(It’s more than a little jarring to go from the previous entry, Deliquescence, to this one 
The randomizer decided that after watching my friend melt and die multiple times in front of me, it’s time to dissociate with some birdwatching!)
60 | BIRDING IN POPE LICK PARK
60 | BIRDING IN POPE LICK PARK
by: Eric Lathrop
Progress:
- I played for around 20 minutes, choosing to end when I felt satisfied that I had seen a variety of birds. (I ended up seeing 17 species/40 individual birds.)
Things I Appreciated:
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I appreciated most the moments where I got glimpses of perspective from the character that hinted at more from them. For instance, choosing to walk on the grass instead of the gravel to avoid disturbing the animals implies a sense of care; wondering about the mallards’ ducklings implies a familiarity with these birds from previous years; the discussion about thinking the mourning dove song might be from an owl before becoming a birdwatcher reveals a bit about how much you’ve grown and learned.
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This location feels pleasant, but very ordinary/approachable. Considering that one of the stated goals of the piece is to promote birding as a hobby, I think it was successful in doing that. I haven’t been to Kentucky before, but the public park described feels very reminiscent to other public parks I’ve walked through in other parts of the U.S. As I was playing, I felt like, if I really wanted to do go out and do this, it wouldn’t be that hard to get started. Especially since the game explicitly directs you to resources that would help you.
Feedback/Recommendations/Questions:
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I found it difficult to become emotionally involved with this piece. To say a bit more: the writing style feels very crisp and professional to me. It tells you what happened without giving much more information than whatever is needed to explain the state of the location you’re in, and the clarifying details that allowed you to determine which bird it was. As a result, I found myself being held at a distance from what was happening. It’s all business here. We’re here to look at birds. There’s a value in that, but I think because I’ve been through such an intense range of emotions while reading/playing these IF Comp submissions, I was craving a writing style that had just a little more emotional involvement in the activity, rather than viewing the birds in what felt like a more detached/clinical/scientific way, as though I were a researcher conducting an avian census.
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An interesting side effect of the realism of the piece is that I had a hard time understanding the game-map’s interconnections. In a constructed fictional environment, things can be manipulated to be memorable and distinctive a lot more. Here, I found myself a bit disoriented by the similar sounding locations: a path, a gravel path, a dirt road, an old road, the field, the smaller soccer fields, etc. This is realistic and accurate to what is there, but something about the navigation didn’t feel the most intuitive to me.
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I think as a player, it would’ve been more immersive if I was given a chance to try to learn for myself what the birds were (even if just to choose between a few curated options in a low-stakes way), so that I felt like I was absorbing more of what I was reading about their distinguishing characteristics. This carries through in what I feel was an underutilized part of the game, which was the “notes” section for recording the birds that you’ve seen. The most that I saw here was a description of the number/age/sex of the birds, or nothing. I felt like I wanted to be able to look at the photo and type in my own short note that was my impression of what was important or interesting about the bird and the situation I found them in. So I would encourage thinking about immersion beyond the visuals/realism, and consider strategies for making the game feel more mechanically involving to help create a stronger emotional resonance between the player and the activity of birdwatching.
What I learned about IF writing/game design:
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I liked this as an example of a game devoted to the specificity and accuracy of place. There are so many places around the world and in all imaginable fictional worlds where a story could be set, but for the 20 minutes that I played, Pope Lick Park was the most important place in the world. I think there’s something charming and interesting about taking what could be seen as “just another public park” and decide that it is worthy of this level of detailed observation and attention.
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This game gives the player the agency to leave at any time. I mean, I’m not sure why you’d choose to play a birdwatching game and exit the moment you got to the park, but you could do that, if you wanted to. For this style of game that isn’t plot-driven, character-driven, or narrative-driven, I liked that I didn’t feel pressure to be a completionist for the sake of seeing every possible bird. The game did not judge me for the amount of birds that I saw, and even though there were almost certainly more birds out there, I felt satisfied with what I did. So the lesson I take from this is, to consider how the option of showing the player that they can end at any time and it is completely up to them will impact the experience. It’s not always the right design choice, but here, it makes perfect sense.
Quote:
- “You wonder why this pair doesn’t have any ducklings this year.”
Lasting Memorable Moment:
- I liked going into the most overgrown path, and the feeling that I wasn’t sure if I was really supposed to be there or not. I find locations like that inherently kind of interesting—a place where there used to be, and sort of still is, something, but the lack of maintenance lends it a liminal feeling.