It was probably rash of me to accuse the new gaming romantics of pulling a beauty-for-beauty’s-sake routine. Jenova Chen, Jon Blow, and their contemporaries are the stars of the indie movement after all. Not everyone can get their game distributed on Xbox Live and Playstation Network. There are creators out there making romantic games that aren’t just pretty flowers and lost love. A perfect example is Auriea Harvey and Michaël Samyn’s The Path, a game that uses gorgeous color and freeform play to inform its frightening exploration of growing up.
Stephen Lavelle, aka increpare, and Terry Cavanagh of distractionware have also made their names on exploring the darker side of romanticism in games. Their latest collaboration, Judith, doesn’t fall within a classically romantic literary mode, but more to the side. Look past the game’s blocky Wolfenstein 3D-ish impressionism, and you’ll find that this ain’t romantic. It’s Gothic!
Stop rolling your eyes, I’m not talking about those kids in the black tights reading Twilight. I’m talking old school Daphne Du Maurier style business right here, a tale of forbidden love reflected in the secrets and murder of the past! Judith starts you off as a man meeting his mistress at a long abandoned castle, far from their mutual spouses. The game’s minimalist presentation is almost comical at first, but by the time you enter the castle, it’s too sinister to laugh at. After your lady love Emily disappears, the game shifts your perspective to that of the castle’s ancient resident Judith, a trophy wife who dreams of these adulterers and uncovers her husband’s dark side in the bowels of the castle. Cavanagh and Lavelle’s design sense, beyond the simplistic visuals, shares much of the tone in Chen and Blow’s most recent games. At its core, Judith is about the perils of infidelity, how secrets between lovers will ultimately destroy them. It isn’t subtle – Gothic media rarely is – but it’s impressively affecting for a game that’s barely twenty minutes long. Its most powerful moments come when it wrests control away from you; pick up an item, like a shovel to bury a dead body, and the game takes over. You’re in control of your decisions, but you can’t control their results.
Expect great things from these fellas. You can play Judith right here, fo’ free.
Related links:
Rite of Spring: Flower and What’s Lacking in the Romantic Games Movement
The Path is Real, Not A Fever Dream
Indie Dev Moment: i made this. you play this. we are enemies.
Breaking Out of Your Gaming Comfort Zone