Generation XX
Not less travelled, just waiting to be explored.
Last edition, I played The Curious Expedition 2 and The Oregon Trail, and enjoyed them, but was ultimately left feeling quite empty. I wanted to respond by trying to fill a kind of historical, indigenous-perspective-sized hole, but then I found When Rivers Were Trails. It’s not filling a hole. It’s overflowing; a beautiful experience, entirely in and of itself. Beautiful, but sad. It tells the story of (forcibly) displaced people in late 19th century America, and shares its cultural wisdom very generously, featuring the work of more than thirty indigenous creators.
The game begins by allowing you to choose from four clans, including the Bizhiw-Lynx (protector/fighter) and Ajijaak-Crane (spiritual-communicator). You’re warned that survival depends on mental, emotional, physical and spiritual well-being. I certainly joined my ancestors, with well-being depleted, from resisting arrest, catching dysentery and crossing treacherous mountains. Hunting, gathering and trading allow for the management of food and medicine, too, and the first thing I noticed about the game is that the people you meet are keen to share.
Wanting to be similarly generous, I found that gifting food and medicine was often rewarded, in a variety of ways. My favourite trades were for stories about regional flora and fauna. You begin in Fond Du Lac, as allotment and assimilation arrived in Minnesota, forcing people away from their land and onto reservations. For the Anishinaabe, this meant that the community was split into two, geographically, and that people disagreed about how to divide their land. You gather belongings and leave immediately. Many of the first people you meet are also on the move.
Across three playthroughs, I wandered. The path diverges and there is no turning back, so it’s quite replayable. As I retraced some of the same steps, I understood more of what I missed the previous times. People told me of places I might call home. There is at least one ending. It was never going to be fair but it was a great ending, nonetheless. In a way, it almost made all of the game’s nebulous antagonists, chiefly Indian Agents (who were entrusted with “protecting” Native people, but also controlled them with violence), feel very small.
The overwhelming impression I’ve taken away from When Rivers Were Trails is how incredibly diverse Native American people are. The game emphasises the richness of cultural practices, as well as highlighting how treatment often forced people to act against their culture. I contacted designer, Beth LaPensee, who linked me to a private lecture on indigenous games. She mentioned playing The Oregon Trail as a child and wondering why Natives were always cast in relation to, or to serve, settlers. As an educational resource, this game is an incredible response.
This is not to say there were no settlers (or, at least, references to them) in the game. There was a woman who married a white man in order to stay on her land and some mention of towns with bicycles. I also met a “black man” who was a train porter and thus fell down a rabbit hole of learning why people used to call all train porters “George”. (It’s derogatory and related to the ownership of slaves.) Overwhelmingly, near exclusively, the faces in When Rivers Were Trails are Native. I can’t encourage you enough to meet each and every one for yourself.