their first meeting in a bar, to them getting a dog together and eventually, Julia is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and ends up being taken to be cared for by her family in Australia, whilst Henry stays behind. Even though it’s only a small section of the game, it’s more than enough for you to get invested in their relationship and gain an insight into why Henry has taken this job in the middle of nowhere. He doesn’t know how to cope; he needs time to process the events that have unfolded and how he might move forward. It’s something we can all relate to.

Speaking from personal experience, I think having to watch someone you love in pain is one of the worst things you can ever experience. Sure, when bad things happen to you it can weigh on you for the rest of your life, but you feel a sense of control over how you deal with it in the days that follow. Meanwhile, the sheer helplessness that consumes you when you are forced to just sit and watch those you care about suffer, cuts you to your very core. You want to help, to fight back but it’s beyond what limited powers you have and I think Firewatch touches quite well on this subject – by leaving titbits of information about Henry’s relationship with his wife, how he’s processing it all and what he might do after the summer ends.

Now, last week we talked about Alien Isolation and the profound impact that loneliness can have upon you, especially when you are in a stressful situation. With Firewatch, you instantly become attached to Delilah and her relationship with the player, as it’s the only real source of human contact you get throughout the course of the game. Apart from brief interactions with some no-good teenagers and reading the various letters sent between two of the park’s rangers, you only ever come across traces of other people. You grow to care for Delilah, quietly hoping that you’ll be able to meet her in person before the game ends. Everything you go through throughout the game’s story, she is right there by your side, giving her opinion and providing crucial context to what Henry uncovers.

Delilah, like you, wants to know what the only other person she can speak to, looks like. Because then it feels real.

One thing that Firewatch and well-produced horror games have in common, is how they build suspense and paranoia throughout their gameplay. Firewatch leans more on the paranoia aspect, as you slowly realise that it isn’t just hikers and campers in the woods around you. Someone is watching you, listening to your conversations and outright knocking you unconscious when you find the information you weren’t meant to see. An incredible example of this is when you are walking back to your tower at night, talking over the events of the day with Delilah when she casually says:

“Oh well, you’re back in your tower, I guess you need a drink too.”

At this point in the game, I was trying to find my way back and was making my way towards my tower, quietly considering the story implications of the events I had just experienced. My heart stopped momentarily in my chest when I realised, there was someone in my tower. Whether they were lying in wait to ambush me or leaving a threatening note next to my pet turtle, I had no idea. All I knew is that they were there, and I was not. (Side note, if they’d hurt Turt Reynolds I’d have burned down the entire place myself).

Throughout the game, you get to choose how you respond to Delilah over the radio. You can choose to be an ass and not respond at all if you want but anyone who does that is a monster and I’M COMING FOR YOU. This element of choice is there to help you build that relationship and to involve you more in the story, so that you are actually affected by the various events that unfold in the game, rather than just reacting by going “oh well, moving on”. This game is meant to impact you, everything from the art style to the voice acting and the soundtrack is built to involve you in this world and make you care about what is happening to it.

Cissy Jones, who plays Delilah, deserves so much credit. The game wouldn’t be the same without her.

One aspect of Firewatch you really don’t expect is your discovery in the ravine. Sure, the creepy person listening to you over the radio and throwing your typewriter out the window is a tad unexpected, but it isn’t entirely out of the blue. When you’re alone in an unfamiliar place, we all think that we are being watched or listened to. That paranoid part of our brain is screaming, considering the worst when in fact it’s probably just a squirrel. For games that have this central tension and suspense, you don’t expect them to do emotional impact well but oh boy does Firewatch punch you in the heart and brings tears to your eyes.

During your various treks through the wilderness, you occasionally come across various traces of a father and his son who used to live in the tower you now inhabit. They left after a short period of time, but Delilah got quite close to the young boy, Brian, and would lie to her superiors about his presence as children weren’t allowed to stay in the lookout towers. You find an abandoned backpack attached to a tree that contains various climbing gear that Brian presumably “lost”, as well as his hideout containing fantasy novels and role-playing games. Eventually, you venture into the ravine using the climbing gear and discover Brian. Or what remains of him.

There at the bottom of the cavern, is Brian’s decomposing body. One of his shoes had landed away from his broken form, which was nearly unrecognisable. At that moment, the music becomes sombre and you just stand there, staring at this little boy whose life was cut short. I realised what had happened the moment I saw the shoe, but I didn’t want to believe it. I stepped forward into the cavern, my eyes searching for what I hoped wouldn’t be there. When I saw him, the only thought in my mind was: “Did he suffer”. My brain saw this little boy, in agony on the cavern floor, clinging to life desperately as it seeped away from his shattered bones.

RIP Brian Goodwin. He deserved better.

You quickly realise that he fell and later discover that Brian’s father Ned has been living in the wilderness ever since his son’s death, hiding from the authorities and as a result, spying on Henry and Delilah. In the tape left to you by Ned, you hear the broken man recount the moments of his son’s death, talking about how Brian’s hook didn’t sink into the rock properly, how he was forced to watch his son fall without being able to help. Part of you wants to feel for him, as a father who lost his son but another part of you can only see that broken little boy in the dark cavern.

As you are airlifted out of the woods and away from the fire that is spreading, you just look at the credits as they roll – showing the pictures of Ned and Brian from their disposable camera, as well as the ones you took on that same roll of film. You don’t see Delilah again, with your final interaction being over the radio in a lookout tower, just like it was at the beginning of the game. A poignant end to a powerful game.

Honestly, I could probably go on about various elements of Firewatch for about a full-fledged novel’s worth of content, but I think what I’ve said in this article sums up the most powerful parts of this game. Grief, loneliness and paranoia are three of the most powerful things that can influence our choices and our memories. No-one is exempt from these feelings, regardless of whether you suffer from a mental health condition or not. You are not immune. So, reach out, there will always be someone there who is willing to listen.

I hope you enjoyed this article as much as I enjoyed writing it. A bit more of a sombre tone compared to last weeks but hey, don’t worry. We’re talking about Mario Odyssey next week and how it’s worldwide journey can bring joy to our lives in ways you wouldn’t expect.

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Till next week,

CaitlinRC