Virginia is a thriller detective walking simulator developed by Variable State and published by 505 Games. When I refer to plot and story in this post, I refer to the definition put forth by Kristen Thompson and Russian formalist critics. Plot is “the structured set of all causal events as we see and hear presented in the film itself” and the story is the “viewer’s mental construction of the chronology of these events”. Virginia tells an embedded narrative by guiding the player through a series of sparse, tightly bounded spaces and scenes to highlight plot details and create the player’s story.
The scenes in Virginia are heavily restricted and guided, leaving not much room for the player to explore or interact with the world. This brings attention to the few details and things that can be interacted with in each scene. For example, one scene of the game took place entirely in a car. As a player, the only thing I could do was look around the car. Since the cursor changes when the player hovers over something interactable, it was easy to find what the developers wanted me to see in the scene. A side effect of this approach is that the player ends up investigating things without knowing why their POV character in universe, graduate FBI agent Anne Tarver, is investigating that thing.
I found myself confused why Anne was looking through the car of who seemed to be her FBI detective partner. The developers accounted for this, however, and as the scene progressed, there was a forced event later that provided me with an additional clue.
Since there was no possible way for me to miss this event, the developers were tightly able to control the pacing of information and plot reveals to directly guide the story I was forming in my head. I now knew that Anne Tarver was investigating her own FBI partner, Maria Halperin, and was left to wonder why. In a space with looser boundaries and less guidance, it would be possible for players such as myself to miss details and events and not be led to the questions and story the developers desired.
The developers do leave just enough extra details and evidence in rooms for players to form their own story. The choice to have no spoken dialogue leads players to pay more attention to facial expressions and gestures of the characters as well as pay attention to the environment. Normally, in films and other media of the same genre, people pay close attention to what characters say as that provides vital clues to solve the mystery. The developers chose to remove that competing interest for the sake of the game. Like other detective media, there is still a plot to be deduced from clues. For example, when initially booting up the game, I saw Anne and Maria knocking on a door and presenting their FBI certifications. Immediately afterwards, the scene cuts to Maria seemingly consoling a crying woman, as shown in the picture below.
A cursory glance around the room led to me noticing a family portrait on the wall, featuring the crying woman, the man next to her, and an unseen child. From this I was immediately able to begin forming a story in my head despite hearing and reading nothing.
I theorized that something had happened to the son of this family, and Anne was now investigating it as part of her job with the FBI. My suspicions were confirmed in a later scene where a pamphlet mentioning the boy’s disappearance was in scene. This payoff wasn’t immediate since this was a later scene; and it felt rewarding and gratifying to me to have my own story match up with the plot; creating a sense of fun.
The art style of the game is somewhat simple and minimalistic, and there isn’t a lot of extra details or other objects in most scenes, allowing the developers to easily highlight and showcase the clues they want the player to notice. For example, in their son’s room, the only thing of note is a camera; which told me that the son was a cameraman of sorts when later combined with the darkroom found in the closet of the room.
The tight control of the narrative and pacing allow the developers to present the details of the mystery at the perfect times and moments for the narrative of the game. The player ends up strung along by the psychological need for information and the desire to find out what is happening in the story and get their questions solved, which leads to increased attention to the environment and the characters. This makes players more cognizant of the embedded narrative and ultimately leads to fun as players are able to piece things together and confirm their story against the actual plot.
