During the occasional lulls in my chaotic life, where work and personal projects are running smoothly (what an insane concept, I know), I like to scroll through the games lists on Xbox Game Pass or the Nintendo Shop on my Switch to find something new to play. A lot of the random indie gems that I’ve played and/or talked about on this site have come from those scrolling sessions, rather than keeping track of review listings or release schedules. I mean, my life is frantic enough without adding something else to keep track of!
One such game that I found was Moonglow Bay. Like many others, the fishing element of many popular games like Animal Crossing, Stardew Valley and even Final Fantasy XV has a rather addictive quality to it. Relaxing, satisfying and technically contributing to in-game progress, players have lost hours of their time plundering the ocean’s depths for its treasures (and various bits of trash). So, an entire game based around fishing, exploring, and cooking seafood for your hungry customers seemed like a fabulous idea.
I’m fishing for my sanity – no luck thus far.
Yet, Moonglow Bay is so much more than just a fishing game. It’s a tale of loss, grief, and hope, of community and restoration, of building relationships and keeping promises, of making new memories and treasuring old ones.
Immediately off the bat, the game asks you to choose who you wish to play as, what you wish to be called, your pronouns as well as the identity of your partner. The fact I could choose they/them as my pronouns and the fact I was not restricted in choosing the opposite gender partner to that of my player character, brought a massive smile to my face. Representation is important and the developers of Moonglow Bay, Bunnyhug, have clearly thought about it – with the pronouns you choose being used throughout the game, rather than as a one-off thing.
TFW I’m better at cooking in a fictional game than IRL
Personally, I want everyone to play this game – available on PC and Xbox, but I know not everyone has the time nor access to their system of choice, so I’m going to talk a bit more in-depth here about the game. There may be spoilers ahead, so if you want to remain wholly blind going into this game then uh… close this tab immediately?
Anyone still here? Let’s chat.
Based in the seaside town of Moonglow Bay on the Eastern Canadian shoreline in the 1980’s, your character (whether you’ve called them an actual name like I did or called them Sir Bootylicious) and their partner (Robin, in my game!) are learning to fish. Your partner talks about their dream of settling down in the bay and setting up a business selling various meals made from the wide variety of local fish in the area. They give you a present to celebrate the pair of you starting this new milestone and you promise to open it when they get back from their fishing trip tomorrow night.
Sadly, they never come home.
The developers are hilarious. Also, this guy will forever be called Dave.
Three years pass and you’re living alone, comforted by your ramen and your precious pup Waffles (and yes, you can always pet the dog). Your daughter, River, drags you out the house to go fishing and to show you how run-down Moonglow Bay has become. Trash on the beach, brickwork crumbling, homes and businesses boarded up – the town is fading away. As the town fades, so does your lost partner’s dream. So, what will you do about it? Roll up your sleeves, get fishing and restore the bay to its former glory through the power of your bloody brilliant cooking skills.
As you explore the bay, catching all kinds of sea creatures and cooking them up into delectable dishes, you begin to rejuvenate the town and unravel some of the truths behind the various superstitions that seem to haunt the bay. Tales of monsters in the deep, creatures that destroy ships and terrorise sailors, rumours that have only grown stronger as the fishing industry dwindled during your grief. As you move forward with fulfilling your lost partner’s dream and pour your heart and soul into the town you both loved, you find mysteries and secrets that intrigue you, monstrous creatures that send other anglers running in fear and a trail of breadcrumbs that might give you a way to soothe the raging void in your heart where your partner once resided.
Thankfully, our ship is not called the Titanic.
Each chapter of this story finds you facing off against massive creatures of the deep and you need to quell their rage before anyone gets hurt. Yet, these monsters aren’t out for revenge. They’re just creatures in need of help, much like the player is. Much like the town of Moonglow Bay. Maybe, just maybe, helping these wounded creatures will help you start to heal the gaping wound in your heart.
Anyways, please try this game. It has a heartfelt storyline, a beautiful world, fun mechanics, and soothing music. Do it.
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!
I’m not a majorly sporty person. A shocking revelation, I know. For exercise, I tend to avoid any form of running, which includes team sports. The only sport I really enjoy watching is rugby, which is most likely a biproduct of my upbringing and my university years in Cardiff. Badminton and football, however, are the two sports that I love playing. Badminton was a sport that I didn’t come across until my GCSE years, where it became my Sunday activity of choice. My friend Crystal and I became a formidable duo, combining the skilful shots that sent our opponents running from one side of the court to the other, with my brutal spikes that more often than not were too fast for opponents to catch in time.
Meanwhile I’ve played football on and off for about eight years of my life. It all started during primary school, when I used to watch my sister at football practise on a Saturday morning and was desperate to join in. So, when I was old enough, I joined the junior team and adored it. When we moved to a new house, I found another team to join and became their main goalkeeper. Although I hadn’t hit my growth spurt yet and a lot of the boys were uncertain about kicking a ball at a girl, I wouldn’t let anything stand between me and saving a goal, which in hindsight did lead to quite a few head injuries.
A more recent addiction of mine.
Sports games such as FIFA, Madden, and the NBA games, have never appealed to me. I can see the enjoyment in the multiplayer modes, as our more competitive instincts make themselves known. The closest that I got to sports games were the likes of Go Vacation or Wii Sports/Resort. However, there is one popular e-sport game that I thoroughly enjoy – Rocket League. Who knew combining football with cars would be a good idea (apart from 90% of the primary school kids that I teach). If you follow me on Xbox (TheCaitlinRC), then you’d see how frequently I’ve been playing over the last month or so.
For anyone that has been living under a rock for the last few years, let me give you a quick lowdown of what it’s all about. Though there isn’t that much to explain. You drive a car into a giant football and try to get it into the opposing team’s goal. Fairly simple. Though like many sports, there’s a great deal of strategy and trial and error that goes into being successful at the game. For example, I’m better at offensive play, such as scoring goals and putting the pressure on the opposing team’s defence. Meanwhile, my friend TheRupertLitterbin (who provided the screenshots for this article), is a great defensive player. He has saved many a goal with some dramatic moves that I’m sure will be made into a musical one day.
Sheer art, if I Steen so myself.
With each match having a five-minute time limit, a losing team can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat within the last minute of the game. Ten seconds can be the difference between victory and loss. Though if you’re playing against our lord and saviours the Steens, you should accept the loss with grace and humility. Nobody will understand that reference, but I still find it funny, nonetheless. Who knew that inside jokes were such a delight?
The matches are remarkably addictive. You keep saying, just one more but then it’s 3am and you’ve been playing for seven hours. Not that I’ve ever done that or anything. I think a large part of that addictiveness comes from the rush of emotions when you score a goal or perform an epic save. As most people know, when you complete a task or do something that you associate with “excitement” or “achievement”, your body releases neurotransmitters to act as rewards. The adrenaline coursing through you during the moment is buffed by the dopamine rush released when you achieve your goal.
Personally, a lot of the adrenaline rushes and dopamine spikes are closely tied to my childhood memories of being a goalkeeper. In fact, I’m sat writing this at my desk at home, where I have a few football trophies on my bookshelf nearby. The rush of being all that stands between a win and a loss, is exhilarating and I think Rocket League captures that essence quite well. Plus, there’s something very gratifying in charging into your opponents at high speeds and annihilating them. What can I say, I’m a simple soul.
Anyways, that’s all I really have to say about Rocket League. I’d like to apologise that my articles recently have been so short and sporadically released in comparison to 2019’s schedule, but motivation has been a real problem for me during the lockdown. However, I’m slowly getting back into it so leave your suggestions for future articles in the comments or message me on Twitter, @OurMindGames!
Now that we are in the new decade, everyone is looking towards
the new console generations and new instalments to long running franchises.
Here at Mind Games, I am more focused on just trying to pass my degree. I don’t
tend to play the latest games or the big releases the moment that they come
out, partly because I’m usually busy working on a coursework and partly because
I like to wait for the price to drop before I buy (#Student Life).
So, when I’m looking for a new game to play, I tend to trawl the online stores looking for weird and whacky games that pique my curiosity. This is how I came across West of Loathing a few years back. As seen with the popularity of the Red Dead Redemption series, games set in the Wild West tend to draw a big audience. Ironically, the fascination with cowboys fizzles out quickly when you investigate their history and realise their lives were nowhere near the dramatic, high-stakes action that the media portray them as.
Check the bookshelf several times. Trust me.
I’m not going to spoil any of the plot as despite it being a
slapstick comedy game, the storyline is quite intriguing, especially when you
start to branch off and explore the side-quests that open as the game
progresses. Plus, it’s always more fun to experience the jokes first-hand.
An RPG, set in a Wild West world, featuring turn-based combat and a series of odd side quests alongside the main story? Sounds like most RPG’s, so what makes this one different? Well, first things first, the art style is simplistic – so much so that it’s a series of stickmen, wearing goofy hats and hurling snakes at their enemies. I love it. It’s a satirical look at most RPG’s, from choosing classes, to levelling up skills and solving puzzles with non-sensical items.
Always practise safe TNT storage kids.
The moment you open the game, it grips you with its sense of
humour. Most of the hours that I have sunk into this game, I have spent with a
massive grin on my face. Instead of choosing from the traditional “Fighter, Magic
User or Rogue” class archetypes, you have the choice of “Cow Puncher, Bean
Slinger or Snake Oiler”. Which serve essentially the same functions but are a
hundred times more hilarious to play as. Why wouldn’t you want to carry around
a briefcase full of snakes and throw them into people’s faces?
Skills and traits are upgraded using experience points, but you can also discover new abilities by reading books (like the nerd you are) or meeting certain criteria. Want to increase your defence? Walk into cacti until your skin is mostly scabs. Want better resistance to heat, stench and cold damage? Stick your hand into various disgusting spittoons scattered around the west to permanently taint your hand with the remnants of other people’s spit. Delightful.
Hmm. Nothing seems abnormal here.
From busting ghosts and getting spooked by the ever present “Boo’s”
in the DLC, to facing down the demon clowns leader and trying not to wet
yourself when he throws knives at you in the main game, West of Loathing has so
much content that it’s impossible to find everything on just one playthrough.
Your choice of class, partner and even a few plot crucial decisions will set
you down unique paths filled with hilarity, unique encounters and EVEN MORE
SPITOONS. Word of warning though, the game will heavily judge you for digging
around the insides of these metal cesspools.
The writing in this game is excellent. Every line of dialogue, every action and every item description has had careful thought put into it. The passion the developers at Asymmetric Publications have for their game is clear to see and is a joy to experience first-hand. They are keenly aware of some of the pitfalls that games can fall into as well as common tropes and clichés that many developers put into their works and manage to tackle these with a sense of humour. Any references to other game series or media franchises, are done with care and subtlety, rather than beating you over the head with them (or a cow bone).
I relate to the guy on the left.
More than anything, I love this game because it makes me laugh. A genuine, full body laugh that hurts your chest after a while. Mental health issues and stressful times means that I don’t get to laugh like that as much as I should. Depression especially tends to sap the humour and joy out of things that would normally elicit laughter from us, replacing it with numbness and general lethargy. It’s something that I have combatted for many years, yet this is the first game that I’ve come across that can consistently bring a genuine smile to my face. Not a fake smile to avoid worrying others or a half-hearted smile to try and fit in, a genuine grin. It’s a refreshing sensation after so many years of monotony when it comes to humour.
That sign can’t stop me cause I can’t read.
Anyways, I’ve got a final-year project to work on and a production to prepare for so I’m going to end this week’s article here and I’ll be back soon! I’ve sent in an application for a press pass at EGX Rezzed in late March, so hopefully we get it and I’ll be able to provide more awesome content for you all at my favourite convention!
As we have covered many times over
the last year, I am not a fan of horror games. Any enjoyment that could be
derived from being scared, is ruined by the paralysing anxiety that accompanies
it. I tend to avoid any and all horror like the plague – better than safe than
sorry. However, when it comes to psychological horror, I’m a bit more open
minded. Psychology has always fascinated me. People often like to joke that those
who like to study the inner workings of the human psyche, are either wanting to
understand the “unstable” or are “unstable” themselves. Obviously, it’s a whole
load of rubbish but there is a grain of truth in there.
Humanity, as a species, strives to
understand what we often deem impossible to comprehend. We quantify and label,
document and test everything and anything we can get our grubby little hands
on. There’s so much we know about the world around us yet so little we
understand about how our own minds work. With words alone, we can change a
crowd into a mob, start a rebellion, incite cruelty and bring joy to those who
seek it. I’ve never been good at understanding emotions, particularly my own.
Anger, hatred and cruelty are all foreign concepts to me.
So, when a game claims to be a psychological horror, I am curious as to what hidden truths it will strive to extract from the gold mine that is the human mind.
Stories Untold, is one such game. Presented
as a four-part episodic experience in the style of old school text adventure
games, it weaves such an intricate web that when the finale arrives, it knocks you
flat on your back and holds you there – controlling every rise and fall of your
chest. Even when you know what is coming, repeat playthroughs allow you to
notice every subtle link and minute detail that builds such a vivid picture in
your mind, it’s as if you are standing there, watching it all unfold in front of
your eyes but are powerless to do anything to stop it. I love it.
Now, if you haven’t played it and want to do so without any spoilers – stop reading now, go play it and then come back with the experience fresh in my mind. Do come back though, I’ll be lonely otherwise. For those of you who are still reading, lets talk spoilers. The first three chapters each seem to have their own standalone story, meanwhile the final chapter links all of them together. I’m going to talk about each chapter in turn. The four chapters are titled – The House Abandon, The Lab Conduct, The Station Process and The Last Session.
Don’t pick up the phone. You never know who is on the other end.
The first episode, The House
Abandon, follows the more traditional style of text adventures. You, the player,
drive up to your family’s holiday home. After starting up the generator and
unlocking the front door, you’re given the chance to explore the building –
reminiscing about your childhood and the fond memories that the old walls hold.
Eventually, you find your way to your bedroom and find your old computer – that
your father dug out of the attic, along with a copy of a very familiar game, the
House Abandon. Upon booting up the game, the power goes out. When everything
flickers back to life, it’s all changed. The welcoming house becomes filled
with stains, broken windows, dead carcasses and ominous writing on the walls. Instead
of a kind note from your father, the note in your hand spits cruel, terrifying
and hateful messages – to the point where it seems to burn into the palm of
your hand.
A phone rings, breaking the uneasy silence that you have fallen into. You hear breathing down the phone and soon you realise that you are not alone anymore. Creaking floorboards, flickering lights and blaring alarms all echo around you, as if the house you are sat in, playing the game, is the same one as in the game itself… You struggle to distinguish between the actions of your player exploring the house and those of the individual sat controlling those movements. Negative emotions and memories pour out of the protagonist like a tidal wave, culminating in the door behind you creaking open. The computer accuses you of an unknown crime, demanding that you admit that it was all your fault. It barrages you with insults, hurling abuse until you at last type the words “It was all my fault”. It’s response? “Finally.”
Not an ominous setup at all.
In The Lab Conduct, you play as Mr
Aition – a volunteer who has agreed to take part in a series of experiments
conducted by Dr Daniel Alexander. These experiments are performed upon an
object called “artefact 23”, which was recovered from a crash site for further
study. Locked in the isolated laboratory, you use various machines such as an
X-Ray, sound wave generators and high-powered lasers on the object. At first
glance, the artefact appears to be an animal heart of some kind, whose
heartbeat we restart. However, upon exposure to extreme frequency sound waves,
it explodes and reveals a metallic sphere.
As a child, you’re always told not to stare at the sun, or it’ll hurt your eyes. Well, in Stories Untold, don’t stare at the hovering metallic sphere or it’ll knock you over, draw some blood and “connect” you to its inner core. You know, just normal things. Once connected, you walk through the spheres memories – reliving the crash, reaching out to a silhouette for help and waking up in a hospital bed, covered in wires and recovering from a torture session. When you pull out the wires, an alarm goes off. You, Mr Aition, hear that alarm as well. Yet again, the events seem to be occurring at the same time. Once you instruct the creature to leave their room, Dr Alexander recognises that you are causing this and begs for you to stop. Yet, you do not stop. You release all the spheres. They converge on you and as the world fades from around you, the last words of Dr Alexander ring in your ears – “Someday Mr Aition, this will haunt you.”
Don’t go out in the snow alone. People don’t come back.
The Station Process is a chapter
that leans into the love of puzzle-solving that echoes in the hearts of most
gamers. Using a microfilm reader with a guide on it, you, only known as “James”,
must decrypt a series of signals and submit the correct code in order to pass
on the relevant messages. The puzzles involve decrypting Morse Code, observing
patterns and adjusting frequencies. Nerd that I am, I adore them. After all,
what’s the point of studying Computer Science if you can’t show off your
understanding everything occasionally? As you complete the puzzles, your fellow
communication tower operators talk about something coming, attacking supply
teams and ripping entire cabins out of the earth.
One of the signals you intercept is a distress signal that details how the rest of the world has been collapsed by the creatures that now stalk the mountain range that your cabins are situated on. They beg you to lock your doors and stay inside, but fate has other plans for you. When the main transmitter is knocked out of place, it’s your job to go fix it. When you’ve done so, you hear the voice of Station 2, a kind female voice, seemingly going into shock – unable to feel her legs and just wanting to rest. You can’t help her; you can’t help anyone. When you finally get back to the cabin, it’s not the one you left. It’s the bedroom from The House Abandon.
One of these things is not like the other, one of these things does not belong.
Clearly, there’s an overarching
plot between these episodes. These lingering threads are all pulled together in
The Last Session. As the opening credits play, they pause and pull back to
reveal that you’ve been watching a TV show. Your character, James Aition, is
wheeled by Dr Alexander into an empty room with a cassette recorder and
prompted to try and recover the memories of what happened before he arrived in
hospital. It is revealed that you were involved in a nasty car accident and had
been in a coma for two weeks prior to the events of the game. Your last three
attempts at recalling the accident had ended in panic, with the truth being
mixed in with fantasy such that you couldn’t tell which was which.
The game proceeds to take you through the previous chapters. You return to the communication tower and examine the microfilm – which now displays a police report about the traffic accident you were in. Your sister, Jennifer, was trapped and critically injured and the other driver was found dead, with an empty bottle of whisky in his hand and stinking of alcohol. However, upon solving a puzzle, you hear a testimony of a friend of said driver, claiming that the guy had never spoken about alcohol before and would never imbibe like that – especially considering he was a former police officer. He accuses James of foul play.
Never been a fan of hospitals. Don’t think I ever will be.
We burst into the emergency room,
to James’s heart stopping on the gurney and a haemorrhage threatening to destroy
any chances of resuscitating him. Upon the doctor’s orders, you restart your
own heart and drill into your skull – saving your life. As the drill
approaches, you startle awake in the computer desk from The House Abandon. It
details a leaving party being hosted by your family, to celebrate James going
travelling with his friends abroad for several months in the new year. After
having a few drinks and being gifted a nice bottle of whisky from his dad,
Jennifer asks James whether he can give her a lift home. Unfortunately, you can’t
say no to this choice (trust me, I tried).
As you stagger to the car, forget to take the handbrake off the car and drive faster than is safe, even when sober – Jennifer slowly realises that James is drunk. She begs him to slow down, to pull over, to just stop, but he does not listen. He goes faster, eventually crashing directly into oncoming traffic. When he awakens, he drags himself out of the car – leaving his sister in the burning wreckage. Terrified of going to jail and wrecking his reputation, James decides to frame the other driver by pouring alcohol on him, removing his fingerprints from the bottle and planting it in the dead driver’s car. When the police arrive, James collapses from his injuries and wakes up in the hospital room with Dr Alexander. The doctor takes James back to the TV room, stating that he will report what James said to the police.
Sometimes telling the truth, is the hardest thing to do.
More than anything, Stories Untold
is about consequences. You must live with the consequences of your actions.
Your choices affect more than just your life. They ripple, like pebbles on a
lake’s surface, spreading further and further out until they form tidal waves that
threaten to consume the lives of so many. In this case, James’s actions caused
the death of his sister, the grief of his family, as well as the death and
attempted framing of an innocent man. His panic at reliving what he had done,
his refusal to accept the horrifying reality of his memories – all these lead
us on this journey through the shattered remains of a young man’s mind.
Anyways, I hope you’ll all think a
little about the stories that you tell and whether they are stories that you’d
want people to hear about or not. If not, make positive changes. I believe in
you. Like, comment and follow the site – both here and on Twitter @OurMindGames
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