Grief Game (Review)
⚠ CW: mentions of death ⚠
My previous entry gave me this idea, about doing reviews of anything that I feel like talking about: games, music, movies, etc. Mind you, this isn't my job: I'm just a person on the Internet sharing zir opinion! Just for fun. It's the beauty of online spaces. I call it a 'review' but I kinda just type whatever it's in my mind lol. That said, I wanted to start with something small.
Today I bring you Grief Game by moon works.
I was already familiar with their work! They're the creator of Electricopolis, one of my favorite written works ever. It has such a charming cast, as well as cool illustrations with each chapter (made by them as well!). I totally recommend reading Electricopolis whenever you can!
(And on a smaller note... unless I got the wrong person, their beguinner's guide to html and css is the one that helped me start this site, and how I found about brackets.io. Which I still use to this day for any design related to Astrale Stella & Co.)
Alright, let's start this. Quoting the itch.io page: a short game about a princess attempting to bring her brother back to life. Warning for eyes/eye contact, disease and death of a family member. The game truly is short (it'll take you around 10 minutes or less), so I recommend playing it before you keep reading because I'm going to spoil a lot of it here. You've been warned!
The story goes like this: there was once a princess that had everything she could ask for, as well as a loving family. But one day, the brother contracts a wasting disease that cannot be cured. Thus, the brother gets more sickly as time passes, until the sad day comes where he passes away.
Overcome with grief, the princess contacts an entity to help her bring the prince back to life. The entity tells her that she'll need a body for her brother- which she already took care of, as she has comissioned the best toymaker in the kingdom to make an automaton for her. However, the entity also tells her she'll need organs: a heart, a tongue, a liver and eyes. Here starts the gameplay part.
You control the princess during her search for these organs. It isn't a difficult search, considering the length of the game. You find three of the needed organs (heart, liver and tongue). Each time you collect one of them, you are shown a brief flashback of someone named 'Bear' talking with someone else - I won't tell what the flashbacks are about, just in case you didn't play it yet! Maybe this will make you curious enough to check it out now, hehe.
Anyway, the princess goes back to the entity, informing she couldn't find the eyes. The entity knew of this and offers their own eyes. Here we learn that Bear is the entity, who is trying to still to cope with their brother's death which happened six months ago. Here you are offered two choices, thus two endings: you accept the offer, or you don't.
If you say yes, the princess will take the eyes and the brother will be reborn, the family lives happily after.
If you say no, the princess will give the organs to Bear and the two of them become friends amid their grief. As painful as it is, personally I think this ending is the better one.
I can't really blame Bear here. Losing a loved one hurts deeply, and it can take a long time to recover from it. It may be 6 months, 6 years or longer since your loved one died, and you may still experience moments of grief. Take care of yourself, find people that will support you, and remember that you don't need to move on. But you can move forward.
Thanks for your company!