Alba: A Wildlife Adventure — Beautiful Minutiae
The world can feel overwhelming at times. The scope of it all, the problems it faces, what we can do in the face of it, what it feels like is out of our control…it’s a lot. And it’s not wrong or selfish or less of you to take a break from that. Faced with a world of increasingly generalized chaos, there are so many things about Alba: A Wildlife Adventure from ustwo games that bask in the little things. Minute, specific, beautiful little things that provide a perfect break from the world, while simultaneously reminding us of our potential.
At its surface, Alba is a game about a young girl (the eponymous Alba) visiting her grandparents on a beautiful Mediterranean island for one week, and all of the shenanigans that she gets up to from arrival to departure. As the title suggests, wildlife plays a central role in the entire experience, challenging players to track down and document all manner of animals, while helping the ecosystem and the island denizens throughout. Alba controls wonderfully, with just enough bounce and excitement to her step to make movement fun, and it matches perfectly with the game’s aesthetic: simple, emotive, colorful, and adorable.
The progress is small, measurable, and manageable. You can watch your progress grow incrementally throughout a playthrough. There are only so many animals and so many biomes on the island, but only so much you can do in a given day. Alba reminds us that it’s okay to rest, so that we can keep enjoying the little things day-today.
Alba was all about being given an island and told to explore, and being excited for everything in between exploration: finding a lost dog, telling a friend that there was some ice cream to cheer them up, doing some archaeology.
That’s where Alba shines the brightest. In the few hours it took me to go from start to finish, it became clear how much ustwo put into the little things. The small joy of watching Alba’s jog turn into a skip, or as she spread her arms out like an airplane, hit something formative in the back of my head. It was everyone’s face being so plain and easy to read, the smiles being huge, the frustration palpable.
It was Alba’s friend’s excitement as they vow to do something good in their little corner of the world. It was Lorena Álvarez’s bouncy, beautiful music cascading all across the island, just as often giving way to silence and letting the animals sing instead: bird calls, mostly, but cats occasionally mewing, or a dog barking, all became its own ever-changing band, depending on where on the island Alba was.
It was adults being fully supportive of children’s goals for a better tomorrow, watching them help when it was needed and stand back when it wasn’t. It was little hearts that pop up whenever Alba picks up trash, or folds laundry, fixes something, or helps an animal in need. It was discovering something new for the first new: a new animal, a new biome, a little rush of excitement. It was just standing somewhere and listening to the world for a moment. It was children just being children.
Alba never dwells too long on overarching plot elements. Yes, the objectives are there, but it is not a lofty experience that’s trying to tell a sprawling story. It is a finely-crafted experience made up of little things, little experiences, and little joys that snowball into one happy game.
Alba is, by design, a simple game. It’s something people can pick up and play with their own children, or something they can play on their own in an afternoon or evening. It is accessible to all without infantilizing itself or its messages. It is empowering for a younger audience, demonstrating that they can do something, too, and that stonewalling adults better stay out of their way. And for an older crowd, it is two things: a reminder of what we can do, so easy to forget in the chaos of life, and something good for the simple sake of being good. Alba brims with straightforward, unabashed goodness, all packaged together in a hundred small things throughout the experience. It brings everyone together on a shared, mutual message, and it’s a lot of fun doing so. We can all use little victories these days, and Alba is packed with them, all wrapped in a heartwarming bow.
All images captured in-game
