Generation XX
When isolation makes your game recommendations fly crooked.
Iwas doing OK for the first few weeks of Covid-19 isolation; glad to be teaching from home, helping my younger son with his (rather abominable) spelling, drinking lots of tea. Things got hectic; my older son broke his arm, my day job moved to shaky ground and I gave myself shin splints by jogging too much. Somehow, my fragile peace of mind now entirely depends on whether a guy from work finishes Florence, by Mountains. I know he got to Chapter 8 and I haven’t heard from him since. I can’t quite ask again.
I often say that recommending games to people is my raison d’être. In the absence of other things I love, like Thai food and swimming laps, Covid tested this assertion. It holds up, if a little too well. I think most people can relate to the joy of sharing a favourite song. Your friend listens and likes it, and you feel like someone ‘gets’ you. This is why we made mix tapes in the 80s, right? Sharing a favourite game is riskier. It requires the investment of more time and energy, and (depending on agency), your nominee could play a vastly divergent path.
One person I can generally rely on to play the games I think he’ll like is my friend, Ant Stiller (a genuinely tops bloke - Ed). He played quirky management-sim-of-sorts, Yes, Your Grace, this week, on my suggestion. Imagine my horror when he told me he’d spent 50 gold pieces on a wedding dress for his eldest daughter. I made her wear the smelly old frock the queen found in a closet. Can we still be friends? Yes, but only because he played it right to the end and ‘got’ why I let my youngest daughter keep an ominously dangerous bear cub. He let her keep it, too.
As games go, recommending something small should be less of a liability, especially to non-gamers. I recently noticed Florence on Steam, but it’s fine on mobile, even lying on the couch. Interactivity is light, but evocative; it’s not difficult. My favourite moment occurs when Florence falls off her bike and you have to align audio filters in order to ‘see’ straight. It can also be finished in less than an hour of dragging a brush across your teeth, tapping sushi and shaking Polaroids. I happen to know my friend from work loves photography, too.
Of course, expecting him to finish Florence is hypocritical. My kids spent their home isolation trying to get me into Subnautica and (although I quite like the sound of the game’s environmental storytelling), I haven’t dived in. I overheard them complaining, one night, that I don’t ‘get’ it. Obviously, we can’t just recommend games that appeal to us, we have to know the other person will love them, too. I think about this a lot, as a game reviewer. It’s also why I will always play a game ex-PCPP Editor David Wildgoose recommends to me; he ‘gets’ what I will enjoy.
Having said this, Wildgoose recommended me In Other Waters recently and I haven’t gotten to it yet. It took me a week to get to Delores, the standalone follow-up to Thimbleweed Park (for which I wrote a hint guide that was implemented into the game), given to me (personally) by Ron Gilbert. And, believe it or not, I haven’t actually played to the end of Wildfire, the stealth game by Dan Hindes, for which I composed half an hour of music. Life is busy, but that’s really no excuse. Sharing games is everything.
And, why is it so important that people ‘get’ me right now? It’s possibly because Covid has been extremely divisive. My job is hard to do, but others have lost theirs. My kids are a distraction, but other peoples’ are younger and need even more help with their abominable spelling and broken arms. What might Florence and Krish’s romance have looked like if it had played out in the time of Covid? I find myself desperate to know Alistair-from-work’s opinion. Perhaps his finishing the game would prove that, despite our remoteness, I still ‘get’ people, too.