Imprimatura by Elizabeth Ballou et al
I’m still blessed to have both of my parents still around. I do not look forward to that day when they pass away and in untangling their final mortal affairs and effects, I find the little notes on who they really were, beyond just “Mum” and “Dad” distorted through my own little prism of perspective and memory. Imprimatura is exactly this struggle, intertwined with the challenge of art.
The gameplay loop is simple: browse a wide array of paintings of your father, and choose seven of them to keep. (Actually the main character can be a mother or grandparent as well - you can choose their relationship to you, the protagonist. I’m sticking with my choice - their father.) Every time you keep an artwork, a memory shakes free and (eventually, literally) builds a picture of your father.
Immediately I was reminded of the Nebula Award finalist Scents and Semiosis where you have a similar gameplay loop. However in S&S, each item is unique and procedurally-generated. After a few rounds, I noticed exact repetition in the paintings, so I think this is a more curated experience in some direction. The associated memory appears to be chosen appropriate to the painting and sketches out your father and your relationship to him. This procedural concoction of experience, as well as some beautiful writing, definitely earns its similarity to Scents and Semiosis.
I played through a few times, and as I dug deeper I was intimately aware of similarities to my own game from last year’s IF Comp, Hand Me Down, where a dying father tries to share his art with his daughter. I’m glad Imprimatura came out this year, because it hits the notes so much better and the whole experience - the visual design, the subtle sound effects, the beautiful music, the writing - ties together so well. It is frankly beautiful.
Imprimatura is, however, ostensibly about that uneasy balance in art of what is invented and what is discovered. In choosing pieces to take with you, you are inventing the image of your father whilst telling yourself it’s curation. Replays are encouraged and so you realise that there is actually no objective portrait of your father to preserve. Just a lot of brush strokes, and you make of it what you will. This is a wonderful way to tie the art to the gameplay. It does, however, seem to err towards an unflattering portrait of him, but not egregiously so.
So while I have small reservations regarding the palette, the layering and composition feel beautiful and complete.