Hitchhiker
Strap in for a surreal ride across the American midwest in HITCHHIKER.
I’m strapped into the passenger seat of a car somewhere in the American midwest. I don’t know how I got here, just like I don’t know how I’ll end up alongside the next four drivers I hitch a ride with in Hitchhiker. In an even vaguely real-world context, this scenario could be a little alarming, given how vulnerable I am as an amnesiac hitchhiker with no sense of direction.
But as soon my driver, a raisin farmer called Vern, starts musing about everything from relationships to philosophical raisin-based analogies, a wave of comfort washes over me, and I’m all aboard for the ride— wherever it may take me.
Why our protagonist is hitchhiking across America will eventually become clear (sort of ). But while I’m riding shotgun with this procession of philosopher-drivers ruminating about everything from relationships to ageing, to the strange world that exists beneath shopping mall escalators, the protagonist’s own story about his relationship troubles takes a backseat.
It doesn’t take long for you to realize that these roads you’re traversing—set across iconic American locales like the Utah desert and American suburbia—are perhaps more figurative than literal. Tumbleweeds with eyes stalk you, an invisible dog runs through the suburban streets, and green fireflies guide you to take photos that start filling in your character’s backstory— the reason you’re on this dreamy yet eerie journey in the first place.
The reason, it transpires, is your character’s crumbling long-term relationship, which is tarnished by guilt, jealousy, and the painful question of when to let go. You only get glimpses of the relationship itself through flashbacks, photos, and the testimony of the characters you meet, but really the purpose of this entire odyssey across America is to face up to deep-buried truths our wayfaring hero knows about his relationship but is struggling to face up to.
Even by the standards of a narrative-driven game, Hitchhiker is largely non-interactive beyond looking around, dialogue choices, and the occasional light puzzle. And that’s fine, because the writing is strong enough to carry player-passengers like me through its modest length, especially as each ride is broken up by a beautiful vignette illustrating a story that a given driver tells—from a black-and-white chalkboard tale about a man waiting for years to go through a gate, to a vibrant cartoon about a city built of rubber.
ROAD ISLANDS
It’s strange, surrealist stuff, but the imagery and writing bind it together in a way that makes it feel warm and hypnotic rather than obscure and aloof. At one point, Leah, the third driver, sums up the protagonist’s relationship as “one year of falling in love and four of breaking apart”—a brutal but grounded and all-toorelatable stab of reality.
But for a game where your main form of interaction is binary dialogue choices, and one that is ostensibly about facing up to hard truths, HitchHiker doesn’t imbue your choices with enough meaning.
Late in the game, my blood ran cold with regret when I believed I’d made the wrong decision in the spur of the moment. But when I replayed the scene after I completed the game, I found that there was only one possible outcome all along. It undercut the illusion built throughout the game that my choices in some way shaped this journey.
It’s a shame that such a narrativefocused game doesn’t use branching dialogue, player agency in the story, multiple endings, and other wellestablished tools that make videogames such a powerful storytelling medium.
So HitchHiker was a bittersweet experience in the end, not quite fulfilling the themes its characters did such a great job in conveying. It has, however, stuck with me, filling me with thoughts that go beyond the game and into real life: What is the key to happiness in a life shared with someone, and is the answer maybe hidden in a box of raisins?
You only get glimpses of the relationship itself through flashbacks