RWP: What Remains of Edith Finch

What Remains of Edith Finch, a first-person exploration game developed by Giant Sparrow and published by Annapurna Interactive, was an incredibly immersive, and as a result quite chilling experience for me. There were several aspects of the game that made it feel as such that I noticed while playing, and by the end of the game I was pretty close to being in tears from the empathy I felt for Edith and everyone else in the family. Imparting this feeling of empathy could not have been achieved by the game without the certain elements of it that made it truly feel like I was experiencing these stories of each family member as those people.

One particular aspect that the paper also touched on was the usage of text in an aesthetic rather than a functional way. What stood out to me right off the bat was in the beginning, when Edith’s child opens Edith’s journal and is suddenly taken into it as if he was in Edith’s POV. The text in the journal goes from being shown and read off of the journal pages to being displayed as text embedded in the environment. This design decision made the texts feel as though they were closer representations of the inner thoughts of Edith, compared to a more traditional style of showing text in RPGs with a dialogue box at the bottom of the screen. As a result, the feeling of immersion isn’t broken and is further reinforced, making you feel as though you are the one having the inner thoughts as the player.

Additionally, the overall format of the game is a huge factor in what makes the telling of the story so immersive. I personally think that it is probably the most engaging and impactful way to tell this story compared to other mediums, given the way that games give you a sense of agency. In a medium such as film, TV, or a novel, stories are told in a way that cannot deviate from the exact way the creator intended to tell it. There may be different ways in which people interpret such a story, but you as the reader or consumer have no personal control (or at least feel like you have personal control) over the story, nor do you feel like you ARE the one in the story. With the game format of What Remains of Edith Finch, it is still true that the story is for the most part already set by the author and you can’t necessarily change anything about the outcome of the story with the power/control you have — however, by giving the player a first person POV of each of the family members and giving them agency over their movements and what they can interact with, the player temporarily embodies the character. As such, by making you feel like you are that character for a moment, you can better empathize with their personal story and their feelings. When you as Gregory drown in the bathtub with the sounds of your parents arguing in the background, you get an incredibly uneasy and chilling feeling because you feel like you are Gregory. Same for Lewis with his imaginary world, and the rest of members of the family.

Overall, with how the game pulled me in and made me experience what felt like first-hand each of the family member’s stories, I had a very memorable and emotional experience playing this game. I really enjoyed it and want to play more walking sim games in the future to experience more stories in this uniquely engaging way.

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Comments

  1. I also liked the presentation of text in the game. i think this game does take advantage of the video game as a medium and use text to its advantage to take it beyond what an interactive fiction or experience could be. I wonder what lessons we can learn from this to apply it to other types of mediums, for example how can we push what audio and graphics and static dialogue can look like?

  2. Hi Jiwon, I appreciate your take on what makes this game so immersive. The delivery of the text and agency this game gives the player definitely does bring something new to the table. Unlike books or movies, I think playing the game and experiencing a story there adds so much depth to the genre of walking stimulators. In the future, I wonder if other companies will adapt to this kind of style and share stories in this way.

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