Dear me, I was… - A look back into our life
Maho Taguchi and Taisuke Kanasaki are here together to give us a new and more peculiar adventure than usual: we have a textless adventure game, completely helmed by the artistic prowess of Kanasaki. He adopts his well known rotoscoped approach, that was used already in Hotel Dusk. Taguchi, in her directorial debut, has described the game as such:
“It’s designed for adult women, aiming to help you feel a bit more positive after playing it.”
When this was announced I was elated! I always felt that games like Another Code, for as much of a cult following they garner, can rarely drive up a lot of interest. I feared the recent remake would be just another flop, but the fact we have this new game does make me feel a bit more positive for the future.This time we have a project that’s different from the classic investigation titles, an adventure a lot more personal, more of an authorial story, which is meant to accompany us for a short time and leave us with some reflection to do upon completion. The type of experience usually found in the indie market.
I already know that such a premise is only going to convince a few of you. There’s no point in discussing gameplay since it’s almost non-existent. During the whole game we’re going to have a chance to interact with some objects and do some actions, but almost nothing is gonna present a challenge of story related choices, it’s more akin to page turning a book.
This game is like looking through a photo album of another person’s life, starting from their infancy to their old age, retracing the steps that made them the person they are today. If you jump into this game with the expectation of playing a new Hotel Dusk, you’ll be disappointed.
Dear me, I was…
Our protagonist is a woman whose name will never be revealed to the player, I guess to help us relate to her. The story starts from her infancy, with her parents. Her father in particular becomes a very important figure, since he’s the one that introduces her to what will become the foundation of her entire life: art.
The girl grows with a passion for art: she gets introduced to it as a child, develops it through adolescence and cherishes it in adulthood. The simple act of drawing is always something done in first person by the player, and it’s always wonderful to see these drawings develop from childish scribbles, to the complete and fully fledged art of a person who cultivated it for her whole life.
Not having any dialogue, the game relies heavily on the expressiveness of the characters, which has been incredibly well realized by the watercolor art of Kanasaki. Every character is extremely expressive, even in the most subtle details, and the use of color paints the feelings of the main character and those around her perfectly.
You have to be very attentive while playing this game, every frame, action, or detail is something that you have to focus on because it might uncover some new meaning to the story. I’m not gonna lie to you, with a story so reliant on personal interpretation, I was worried about not being able to catch every nuance. There is a possibility that my interpretation is either wrong or inaccurate, despite playing the game multiple times and having confronted my interpretation with other opinions found either online or in person.
The events in the life of our main character paint a pretty ordinary picture, even here I assume it’s for relatable reasons. The biggest emphasis is on the art and the people that connect her to that passion more, from her dad who initiated her and taught to express herself by drawing, to her high school friend who shared many years of her life with. These people end up having a big impact on her future, up until her boyfriend who has been important to rekindle that passion about art that for a while felt a bit spent for some time.
There are also some sad moments in her life: having to say farewell to some loved ones, moments when she felt lost, friendships and relationships blooming and ending. If I have to find issues in this story is that, for as ordinary as it is, the life of the main character ends up looking a bit too perfect, in spite of the uncertainties and moments of sadness. Towards the ending I even thought there were a couple of jumps that felt a bit too sudden and thus left a lot of moments feeling unexplored.
The game has a very short length, from 40 minutes to about an hour, and this combined with the fact that the game wants to be very open to personal interpretation ends up leaving us with more open nooks than necessary. Maybe a few more chapters would’ve helped in giving us a more complete vision.
I won’t go into more detail here (that’s what the spoiler section is for) but I constantly thought back to the objective that Taguchi set for herself with this game and, in my opinion, this is the message that she wanted to communicate…
Choose how to live your life, without regrets.
Especially in this world which is constantly imposing specific roles to women for every single phase of their life, it’s important to have a story like this that openly states: you’re free to choose, you’re free to live as you see fit, to keep relationships at your own terms.
What’s most important is that at the end of it all, after you look back at all your key moments of your past, and think at the person you were and at the person that you are now, you can say with complete certainty that you arrived here with no regrets left behind. It doesn’t matter if you think your life is set forever, it’s never too late to make a choice and change it forever.
I feel this is what Taguchi meant with her description of the game, because often in our life we inevitably fall victim to peer pressure, to feel like we’re not enough for this world, we compare ourselves to others like we see their life as perfect compared to ours.
And here comes this little game that tells you: “No! Your life can be perfect if it’s the life you’ve chosen to live yourself and not the life that you felt imposed over you. You’re always on time to find your way, without feeling trapped by others' expectations”.
Taguchi has certainly written this story with the intention of talking to women, but that doesn't mean they’re the only ones who have to treasure this message. If you feel lost, look within yourselves, find the courage to change your course of life towards the road that will make you happy.
Thinking back on it, the fact that most of her life has been left so ambiguous, especially after a particular choice in the game, might’ve been done on purpose to avoid suggesting that there exists a correct way for a person to live. There isn’t an answer for everyone, you have to find your own, looking within you and learning to know yourself.
That the focus is more one her past, on her doubts, on her hardships, the moments of crisis it’s certainly important to underline this aspect, that is never too late.
In Conclusion
Dear me, I was… it’s a game that is objectively hard to recommend. Games of this genre are always defined more as “Videogame Experiences”, which honestly, is starting to sound at best as a very snobbish way to put those games on a pedestal, and at worse a very backhanded way of saying they’re not “true” videogames.
At the same time though it’s clear how this game is meant for a certain type of player. You have to be ready to immerse yourself fully into it, focus on every detail, elaborate your reads and interpretations and be open to an experience that it’s more focused about relaying a message, without necessarily rewarding you with a fun gameplay experience.
If you’re well versed in the Indie world and have enjoyed titles like: Behind the Frame: The Finest Scenery, When the Past Was Around, What Comes After, To The Moon and Florence… then I can say you’re in the clear to enjoy what this game has to offer. For everyone else if you found what I was talking about to be interesting, then I’ll say take your shot.
The game is unfortunately a Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive, but has a very low asking price which I’ll say it’s a very good incentive for those of you who’re more indecisive. A real shame this is limited to Switch 2 only, especially since outside of the joycon mouse support, there doesn't seem to be any other apparent reason why this game should’ve been limited to the new generation.
Personally I enjoyed it a lot and I feel there should be more space dedicated to these small author’s projects, even outside of the realm of Indie games. Let me know what you thought about it. In the meantime I’ll anxiously wait for the eventual small success of this game that might eventually lead into a whole new adventure.
Or maybe, who knows, it might be another remake! After all, in Another Code Recollection a certain detective makes a cameo during the credits, so I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that next in the line is a remake of Hotel Dusk.
Before moving on to the spoiler section I wanna thank all the sources that helped me shape up this blog post: GoodVibesGaming, Nara, GamingBible, Gazettely and finally my friend and editor Lily.
SPOILER SECTION - Proceed at your own risk
Like I said this game is more of a collection of moments, so let’s talk about the ones that left more of an impression on me during this little adventure. Let’s start with her father, the one who introduced her to art, her future biggest passion. Unfortunately he dies the day of her birthday, leaving her with a present: a sketchbook and a set of pencils.
GoodVibesGaming’s video, saw her father’s death as a very deep trauma from which she never recovered from, underlining how the girl wanted to escape her own happiness, thinking like she didn’t deserve it with the absence of that key father figure.
There’s no doubt, the loss of a parent is something that scars you for life, doesn't matter when it happens. I don’t agree with the fact that it scarred her so deeply to the point that she can never wish for her own happiness again, I think it’s instead implied how the biggest bequest from her father is something that ended up accompanying her throughout her whole life. This to me underlines a more positive influence rather than a trauma that was never elaborated.
The moment that touched me the most is when, after she had a talk with her mother about what happened, she made her first drawing on that sketchbook: a smiling portrait of her father. It’s just a little scribble but it’s enough for her mother to cry while embracing her child.
It was a moment of incredible tenderness, and it’s a shame that her mother is a figure that seems completely absent for the rest of her life. She appears only on a couple of other occasions to console her daughter and on her deathbed. I would’ve loved to see more of their relationship, especially since she was also a very positive figure in her life.
The moment when she returned to her father’s portrait to add the portrait of her mother right beside him was heartwrenching for me. That drawing that she made as a child it’s still pristine after all this time. There’s a huge difference between the portraits, and even the fact that she’s using these two personal portraits as a memory, instead of the usual photographs, gives it a personal, warmer touch to the act of remembering those that, unfortunately, aren’t with us anymore.
It also underlines how art is an extremely important factor for our main character, which segues greatly to the moment when she decided to abandon it.
During high school our main character meets another girl who’s really passionate about painting and they both start to cultivate this passion together. This bond quickly evolves into a strong friendship, bringing to the only choice that has an impact on the ending, which seashell the girls will turn into a keychain.
This friendship will suddenly end after a proposal by the friend to join an art contest. The main character, with surprise by the friend, will refuse to take part and in that moment a rift starts to open between them that will become definitive the day the main character sees, presumably at that contest, a painting that shows herself on a beach during sunset.
That painting fills her with sadness, she runs away from the exhibition and once she returns home she locks all of her art equipment into a box, symbolizing that she’s done with doing art. Her mother, understanding how hard that decision must be, consoles her with a hug.
Also important is how at the beginning of the chapter, our main character is struck by an old woman sitting in the park, alone on a bench. Her figure appears to us in black and white making apparent that she’s going through a deep depression.
To me this chapter represents the biggest moment of crisis for the main character towards of how she sees her future: the old lady alone at the park, warning of what could be waiting for her: her hesitation in taking part at the contest, a fear of exposing herself, her escape in front of her friend’s portrait. All of this seems to confirm that she’s not fit to pursue her passion further, and thus makes the final decision to close that chapter.
Next time we see our main character it will be in the more “ordinary” attire of an office worker: between house, work, friends correspondence who mostly talk about sons and marriage, to finally meet the man of her life.
From the very first moments I saw this couple together I felt something wasn’t right, their friendship was genuine and their relationship more than sincere, but it was clear her head was elsewhere the whole time, stuck in the past, on that friend that she lost a long time ago but was still a strong presence in her mind.
The scene where she refuses the marriage proposal is one of the moments that I thought took better advantage of interactivity. I knew what was going to happen, it was clear as the sun, but having to close the ring case myself filled me with sadness.
I felt bad for this poor boy, having to be me in first person to give him this categoric refusal. Of course he will have to deal with it because this is the turning point for our main character who’s about to regain complete control of her life.
We don’t see her closed in a sterile office again, she decides to reopen that box that was closed for so long and start practicing art again, she adopts an abandoned cat which turns out to be pregnant, and there’s no other man or husband in her life, she lives how she wants to, as it’s her right to. I also don’t think it’s a random choice to have her adopt cats, since the notion of “catlady” has always been used with a negative connotation.
It was nice to see her rekindle her relationship with her old boyfriend, who is now a professional photographer with his own exhibition. There was never any grudge between them, just happy to see each other after such a long time. He asks her for a portrait of himself once he discovers she started painting again. A request that sounds very clichè, and I know some artists that are already rolling their eyes while reading this passage, is still something I found to be very sweet on his part.
They weren't meant for each other as a couple but it’s clear that they really care for each other, just their roads weren’t meant to merge into marriage, which is perfectly fine. Love is not meant to be forever tied by the bonds of marriage, sometimes you just need to both be there and be supportive for each other.
And thus we reach the ending where the main character and her high school friend, now both of old age, finally manage to meet again. It’s another tender and touching moment, because they never forget each other. I almost thought that there was a lot more between them than just friendship, but it’s not something that we are bound to have confirmed.
This game is only 40 minutes long, and it gave more stuff to think about than any other game I talked about on this blog, and I still think I wasn’t able to unpack every hidden message. Even stuff that feels mundane, like the fact that every chapter begins with the main character having breakfast, might actually hide some kind of message… Or it could just be that Kanasaki was having way too much fun drawing food.
Many of the sources I consulted have compared this moment to recognizing the passage of time by the type of food the protagonist is eating, or a rite of passage to remind us of all those small things that never change throughout a person’s life. I liked both interpretations.
For this game more than ever I’m curious to hear what you thought about! What did it mean for you? What were the scenes you found to be most touching? Is there something that I missed in your opinion? Was my interpretation too basic? Let yourself be heard and don’t be shy!
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