Tag Archives: Emotional

“Deliver Us Mars” Review: Grim but Emotional

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Deliver Us Mars poster, showing a space suited Kathy Johanssen climbing a precarious Martian cliff using pickaxes.

Deliver Us Mars is an interactive fiction game developed by KeokeN Interactive. While some consider it an adventure puzzle game, Deliver Us Mars focuses on story over puzzles and mechanics.  

Deliver Us Mars follows on from the prequel, Deliver Us the Moon. Earth’s resources are exhausted and its environment is rapidly degrading. You play the teenage Kathy Johannson as she travels to Mars with her crew. They want to find the three ARK ships that fled the moon in the prequel, then use the ARKs’ technology to fix Earth.

Mechanically, Deliver Us Mars shifts between three modes. The first is engine-rendered cut scenes, where the game tells much of its story. Deliver Us Mars shows off the facial animation features of the Unreal engine, not to mention the animators’ skills.

The second is exploration, walking or travelling around near linear maps. You often find objects to scan or read that flesh out the world. This is natural to those familiar with RPGs and adventure games. However, finding them all will likely require multiple playthroughs.

The third is mini-games. Some mini-games require traversal, including climbing or driving a rover across the Martian surface. The climbing mechanics are designed well, requiring coordination to survive palm-sweating moments. Some mini-games are puzzles, like using energy beams to power doors or machinery. 

The mini-games are mostly easy, although their controls or intended results are sometimes unclear. Most have an additional achievement for fast or exceptional completion, yet another reason for subsequent playthroughs.

Mini-games and exploration are also not the game’s central focus. They supplement and reinforce the story. Instead, the success of a game like Deliver Us Mars relies on the quality of the storytelling and the characters. Thankfully, the game delivers.

For example, Deliver Us Mars periodically revisits Kathy’s youth. These flashbacks are initially tutorials, such as swimming teaching how to manoeuvre in zero gravity. They momentarily break the tension, reminding the player of less stressful times in Kathy’s life. 

However, later flashbacks exacerbate the tension and add context. For example, the game hints at the death of Isaac’s wife and Kathy’s mother early. However, the game delays the event to maximize the emotional impact. 

Deliver Us Mars also uses subtle analogies, such as Kathy’s home on Earth. It represents the family dynamic and Earth’s perilous state. Initially, it is inviting with a warm sun and a loving, successful family, albeit with subtle hints of external unrest. As flashbacks recur, disagreements boil over, and dust storms darken the sky. Eventually, a storm destroys the house while Isaac, the father, must leave Kathy in the hands of Claire, her sister. It then gets worse.

Deliver Us Mars is pessimistic. Superficially, it is about how humanity’s talent for internal conflict often sabotages our best efforts. It examines how decision-makers can lose context and grounding, succumbing to revenge, narcissism or paranoia. It highlights the unreconcilable sacrifices some make. Even the worst climate prediction models do not show the Earth becoming inhospitable in the game’s timeframe. 

The character of Kathy Johannson is one exception. The first flashback shows her irresponsible playfulness as she swims with her new and not waterproof moonbear toy. She grows over the game, watching the mantle of responsibility pass from her father to her sister and finally to herself. When Isaac first sees Kathy on Mars, he remarks how she has grown, and this is not just physically. Players presume and impose a default heroism on her, and she does not disappoint.

Delver Us Mars hinges on the emotional connection between Kathy and Isaac. Like in Deliver Us the Moon, Kathy and Isaac show how family and close relationships often motivate us the most. A single word from Isaac, “moonbear”, is enough to spur Kathy onward. The love of his daughter also inspires Isaac when all seems lost.

Isaac Johannson is initially sympathetic, torn between duties as a father and saving Earth. However, unlike Kathy, Isaac plays a tragic role. Time will tell whether Kathy or Isaac represent modern-day governments trying to appease their citizens while protecting the environment. 

It may be my inherent optimism, but Deliver Us Mars is more about not running away from problems. Like the sacrifices people make. Like the relationship between Kathy and Isaac. Like the environmental problems on Earth.

Even when things seem grim, there is always time and more opportunities. This is a pre-apocalyptic setting, not a post-apocalyptic one, and there is still a chance to prevent it. Deliver Us Mars believes that human ingenuity and hard work can solve significant issues.

Aesthetically, Delver Us Mars is influenced by near-future science fiction like Gravity, Interstellar, Ad Astra or 2001: A Space Odyssey. Most technology is slightly ahead of our own, making the game relatable. Some models are superb, particularly the detail in the crashed ARK Lados. The blue Mars sunset is also realistic.

However, Deliver Us Mars skims over many dangers of living on Mars. Its dust is abrasive and toxic. It receives more radiation than Earth. However, I suspect the game designers wanted space or the hostile, desolate Martian environment for spectacle and impact. A game set in safe but sterile metal corridors would quickly feel dull and mundane.

Playing Deliver Us The Moon first is recommended. Like the flashbacks, the prequel adds gravitas and emotional context. For example, Deliver Us Mars almost ignores Sarah Baker, the expedition leader. Appreciating Sarah’s importance and perspective from her small part in Deliver Us Mars is difficult.

While the realistic graphics are gorgeous, they are sometimes inconsistent. It is a minor criticism, but little things can break immersion, like a buggy not leaving tire tracks or the sprite-based thrust from a manoeuvring spacecraft. Higher resolutions are unkind to some of the models and textures. Stylized graphics like cell-shading may have been a better choice. It would have simplified the art and given better cohesion.

Deliver Us Mars is about the right length at about ten hours to complete, more if you want to get all the achievements. It is darker than its prequel but worth it for science fiction or interactive fiction game fans. Hopefully, KeokeN has a sequel planned to continue or conclude the story.

“The Unfinished Swan” Review: Painting with Heart

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A monochrome frog in a swamp looking overlooking the title "The Unfinished Swan".

The Unfinished Swan is a first-person exploration and traversal game developed by Giant Sparrow, the same developer that created What Remains of Edith Finch. The Unfinished Swan is not new, having released in 2012 on PlayStation 3 and then on PC in 2020, but I only now got around to playing it.

You play as Monroe, a newly orphaned boy, inheriting from his mother a single painting depicting an unfinished swan. One night the swan leaps out of the painting. Monroe follows it, embarking on a magical journey through a surreal, dream-like world.

The Unfinished Swan‘s world is initially wholly white. However, Monroe can hurl paint drops onto it, revealing details like walls and furniture. The game’s world is a blank canvas that only solidifies when painted. For example, what was formless white is suddenly a black frog that leaps into a nearby pond.

As the game progresses, it introduces new mechanics, such as the physics-defying, AntiChamber-like puzzles; buttons and levers to activate ladders and bridges; or hurling water to encourage the growth of climbable vines. You can also find hidden balloons that unlock upgrades and additional material.

The game slowly reveals a fairytale-like story through narration, about or from the world’s prodigious but eccentric king, and storyboards, complete with child-friendly line art. The music is also ethereal, consisting of glockenspiels and light strings, reminiscent of Tchaikovsky’s Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.

Thematically, The Unfinished Swan views grief and impermanence through a child’s imagination. The normally mischievous act of splattering paint allows Monroe to find certainty, meaning and agency where there is none. The shared act of painting links Monroe with his mother. Metaphors have power.

The Unfinished Swan is also moving because, by seeing the world through Monroe’s eyes, we can experience things both superficially, as he does, and with an adult’s experience and context. Implication and inference also have power.

Despite its age, The Unfinished Swan still holds its own as novel and thought-provoking. It is short, taking under four hours to complete, and wraps up its story positively but with restraint. Those looking for something contemplative and unusual will enjoy it.

“Spiritfarer” Review

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Spiritfarer is a game about dying masquerading as a disarmingly upbeat casual crafting simulation, like Stardew Valley or a less social Animal Crossing. It examines the emotional and social impact, a much rarer and more delicate topic than the usual in-game failure state that dying represents.

You play as Stella, the ever-smiling replacement for Charon, the Greek mythological figure who ferries newly departed “spirits” to their final ending. Stella and Daffodil, her feline companion and the avatar for optional cooperative play, travel between islands in their ship, finding spirits that need shepherding toward their last moments.

Each spirit has different needs, such as unique accommodation or favourite food, and introduces a minigame. Most of the gameplay revolves around Stella gathering word or ore, fishing or growing food, then processing these into ship upgrades or food. Exploration plays a part, both finding islands and navigating them, with light platforming puzzles.

Spiritfarer depicts spirits as animals, creating caricatures and personifications of their personalities and achievements. A picky and aloof art curator becomes a bird. A selfless housewife and mother becomes a cuddly hedgehog.

Each spirit spends their time with Stella to reminisce and work through final regrets, sometimes successfully and sometimes not. Much is implied, such as via quest names, leaving interpretation to the player. However, it also precludes judgement.

Spiritfarer’s music does a lot of emotional heavy lifting and context setting. Most pieces use soft, ethereal piano and flutes with support from the rest of the orchestra. The soundtrack is sometimes solemn, sometimes playful, sometimes mournful, and sometimes hopeful. It is almost as if the orchestra assembled to let each instrument remember its favourite motifs, inviting reflection and introspection.

The simple, clean, watercolor art style counterbalances the heavy themes and emotive music, preventing them from overwhelming the player. Some animations are absurdly funny, like the wide-eyed trepidation of a sheep about to be sheered or a hummingbird carrying a water buffalo. The writing also has some cheeky humour, like enjoying “fakinhage” for breakfast.

Spiritfarer’s setting is highly metaphorical. Stella travels an astral sea that bridges the nebulous time and distance between islands of memories. Her experiences, represented as awkwardly shaped and increasingly precarious buildings on her ship, accumulate in unique ways for each player, creating comforting chaos. The expensive baubles coveted in life, such as jewellery or art, are sold off as trash and replaced by items of emotional significance

Spiritfarer has a day and night cycle that initially feels like an artificial constraint around navigation, crafting and building. However, it soon recedes into something benign and dharmic. Like the seemingly self-absorbed other inhabitants, the world continues, oblivious to the gravity of the spirits’ final moments.

Spiritfarer shares a few similar themes with the movie Nomadland. Both deal with grief and the twilight of people’s lives. One’s taste and emotional state determine whether they are cathartic, triggering or introspective.

As for criticisms, Spiritfarer’s travel, resource gathering, and crafting can be repetitive. While these are non-challenging, meditative and provide recovery time between the weighty, emotional storytelling moments, Spiritfarer could be just as thematically effective with less busywork. It may expand the audience of the game, too.

Like Gwen’s or Astrid’s surprise when getting hugged, key animations are more impactful if not overused. Repeating these actions daily to increase a happiness score reduces them to something mechanical. Less may be more.

However, I applaud Spiritfarer’s heartfelt and restrained approach to a serious and sensitive topic. As each spirit departs, they leave behind an empty dwelling and a constellation, testaments to who they were. Hopefully, Spiritfarer will also remain. “After the artist has been long gone, turned to dust, the art remains,” as one spirit says. The game’s message is one of hope, allowing everyone to be at peace with themselves, leave a legacy and have sympathetic company at the final goodbye.

Like Nomadland, Spiritfarer is not always fun. Spiritfarer’s heavy themes and introspection will repel some, particularly those initially entranced with its casual gameplay and cartoony graphics. However, Spiritfarer demonstrates the power of games as a medium. The player is involved and not just a passive observer of the mundane but powerful acts of supporting and listening. Spiritfarer takes 30 to 40 hours to play and is worth it for players looking for something emotionally powerful or introspective.