Spiritfarer-How Difficult Goodbyes Become Sweet Memories
Game Designer Analysis of Spiritfarer
What is Spiritfarer
Spiritfarer is a cosy management game about dying. As ferry master to the deceased, build a boat to explore the world, care for your spirit friends, and guide them across mystical seas to release them into the afterlife. (Steam 2020)
Care to Care
Spiritfarer makes you care about taking care of its characters through story and gameplay. Characters request your assistance to advance their plot and ultimately get their spirit taken away. The cast of Characters is diverse in their appearance, behaviour, and corresponding tasks, which means every character presents a unique experience with memorable interactions.
The idea of taking care is ingrained in Spiritsfarers core mechanics. You collect resources to build houses, cook food, or complete tasks for your companions. As a result, you are motivated to expand your possesions not only for your internal desires of exploring and progressing. But also through external motivations deriving from the inert concept of caretaking.
The game provides ample feedback for your actions, rewarding you with new stories, areas, and items to discover. Additionally, the gratefulness or disappointment of characters reflects within how they act, depending on how well you are taking care of them they might express their disapproval. Though of course, a hug is always an effective remedy against sour friends.
Since you know their company is only temporary, all the moments you experience together are more significant. Once you have to let them go at the Everdoor, the sadness of loss may be overwhelming, but Spiritfarer wants a difficult goodbye to be a sweet memory. By shifting perspective, treating the end of one fulfilled life as an opportunity to explore and assist another.
Freedom to Process
Processing the loss of a loved one is tough. Spiritfarer understands this and never forces you to commit yourself to a new character, mission, or adventure right away. You set your boundaries and targets. You traverse the waters at your own pace. Whether you will float around and collect stones for hours, or eagerly search for the next spirit is all in your hands, you are the captain!
The freedom to set your course is also apparent in the customisation of your experience. The connection between you and the world has a personal touch when you can dress up and build your small town. Knowing that no one has the same looking ship with the same spirits on board creates a unique experience.
Why Should You Care?
You want to experience a game about unconditional love, where feelings of loss and despair get transformed into feelings of appreciation and joy? A game which focuses on supporting your friends to complete their last wish and gain a worthy end? If the answer is yes, Spiritfarer will be there for you to care.
