What remains of Edith Finch
In our first meeting the MA group told us that their game was influenced by this 2017 game ‘What remains of Edith Finch’. This is a first person magical realism game in which the player gradually uncovers the history of the Finch family. The player explores the family home, uncovering clues to generations of the family, the story of their deaths, and the curse that haunts them. The object of this game is not to win, but to spend time immersing yourself in the stories of each Finch’s life.
The player must discover hidden passageways to enter each room, the whole house having an etherial quality, the game has been described as reminiscent of a pop up book. The player is transported from one story to another, each with their own palette. The stories of their deaths are told in very creative and thought provoking ways, including allegories from the perspective of animals, and text from the notes found in the house integrated in the scenery of the story.
Ian Dallas (the game’s head designer) talks about the sound being influenced by films such as Donnie Darko and Under the Skin. He says he listened to the soundtracks as a means to get into a dreaming headspace to conceptualise the game.
I can definitely see how the MA group’s ‘Reverse’ is influenced by this story driven style of game and the etherial quality of Edith Finch. I think this otherworldly palette is a deep well for creative licence and should be very fun to play around with. I am focused primarily on music in my practice, so this will be most of what I do, but I think this otherworldliness is achievable through reverb on the foley and atmospheres. Due to the game’s dream like aesthetic I hope to achieve a level of disorientation or weightlessness in parts of the sound design, our team has an opportunity to contrast this dreamscape with the weighted dreary world of the office. Depending on how the game turns out visually, this could be a very interesting and effective juxtaposition of worlds.