Grim Soul: Survival

I have been playing Grim Soul: Survival, an android game made by Kefir, a Russian game developer which employs people remotely. I must say what they have put together in Grim Soul is not merely exemplary, in the sense in which it being a foremost example of what the genre is capable of, which it is. It is a near cinematic experience, something which 3rd person adventure games have been cultivating for quite some time, ever since Neverwinter Nights for the PC.

There are of course distinct limitations faced by the games made for PCs and those made on android. Android gamers tend to be more casual; in the sense that they would probably not sit on their system for as long as PC gamers. A lot of this may have to do with the mobility of the hardware in place, and of course the longer tradition in terms of game developers making action and adventure titles for the PC.

Where Grim Soul surpasses its competitors however is, most noticeably, its atmospheric soundtrack, which would be right at home in any horror movie. The eerie lingering score with gothic notes and map fog around the edges keep you watchful about whats around the corner, and not unlike a rearview mirror, looking up at the minimap ensures that you don't run headlong into a group of lepers or the damned, or worse.

What I have always appreciated about this genre has been the potential it has for character development. This I think is all the more remarkable today in a world where novels, not to mention cinema struggle to depict any significant sense of maturation, of fulfilling accomplishment that a character may feel in their journey. The narrative becoming increasingly episodic & sometimes devolves into a series of encounters, and their thread holding the episodes together becomes nothing more than a persona that the lead role holds up; cardboardish, but yet effective if not stylishly pulled off by some clever script writing and artful direction.

Forgive me if this is my bias or ignorance shining through but stories of escape, rescue and survival in themselves don't seem to be able to grasp the kind of tedium that the knocking on copper ore when you are looking for tin, wary of the wolves around the corner has in Grim Soul.

What does this tension accomplish? Much like the ur-genre it draws from - horror, the sense of release upon the turning of a corner, with the door barring from vision a nightmarish possibility, and opening it to find a safe landing; the accomplishment of an objective in less than ideal if not psychologically taxing circumstances represent to me a sense of the kind of resilience that has unfortunately becoming meaningful in our world.

There is no, hardly any at all dialogue in the game. Text presented in the form of letters signed 'a friend' being the thread that holds the quest line together. To me, it does not seem to underrepresent the player character - but allows us to place ourselves in their shoes to experience the predicament of helplessness that a scrapper may find in a wasteland of zombies and more powerful demons.

Are there any parallels to be made between such an organisation of a game world and the severe censorship which cancel culture and its advocacy of political correctness continue to exercise? Probably, if only in terms of the direction of advance a being caught in the net of such forces, finds or makes for themselves as they navigate a terrain swamply treacherous, though in different ways.

The construction of tools and the gathering of resources is a real struggle, and they do wear out - and require to be replaced more frequently than seems natural. Yet, each time you are able to place a new piece of hardware in the hut that you fashion for yourself, a bonfire, a chest, a grindstone - a sense of security is created for you know that if you had to make a shirt for yourself, you could use fibre and the sewing table instead of having to kill lepers for cloth.

There is a repetition to this, a foraging, a making and a sense of accomplishment which makes the moment when we put down our screens restful, a relief that algorithmic jobs, with seemingly no end-goal often don't seem to offer. Unlike a proofreader or copyeditor for example, I know that I will make something, a spade or a back-sack, which will make the subsequent steps of my undertaking easier; perhaps as a metaphor, not unlike progressions towards a handstand pushup, beginning from the floor and gradually raising your feet as you add repetitions and build strength - an idea of progress seems palpable...but who is this progress for is the axe like question that hangs over our heads.

There is a feature which allows players to establish an order. I must confess I haven't used it much. In a land where other players often attack each other on first sight if they appear to be better armed, scouting organisational possibilities seems counterintuitive. This isn't lost on the developers who do sense this loneliness, and have added a direwolf pup as a collectible item. The pup, when placed in a wolfpen can grow up and accompany the player on adventures; an interesting possibility that I'm attempting to construct myself.

The essence of dark fantasy adventure games has always been to be able to escape from the world we live in, into another one which can defamiliarise the saturation of our senses that monotony grinds into our being, a therapy with narrative, colour, races, spells, mining, and smithing - a mini education if you will, of our world as it once may have been perhaps in the middle ages, though warped or rather augmented.

Plague remains a recurrent theme, an illness which sweeps the land that touches inhabitants in a way that changes them, perhaps making them into something else.

The developers imaginatively portray ravens as carrier birds linking the penpals between whom the plot unfolds and it is endearing to see this epistolary and anachronistic touch, a wormhole out of social media platforms and instant messaging, reminding us of a slower rhythm, inculcating another kind of correspondence, perhaps more in touch with significant and hence shareable events in our lives, as opposed to the dim compulsion felt to post bright and hyperventilative media on our handles.

As an aesthetic experience, I'd recommend this to everyone, especially those of another generation who may perhaps find it hard to come to common terms, a shareable plane of experience with a generation that seems infinitely capable of plugging in and out of new experiences, driven by nothing else but a sense of anticipation and novelty as it forgets whatever was once deemed to be substantive, or rather runs away from it with their heads ducked so as to avoid censure for their exodus.