Before you continue reading this, take a moment, and look around your room. What do you see? Many of you will see some water containers that you’re procrastinating taking to the sink. Quite a few of you will see the infamous chair full of clothes. What you probably do not see is perhaps, what you’ll leave behind. The little crumbs of your personality scattered meticulously around for an explorer to one day find and piece together, what remains of your story.
This is the exact approach Giant Sparrow’s beautiful 2017 narrative game, What Remains of Edith Finch takes to tell its unfortunate story.
The Finch’s were a very mysterious family with each member holding their own unique personality traits, from the youngest most imaginative child to an old defeated uncle spending the last of his days in a hidden bunker, underneath the household.
Playing through this game I felt as though I lived a portion of each of these individual’s lives. I thought and walked exactly as they would. Yet throughout this game, I never met any of these individuals. For a game about such wonderfully crafted characters, all you really truly see is what they’ve left behind.
Having journeyed through the game I know now that I would’ve probably gotten along well with Lewis. We would’ve talked about his passions and ambitions, there would have been many deep discussions about philosophy and what he deemed to be his calling in life. I know how deeply harrowed he would have felt to leave everything behind and go work as nothing more than a machine, and I know how he was probably at peace, in the world he built for himself, in his imagination.
I also know that Calvin would always inspire me, trying to reach for the highest of hights whenever possible. Molly would have been great to play around with and Gregory would have perhaps grown up to become a masterful writer creating lively characters and breathing worlds, all from his endless imagination.
Yet the question comes down once again, how do I know any of this? I have never met these people. In the context of what we deem the “real world,” these people have actually never existed. They are merely ones and zeroes on a computer screen, flashing lights together to create what my eyes deem to be an animation.
This is where I want to allude to the amazing power of video games to weave these narrative worlds that you can truly explore at your own pace. On the surface level, What Remains of Edith Finch, and many games similar to this are merely just a collection of stories.
Say you acquire a deck of cards, but instead of each card containing a number, it contains a story. You place all the cards facedown and slowly pick each up and read the given text. You would find this a very difficult and inconvenient method of storytelling, but now, imagine if this were a magical deck of cards, telling you stories that were all based on real events and teleporting you, with each card, to the location of the story. That is exactly what this game does, slowly describing to you the events that took place, by simply showing you, what remains.
Perhaps this is exactly how our stories will unfold to unknown explorers. The rooms that we reside in, the workplaces we visit and in these trying times, the words we write down and record. Its games and stories like these that truly reminds us of the temporary nature of life. In its fleeting moments, all we really have is what remains.
For all those looking to play something that will help them feel more human, or perhaps wanting to remember someone from their own past, please give this game the attention it truly deserves. For all those that have already journeyed through the finch household, perhaps you will share the same sentiment as me, the finches may have moved on, but they’ve given me a very wonderful lesson. I wish to leave behind as much of me as I can so that maybe one day someone will scurry through my remains and be inspired to create more wonderful things such as this game.
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