Gestures Towards Divinity by Charm Cochran
Playtime: 35 minutes
TLDR: The player character is in a museum focusing on the works of Francis Bacon. In lieu of viewing the works of Francis Bacon, you can have some thought-provoking conversations with, on the grounded side, the other occupants of the museum or, on the surreal side, the subjects of the paintings.
Gamemechanical notes: Parser based. One “ending” but a significant piece of content requires taking specific actions to access. I don’t know that you would need to save or undo.
[ + ]
-
It’s a gutsy and bold premise. The player character is a blank slate and there are no visible plot hooks at the beginning, although later achievements are introduced, so the game is doing without many of the traditional tools to drive player engagement–if the player bounces off, they bounce off.
-
Beautiful prose, the dialogue especially really lands (which is good, since the game is mostly dialogue). Ex:
“If I had to imagine, I guess love would be making your decisions thinking of someone else. Sometimes dealing with using the wrong shampoo and cigarettes and cologne. Bad smells and dirty clothes. Putting up with someone even when they’re being an absolute shit. Putting up with things you never thought you would. Doing things you never thought you would. And not getting nearly enough back in return but… doing it anyway. If I had to imagine.”
-
The game made me curious to learn more about Francis Bacon, his life, and work. Some wikipedia articles were read. (Re: the game description . . . I think the intent is to center George Dyer and the work instead of the artist, but, the game’s not NOT about Francis Bacon, ya know?)
-
It definitely stuck in my mind for a few days and spurred thought, so mission accomplished on that front
[ Δ ]
- I’m not a huge fan of the way that the “main path” of the game / way to access all of the content requires exhausting everyone’s dialogue trees (which I learned from the walkthrough). There are some things in the conversation trees that I do not want to say. For example, I have no desire to tell the earlier George Dyer–who is at least coping, and who described the setting of the painting he is in as a safe place where he felt OK to be vulnerable (unclothed)–that he committed suicide in 1971 and that I talked to a version of his consciousness that seems to be trapped in that moment forever. Or, in a smaller register, I got the sense from the barista’s responses that she just wants to do her job and not be bothered and I don’t particularly want to use my customer-power to make her indulge me in conversation.
Probably some of my reaction comes from the way it was presented–by the time I checked the walkthrough I had already completed the parts of the conversation I wanted to have, so it felt like a bit of a rug pull to realize that instead of simulating conversation by choosing what to say or not say, I was just supposed to have been re-typing all of the topics from the topics list.
- The power of this game is, a lot like visiting a museum, etc., that it provokes thought and raises questions it doesn’t answer. That was definitely working at some level for me. Still, I personally would have found it a more meaningful experience if the game had provided a bit more on some of the questions. Q: Is the player character dead? A: I guess? given the robe, lack of inventory, and the bright light at the ending. But the barista and guard seem pretty grounded and non-allegorical. Q: What should we make of the fact that the player character is visiting the Francis Bacon afterlife instead of, say, the Vija Celmins one? A: No idea, maybe it’s arbitrary. I considered that maybe the player character was someone particularly connected to Francis Bacon, but that seems pretty underdeveloped if so. Q: Why doesn’t the player get to see the actual art? A: Maybe there is no question here–maybe it was a logistical issue or a preference issue–but I was definitely wondering about this from the beginning, given that the art exists and most people will probably want ot see it. Is there some particular gloss of the narrator’s that we’re supposed to accept? (I wondered for a while if we were going to encounter fictionalized paintings, but that didn’t seem to be the case.)