Summer Research Remnants: The Last Campfire
Total Playtime: approximately 21 hours
An indie game from the same developers of No Man’s Sky, The Last Campfire is an adorable puzzle platformer that offers nuanced perspectives on loss. The game had been on my Switch for awhile, but I hadn’t played it nor did I know anything about it aside from the fact it was apparently positively-reviewed. Beginning the game immediately after taking a break from Subnautica made the overt emphasis on emotional attachment to each character all the more stark. The characters themselves were adorable (a welcome respite from the menacing alien fish that constantly attack you in Subnautica), and despite there being no words in the opening cinematic, I immediately became attached to the sprites, even becoming acutely distressed when one of the sprites appears to be abandoned by their friends and upset. Given that the game is a large metaphor for navigating interpersonal relationships and trauma, the character design being meant to elicit this response was not surprising. I’m reminded of Dr. Pozo’s arguments on radical softness, cuteness, and empathy:
“In a way, cuteness becomes a way of identifying someone as an erotic commodity without gendering them and without making reference to existing beauty standards...Weaponized cuteness also offers an aesthetic mode for resistance that explores trauma, violence, and oppression while emphasizing the attractiveness and of the cuties resisting, as well as their worthiness of care” (Pozo 2018).
Though I’m not sure I’d label the embers as erotic commodities, there is a humanizing effect created through this deployment of cute—I’m more likely to want to emotionally connect to someone who is aesthetically appealing in some way to look at. However, defining what that can mean would get into desirability politics, which I intend to explore in the latter half of this project, so I’ll focus on the emotional component. Making emotionally complex, thought-provoking games within a white male-dominated game market is always a gamble, which is why more low-budget, indie games usually generate this intensity of discussion. Where toxic, violence-glorifying values tend to sell better and resonate with the current mainstream ideology of the ‘default gamer,’ games that are not afraid to be soft and vulnerable become powerful tools. As Dr. Pozo elaborates:
“For queer game design, softness is not yielding. Lora Mathis defines radical softness as ‘the idea that unapologetically sharing your emotions is a political move and a way to combat the societal idea that feelings are a sign of weakness’ (McLean 2015). The dynamics of radical softness...lie in the battle to maintain an ethic of healing and care while fighting daily experiences of patriarchal, racist, and homophobic oppression, as well as echoes of trauma from these experiences” (Pozo 2018).
The player controls a genderless hooded sprite as that sprite traversed various platforming puzzles to free the flames lost by other embers (known as the Forlorn, or those who have lost hope). Each puzzle features exposition from that forlorn about the circumstances/thoughts that provide context for their loss of hope, and upon being returned their flames, most forlorn offer a moral. Ember is also able to interact with other NPCs through 1-3 predetermined dialogue options at any given time. In the middle of the game, Ember receives a hornlike instrument that allows them to move gold-plated puzzle elements, but besides that Ember is only able to interact with objects by walking up to them and pressing a single button. Ember is able to collect various items that can be used to access other areas, but the world map itself is fairly contained. The only collectible in the game is optional—there are plain white chests throughout the map containing pages of The Wanderer’s Journal, allowing players to gain contextual insight if they choose. There are unlimited attempts and no time limits to the puzzles, allowing players to journey at their own pace. The subject matter itself is serious, as the journey is a thinly-veiled transitional period between life and loss. The player is also repeatedly asked whether they want to progress quickly or help other forlorn embers, and past the first world, certain forlorn become optional to interact with.
I completed this game with all embers rescued over the course of two days, for a total play time of approximately 21 hours, encouraged by my emotional investment in the characters and the easy-to-follow gameplay mechanics.
