Hit X to interact. It’s a pretty common mechanic in many games. Often, I think this is about to let me gift, talk to, or see info about an NPC or just open up a menu for an inanimate object. So, imagine my surprise after hitting X that I was hugging a frog. When I first saw Spiritfarer on a twitch stream, all I saw was a game where you manage different people and their wishes on a big ship. When I first played Spiritfarer, I quickly realized that it was so much more. Sure, the interact button let me gift an item, feed the NPC, talk to them, and check on their mood, but it also let me hug them. In such a simple and refined menu across games and genres, the proximity interact option being a hug instead of an attack, an embrace instead of an exchange, a moment of connection instead of division that, in such a negative and often depressing world, reverses the current and defines interaction as a moment not of usefulness but of presence. It is in Spiritfarer, a game about guiding people to their final resting place in death, that I found a glimpse of hope and joy in an increasingly negative world.
