2/4/2023 0 Comments Xp potion spiritfarer(Look, the comparisons are there don’t blame me that two of 2020’s best games were inspired by Greek mythology.) It’s a straightforward premise, but from a design perspective, it presents an intriguing challenge: how do you get the player to actively participate in straight-up evaporating the people they’ve come to care about? In this iteration, the River Styx (here a vast ocean) is a purgatory for shades who need their final wishes fulfilled before the Spiritfarer can send them through the Everdoor and into the void, presumably to hang out with a version of Hades who’s a lot less Problematic Zaddy and a lot more Spooky Smoke Owl than his Supergiant variant. But they’re not on their way to a colorful Hades to cheer on Zagreus as he kicks Theseus’s teeth in. The player character, Stella, arrives in the afterlife to take over Spiritfarer Charon’s job of ferrying the souls of the dead. It’s no great stretch of the imagination to see how a story like that would be an emotional experience for the audience, but we’re talking about a game here, one with many of the trappings of your Stardew Valleys and your Animals Crossings. As soon as you’re introduced to the game’s premise, you’re forced to reckon with what you’re being asked to do: help your friends die. After all, most games promise a feeling of progress to the player, a promise that, as more time is invested in the game, more abilities and opportunities to use them will be unlocked. Games as a medium seem particularly ill-suited for the task, at least at face value. The 2020 indie darling Spiritfarer isn’t the first game to tackle a theme like grief, but few games–heck, few stories in general–can say they’re about grief in nearly the same way.
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