They lived many years together sharing a selfless deep love for each other and a spiritual way of life.īut time marches on, and years pass, and life could no longer hold Rose. Instead of stripping the soil, pumping fertilizers, and killing the insects, she embraced a sustainable approach along with Rose’s keen intuition. Rose was a joyful person, ‘filled to the brim with uncontainable life’, and this loving and enriched partnership healed Summer’s poisoned body and resentment towards her past.Īs her cancer went into remission, Summer sold everything to buy a quaint home with Rose and take up biodynamic farming, where she learned to ‘listen to the plants’ and develop a universal love for all life, inner peace, and balance. It seemed the only thing that would heal Summer was the unbound love of another. Summer’s life changed when she met Rose, Stella’s aunt. Summer left the accursed town and greedy corporations, in search of clarity and healing. Unfortunately, the heavy use of unregulated chemicals in her agriculture profession caused her to develop breast cancer. She excelled in her profession, and with the use of GMOs and heavy chemicals, delivered swaths of produce on enormous parcels of land. She became an agronomic engineer and was hired immediately by a large farming corporation. Summer’s childhood was spent on a midwest farm under strict parents. The reason I picked these two spirits is that there are general positive feelings toward Summer and negative for Bruce and Mickey, which is important when writing about death. There is not a lot of information on the surface of Spiritfarer, and the player must have many conversations and pay attention to the little things such as likes and dislikes, house decor, interactions with other spirits, and their Spirit Flower type. To get into these difficult narratives, I will be doing a character analysis on two spirits.

Very little is revealed about Stella from the start, but we do find out she is a hospice nurse with a connection to each spirit, whether family, friend, or teacher.

And I will admit Stella was one of the few ‘voiceless protagonists’ that I enjoyed. Strangely, each story felt oddly familiar and painfully touching. I did not expect Spiritfarer to have such a profound emotional impact. So what do I define as a difficult narrative? Few games talk about death as a central subject and generally, it’s a topic that causes discomfort, especially thoughts of a loved one’s death or reflecting on our own mortality. Please note that the remainder of this story also discusses suicide. Ahoy, there are spoilers for Spiritfarer ahead. Systems such as Unity and crowdfunding have made this possible. Video games are also cheaper and easier to produce than in the past. Games now appeal to many cultures, genders, and ages, as well as an emerging ‘indie’ crowd who enjoy the relaxing and calming gameplay of smaller titles. Nick Gieren brings up the diverse audience of gamers that didn’t exist 20–30 years ago. By trying to reach a ‘core’ gamer group, developers are restrained in narratives, mechanics, and ‘catch-all’ gameplay in order to hit monetary targets. Indie games are a shift away from the ‘core audience’ of gamers that Nick defines as the AAA crowd that focuses on ‘occidental males between 14–21’. We grew up playing games in the 80s and 90s, some of us are entering our 40s and even have kids. The deep discussions and exciting nostalgia are usually with gamers my age that are in their 30s. People who identify as ‘gamers’ are getting older, and as much as I hate to admit it, it’s true. In a recent interview on Origin Stories Podcast, Nick Gieren, the creative director behind Spiritfarer, discussed his opinions on the shift in the industry. Spiritfarer’s theme centers around hospice care, death, and the afterlife, themes rarely touched in video games. Challenging narratives for changing audiences The pastel palate opens your imagination to far-off places, untouched by human hands. Stunning backdrops of the Japanese countryside feel like freshly painted watercolors and have a calming and serene effect. The art style has a mystical Studio Ghibli feel, inspired by painters Hiroshi Yoshida and Hayao Miyazaki. And as in most sim games, we build relationships with characters and perform tasks for them. This game also includes light platforming across the backs of dragons, and double jumping or gliding through mini-games. The sim aspects include farming, cooking, fishing, mining, smelting, and general resource gathering. ( Note: Daffodil can be played as a second player in splitscreen co-op or online).

You play as Stella along with her cat Daffodil, tasked by Charon to takeover his harrowing duties of accompanying spirits to the Everdoor to pass on. S piritfarer, from Thunder Lotus Games, is described as ‘a cozy management sim about death’.

Summer spiritfarer