Spiritfarer — Hope for What’s Next
I have been an emotional wreck for several months now. Counting the two professional jobs I left in August (one to start the other), and tacking in the hourly positions I’ve picked up, I’ve had five unique jobs since mid-August. I’ve gone from coordinating residence life operations, to having a breakdown over medicine deliveries, to destroying my body to make burritos, to feeling palpable despair in a pizza place, to (now) working at a theater in my college town. I’ve caught myself on particularly bad days, just thinking, “I wonder if What’s Next is anything to look forward to.” Bliss? Oblivion? If the pain of getting there would be worth it. If I should just go for it anyway, on the off-chance that it’s more peaceful than this. Don’t worry, I’m alright. The feeling passes quickly.
In one of my harder days, I tried to kick off a new video game that had been sitting in my Incomplete folder for a while, hoping that it would just distract me for a little while. I’ve picked up a few games since leaving my steady job, but none of them particularly reeled me in. They were just games to play, to complete, to distract.
Thunder Lotus’s Spiritfarer was the first game to pull me in since August, the first game I actively looked forward to returning to, the first game that resonated with me since I found myself so adrift. Spiritfarer distracted me from my bad days, but it reminded me of the good, too. The good I’d had, the good yet to come, and the good that I believe was somewhere inside of me, scared to come up again.
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At face-value, Spiritfarer tells the story of Stella and her cat, Daffodil, as they take over the titular position from the previous Spiritfarer. Players will cook, grow, smelt, forge, and hug their way into providing the very best experience for the souls they ferry, before taking them to What’s Next.
What hit particularly hard, just kicking off, was how much of a departure Spiritfarer was from Thunder Lotus’s other offerings, Jotun and Sundered. The other titles were combat-heavy, brimming with you-against-the-world vibes, against larger-than-life enemies, and requiring sharp reflexes to prevail. But Spiritfarer starts off calmly, and keeps going calmly. There’s nothing to fight, nothing to defeat, nothing to overcome. It’s not the destination (ie, beating the bad guys), it’s the journey (ie, sailing the ethereal ocean and cooking good food for people on the way).
Thunder Lotus has excelled, since its inception, on its art style and hand-drawn animation, and Spiritfarer is no different. The player character’s cat, Daffodil, was a constant source of joy and amusement in how they behaved and reacted. The face a sheep makes just before it’s sheared. Everyone’s unique hug animations. The passengers on your grand vessel, and all their little quirks and mannerisms, all of it comes out beautifully in the art and animation. It is a main pillar of Thunder Lotus’s, throughout their small library of works. It’s just now, instead of a massive lich-beast or the God of Lightning bearing down on you, it’s just…friends. And beauty. And happiness.
Musically, Spiritfarer soars. From soft plunking as the player’s boat skips across the waves, to a guitar-cat duet as plants are coaxed into growing, to a swell and crescendo of strings as pieces of the sky fall down, everything is exactly where it needs to be, exactly how it needs to sound. The music can stand alone on its own, but its strength is in its place as part of the experience. It’s hitting a story beat and listening as the music shifts to accommodate that moment. It’s stumbling onto an event, or a certain character, and hearing the music suddenly cut into something different, just so you knew what to expect, how to feel, where to look. The music puts you at ease, excites you for a unique visitor, or beholds the beauty of the world to you. The soundtrack is everything it needs to be to complement the experience, and so much more.
The gameplay is simple. Stella runs around, jumps around, and interacts with her world is simple ways: watering plants, picking berries, chopping down trees, cooking food, weaving thread, hugging, and so on. All of it is accomplished with a joystick and single button. And again, I need to make special note that there’s a designated hug mechanic, and it was one of my favorite things moving through Spiritfarer. But it’s not about me, necessarily. Everything, from the hugs, to creating wood planks, to cooking food, everything that players do, it’s all for others. All gameplay in Spiritfarer revolves around doing things for others. Of acts of service. It’s not just a job, a position, a title being Spiritfarer, it’s a desire. It is wanting to be in service of others, in creating their ideal homes, cooking their favorite meals, in just talking to them when they need to talk. The gameplay, and the work of the Spiritfarer, is not to advance oneself, but to serve others.
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In tackling a topic like death, mortality, our own end, there’s a chance that the writing surrounding it can feel hackneyed, or forced, or melodramatic. And for all my experiences around death, both sidestepping it and experiencing it with the people around me…Spiritfarer feels authentic. At surface-level, it’s still an adorably-animated management game…but the characters’ struggles, how they’re tied into gameplay mechanics, how they’re spoken about in text boxes and simple noises alone…it truly feels authentic. Helping a character walk because they’re feeling too weak to do so. Having the same conversation with a character over, and over, and over again because they keep forgetting. Listening to their regrets. Reliving their moments of pride in accomplishments, of passion in both people and pursuit. Hearing their concept of legacy, their definition of loyalty. Watching as they lose their memories, but retain themselves. Even in its moments of dialogic silence, the quiet carries just as much weight.
Spiritfarer explores death by giving life its due. That it’s how we are defined, or hope we’re defined, when our curtains begin to close that gives life its meaning, and death its legacy. It treats death as a culmination, as our last in-person act, but not the end of us. Even if the audience to our grand finale is just one, our stories have weight, meaning, and will live on past our own bodies.
Spiritfarer does not make death desirable in what it presents, or how it presents it. There is still so much pain, confusion, and uncertainty around it, and Spiritfarer doesn’t shy away from that. But neither does it shy away from the impact that people have on us, in their lives and in their deaths. Death, The End, while not desirable, is just a modicum more comforting for what is and how it is explored here.
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As I finished the main objectives in Spiritfarer, I was reminded more and more of the good I found in my life. Good people. Good memories. Genuine love, appreciation, adventures. It helped me be just a bit more hopeful for the future, mine and the world’s, as we continue to stomp our way into an uncertain day to come. And it reminded me that I am good. I am at my best when I get to care about people, and care for them, even in small ways. I was beginning to lose that in my last major job position, and this silly, wonderful game about traveling an ocean with anthropomorphic animal-spirits reminded me that I love to help people.
Spiritfarer is a beautiful experience, lovingly crafted in every way, and deserves to be experienced by all. How fitting, that a game about death would jumpstart me into caring about life just a little more than I was before. It gives me hope for what’s next…both in life, and after.
All images captured in-game.
