A Mortician's Tale

A Mortician's Tale doesn't feel like a game.  It looks like a game but you have very, very few choices and you can't fail, so it plays more like a workplace training exercise.  Have you done those?  We used to do those in labs.  The 'game' tells you which piece of equipment to pick up and where to use it, and won't let you do it wrong, it'll just keep reminding you as you click around.  It will also explain what you're doing and why, in a way most games leave up to you to figure out.

There are screenshots from the game below, including a representation of a human body being prepared for burial.

Basically, you take the role of a mortician, that is, one who prepares the dead for burial or processes their cremation.  You pop in on her career for a day at a time, over a few months.  During that period her workplace changes a few times, allowing you to see different aspects of the funeral industry.  Each day begins by checking your emails, which will tell you who you're preparing and how - e.g., for an open casket, for cremation - and gives you a bit of gossip.  On most days, your mortician will also have another webpage up that you can read.  On one day, that other webpage lets you play Minesweeper, but with a twist.  The twist is that the numbers are replaced with symbols and which symbol corresponds to which number changes on each attempt.  I didn't find it at all difficult.  If you manage to click on an empty square and so reveal several at once, it's pretty easy to see which are the 1s, and then you can work out the 2s and 3s and so on from there.  That said, I'm really, really good at Minesweeper - I'm currently playing Minesweeper 3D because normal Minesweeper doesn't challenge me any more and no one will play me at Minesweeper Flags because I keep winning - so my experience isn't typical.  Still, it's not an essential part of the game (though it does give you an achievement).

The game then has you prepare the body.  This involves some combination of cleaning them, fitting caps under their eyelids and gluing the lids shut, sewing the mouth shut, replacing their blood with formaldehyde, and suctioning out their liquefied organs.  The game isn't exactly gory, and all of the above just involves clicking and dragging the mouse, but it is discomforting.  I can see it being weirdly cathartic if you're recently bereaved - though it could also be incredibly upsetting in those circumstances - and it did help me figure out what I want done when I die.  Incidentally, I'm currently completing a Master degree in bioarchaeology - skeletons - and I still find that corpses make me uncomfortable, even fictitious ones.  I'm okay with bones - I've handled medieval skeletons - but I don't like fleshy bits.

Having prepared the body, you attend the funeral or wake, where you can speak - or eavesdrop - on the guests and pay your final respects to the remains.  Having done so, you re-enter your workspace and the next day begins.  Your only choices within the game are who to speak to - with an achievement for speaking to every guest - and whether or not to prepare the body of someone who has committed suicide.  I went with yes, because we are all equal in death and because I don't think suicide is a personal moral failing.  It's sad, and we, as a society, should take steps to make sure it isn't necessary, but the individual hasn't, in my opinion, committed a sin (I'm using 'sin' to mean a bad, immoral thing, not literally in terms of what the Catholic church has decided is a sin.  I am Catholic, I'm just not very good at it).  I've also realised that I believe having your body treated respectfully after death is a human right, no matter what someone has done.  It's a bit like the way our legal system (British, for me) has decided that everyone deserves a lawyer to argue for them, no matter what they've done or how obvious their guilt appears.  Someone has to be on your side, no matter what.  Because, I don't know, maybe this is the one in a billion time when an innocent person is unlucky enough to look really guilty, or when there are circumstances that should change the normal sentence for their crime.  I don't know.  I can't make that decision, no one can, that's why we have a whole system to decide that sort of thing, with lots of people coming together to discuss it and examine it and find the truth.  The whole issue is above my - and most people's - paygrade, and so is deciding that someone has committed a sin by committing suicide.

With the steps for preparing the body are so thorough and grounded in realism, messing up would be very upsetting, so it makes sense that the game doesn't actually let you fail.  But, this hand-holding does make it less of a game, and that's one of the reasons that the Steam reviews are 'mixed'.  The short playtime compared to the price tag is the other major reason for negative reviews.  I completed the game, with all achievements, in 90 minutes.  The description says it normally takes an hour, so I assume that extra thirty minutes came from minesweeper and intentionally moving slowly because it felt like the respectful thing to do.  I got it on sale for £1.79 - which will be the price until the 24th of June 2021 - but the normal price is £7.19.  I'd say my enjoyment of those 90 minutes was closer to £1.79 than £7.19.  I had a good experience, but I probably would feel a bit ripped off if I'd payed £7.19 for it.

You can get a similar experience to playing this game by reading the book Smoke Gets In Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty, aka Ask A Mortician.  This isn't surprising because both Caitlin Doughty and The Order of the Good Death, with which she is associated, are both acknowledged at the end of the game.  I think 'acknowledged' is the right word - instead of, for example, 'credited' - but I'm not 100% sure and would need to replay the game to check.  To be honest, the mortician's career progression and the decisions she makes - without your input - feels a lot like propaganda for the Order of the Good Death.  I can't say I like the propaganda aspect but, also, I do agree with their goals and their approach to the death industry, so it's hard to pinpoint exactly what's making me uncomfortable.  I think it has to do with the mortician being such a blank slate and being the player's avatar, but also making her own decisions and whims without us.  It feels as if the game is telling us "you agree with this, you want this" but not actually interacting with us or accepting any input from us.  Like we're being railroaded.  

I'm not sure what would fix the rail-roading aspect for me.  Maybe it's as simple as giving us more input.  Maybe let us make some decisions about how the mortician's career will go, and explain to us the pros and cons of each step.  There must be a reason the funeral industry is how it is, and why most morticians don't make the decisions the protagonist does.  Why is that?  Sure, some of it might be "because they're evil and only care about money", but I doubt that's all of it.  Maybe some of it is "because there just isn't enough land" or because "X is really expensive" or "the general public don't know enough to value this skill so people can't earn a living this way".  I'd like to have seen more of that explored.  As it is, it feels like some issues exist in the middle of the game, to force the mortician's workplace to change, but then those issues just suddenly disappear when it feels like, realistically, they should still be in play for her final career move.  If that makes sense.  I'm trying to avoid spoilers.  With spoilers, what I'm trying to say is: if the funeral industry is so bad that Rose is forced to sell her family-owned funeral home to a big corporation, how does the mortician afford to start her own 'wild' funeral home?  What did she do differently?  Why did the money struggles suddenly go away?

Overall, I had a good experience playing this game.  Like I said above, I might not feel that way if I'd paid four times as much for it, so I can't recommend buying it at full price.  Also, like I said, it feels more like well-made workplace training + propaganda than a game, which has garnered it some bad reviews.

I feel pressured to make a recommendation - yes, you should buy it or no, you should not - or to assign a rating, or state whether this game is good or bad, because that's how many sites invite us to review products.  But, I don't actually think that's what reviews are for.  I can't disagree with the bad reviews on steam, they are accurately describing aspects of the game.  I also agree with the good reviews.  This is what the game is, and now you have that information, you can make your own decision about whether it's worth buying.

A General Update

 Since the start of 2020, it's been my goal to reduce the number of games that I own but have never played.  To this end, I made a spreadsheet in May of 2020.  Back then, I owned 188 games, 54 (29%) of which I'd completed.  44 (23%) of them, I'd played a little bit of it, and 90 of them (48%) I'd never played.  By last October, I owned 225 games, and I'd completed 109 (48%) of them.  Today, I own 228 games, and I've completed 129 of them, or 56.58%, so that's an improvement.  I still have 62 (27.19%) I've never played.  Here's a nice graph!

I looked over my old posts on this (and added a tag to them), and I was surprised to learn that I'd originally planned to replay some of the games I'd not played in a while.  I don't think that's particularly important.  I also, at one point, tried to institute a rule that I needed to complete four games before allowing myself to purchase one more.  That rapidly went by the wayside.  I'd need to complete 46 games to catch up to how many I've purchased over the last year.  If I pretend I needed to complete 2 games to justify buying 1 up until now, the numbers work out and I'm all caught up.  But, from now on, I'll stick to completing 4 games before buying one more new game.

I added a new label for games - "Achievement Hunting/Replaying".  Some games, like, for instance, Monster Prom and Monster Camp can technically be 'completed' in about 20 minutes.  But, they're designed to be replayed, so actually 'completing' the game isn't getting to the end credits, but more about exploring the universe and seeing more of it.  Since my condition for 'completing' games is normally getting to the ending, I felt like I needed something else for when I was still actively playing a game even though I'd seen the ending.  Other games like Tales of Symphonia are in that same category.  I've completed the game, but you actually need to play it through at least five times to unlock every Title - a thing that helps your characters stats raise as they level up - which is what I'm in the process of doing.  I'm doing it slowly, because I just enjoy visiting that world and hanging out there, but I do still think of it as a game I'm actively playing.

Speaking of Tales of Symphonia, isn't Scott Menville's performance great?  He's the voice of Lloyd - and also the 'whatever' guy in Full House - and he just brings so much to the character.  Lloyd is one of my very favourite RPG characters and, tbh, the other characters in that category are often there because I played the game when I was very young and impressional, like Squall Leonhart from Final Fantasy VIII and Yuri Hyuga from Shadow Hearts.  They're great characters, but if I'd played their games later or at a different time in my life, I might not like them as much as I do.  Lloyd, I love just for himself.  Though, I do need to point out that I was about 16 the first time I played Tales of Symphonia (on the gamecube!) and I was probably still at quite an impressionable age.

Anyway, since my last update, I have completed quite a few games.  I've written guides for several, so you know about those.  I played Stardew Valley and officially completed it last week, after four in-game years.  That was a journey.  The game's pretty addictive and I've got over 300 hours in it, which is a problem because I'm trying to complete a Master's degree.  I also finished Littlewood, which is very similar in that you're setting up a new town and can spend time farming, exploring local dungeons, and getting to know the townsfolk.  Littlewood is more focused on the adventuring than the farming, which makes sense.  Your character is a classic RPG hero, who has now saved the world and lost their memory.  Your best friends encourage you to set up a town, with you explicitly as mayor or whatever title you prefer.  I chose 'Regnant'.  I like being Regnant.  It means all the stuff I do for the town - like building houses and shops and making it all pretty - makes sense, and it's not just about Mayor Lewis slacking off and being too cheap to light or pave the town properly.  I also like that time is only a function of your energy.  That is, you do X amount of things, it's evening.  The day ends when you collapse from exhaustion or when you go to bed.  I liked this a lot better than Stardew Valley's frantic pace.  To be honest, I used a mod on Stardew to make the days a little bit longer, with hours equalling 12 seconds rather than 7.  I completed Littlewood in about 80 hours, so it's not quite as long or in-depth as Stardew Valley.

I also played The Crooked Man, a retro-style game that takes around 2-3 hours to play.  It's normally £2.09, but there's a sale on on Steam right now so it's £1.25.  I've had it for a while and, according to my spreadsheet, I paid £1.67 for it.

I can't actually remember when or why I bought this game, but I'm glad I finally got around to playing it this weekend.  It's creepy and atmospheric, basically a horror movie in game-form.  It's the good kind of horror, where it leaves you with a feeling of sadness that things had to be that way, and an understanding of what motivated the horror, which is always nice.  Plus, there's a really interesting mystery running through the game.

There's a new game plus mode, which includes a little bit of extra information in the final chapter.  Since there are five chapters - though the last two are very short - it seems like they could have either added some extra content into the first four or let you replay just the final chapter rather than the whole game.  On the other hand, as with most horror/mystery stories, it's quite interesting watching events now that you know more about what's going on.  Plus, the game is quite short (and there's a thorough step-by-step guide on Steam) so replaying it isn't exactly a hardship.  It turns out that there are three other games in this series - The Sand Man, The Boogie Man, and The Hanged Man - which are on my wishlist.  I didn't buy them because of the aforementioned finishing 4 games before I buy another 1 rule, but I definitely intend to someday, when I'm ready to play them there and then.

Two games I bought and completed recently were A Normal Lost Phone and Another Lost Phone.  They're part of a series - although the characters and storylines are unrelated - in which you find a lost phone and need to search through it to figure out who it used to belong to (presumably with the totally innocent goal of returning it to them).  As you read through their messages, you find passwords - for example, the password for the local public wifi - which unlocks more apps and content for you to read through.  They both took 60-90 minutes to complete, with all achievements.  There's little replay value - until such time as you've forgotten the details and can enjoy the discovery again - but I got them for 52p and 78p respectively, so I'm fine with that, it's still a bargain.  I bought them on Steam, and they were on sale because it's Pride month and the first story has LGBTQ themes.  They're also available as phone apps for, if I recall correctly, £2.49 each.  I think they'd make a lot more sense on a phone, the experience would be far more immersive.  In terms of gameplay, they both feel very similar to Digital: A Love Story and Analogue: A Hate Story.  Those two games also form a series, though, in that case, characters and storylines overlap, and the basic premise of those is that you're an astronaut who's found an abandoned vessel.  You need to tap into the ship's logs and read through them to figure out what happened, again finding passwords and unlocking new things as you go.  All four games feel kind of similar to Her Story.  That's a game where you have access to a police computer, and you're searching the archives for clips from video interviews, to understand an old case.  In Her Story, you don't get passwords, but you figure out new key words to search for, to bring up more clips with new and interesting details.

In the same sale, I bought Speed Dating for Ghosts.  That plays very much like a visual novel.  You get a choice of three rooms and cycle through meeting three ghosts.  You usually get two short conversations with them, unless you've pissed them off.  At the end of the speed-dating, you pick one to go out with, and get a longer scene about them.  After the date, you can come back and go out with one of the other two, again, assuming you didn't piss them off.  You don't need to play through the speed-dating again.  

I found it was actually quite hard not to get a date with the ghosts, if you avoided the obviously bad options.  In my first playthrough, I only failed with one ghost and that's because I turned him in for asking me to rob a bank with him.  Really though...yes, I get that ghosts are invisible, so it's much easier for them to rob banks.  BUT...why trade in stolen money when you could instead trade in information?  It's much more valuable.  That ghost was short-sighted.

I liked most of the ghosts, and I enjoyed the conversations.  There was usually an option that felt like a natural response I wanted to give, and at times, it really did feel like I was subtly picking up conversational cues and reading body language, even though the art style is very simplistically stylised.  I didn't like all the ghosts - I wasn't a big fan of the bank robber or the whiny punk girl.  Whiny punk girl was weirdly insistent on exactly what people had to do to be acceptable to her.  I'm pretty sure insisting everyone act a certain way or they are Wrong is the opposite of punk.  Still, even though I found her stupid, hypocritical, childish, and tiresome, she didn't detract from the experience.  You're not going to like everyone you meet at speed-dating.  Plus ghosts, as a group, are pretty unhappy people - since they have unfinished business - and unhappiness isn't always going to be interesting or palatable.  Sometimes, it's just going to be irritating.

I finally got around to playing The Novelist, which is another game I've owned for years.  In that, you experience nine 'chapters' in the life of a family staying at a holiday home.  You're the ghost haunting the holiday home, and your self-imposed role is to figure out what the mother, father, and son each want.  You can then whisper that decision in the father's ear, influencing him.  To complete each chapter, you need to discover exactly what one character wants and tell the father - the titular novelist - that they should get it.  If you take the time to find out multiple character's wishes, you can then choose a compromise, so another character gets part of what they wanted.  I've only played it through once - which took around 2 and a half hours - but I've read that the order in which you view the 'chapters' is random.  There are also multiple endings, depending upon how miserable or happy each character is at the end of the summer.  I chose to spread out the wishes evenly, so each character get exactly what they wanted three times, missed out three times, and compromised three times, which left everyone pretty happy.  I don't know exactly how many endings there are.  I usually rely on achievements or an in-game gallery to signal whether I've missed something or to tell me there's more to explore, but this game has neither.  I might replay it someday.

The gameplay is basically that of a walking simulator, though you, as a ghost, can also zoom into various light-fittings as a way to hide and to move around the house more quickly.  The game has two modes, Story or Stealth.  In Stealth mode, the family can see you and will become uncomfortable and unhappy if they see you too often, or so I've read.  I played it in story mode, because I am not very dextrous and walking sims are hard for me.  Plus, the game made me motion sick, so my two and a half hours were spread over a few days.  With games that make me sick, I can normally play for about 15 minutes at a time, at least at first.  Luckily, each chapter takes 15-20 minutes to complete. I struggled a bit on the first chapter.  I had to leave the room and take some deep breaths before playing the last two minutes.  But, over time, I get used to these games, and I was able to play the last three chapters in one sitting.

I have the same problem - motion sickness - with the Spyro the Dragon games.  I've owned the Reignited trilogy - the Steam port/remake of the original playstation games - for about a year, since they were released.  I was able to complete the first two - with many breaks - then took a long break during the third one.  The third one was rushed compared to the first two and is glitchier.  It also seems to be harder on my PC, which makes it hard to control at times, like during the Speedways or on the levels with snow.  Plus, both of my gamepads have started drifting, which makes some parts of the game impossible to play.  I've started slowly working my way through the game again, but it is a nightmare sometimes.  For example, this morning I was playing the Agent 9 level, which has a sniper challenge.  All you need to do is move your aiming circle horizontally across a shooting range, which has Rhynocs popping up from behind it.  With my controller, the left and right are a bit too sensitive, so I repeatedly scrolled past the Rhynoc I needed to hit (it was even worse if I tried using my keyboard).  That's using the d-pad, which isn't even subject to drift like the joystick thing is.  However, my d-pad has decided that, sometimes, when I press right I must really mean 'down', and that sends my aiming circle - or Spyro, when he's flying - veering off wildly.  I need to buy a new one, but one of my gamepads is only six months old.  There has to be a better solution than just buying a new one every six months.  The two gamepads do appear to have slightly different issues - one tends to get visibly stuck in a certain direction, while the other has phantom input when it isn't being touched - so I think opening them up and putting the actual stick bit from one together with the underlying spring thing from the other might fix it for a while.  Even if it works, I suspect that will only be a short-term solution.

My fiancé did offer to loan me his old PS3 controller - which he only uses for Rocket League - but I found Spyro didn't recognise it.  It's possible that that issue is fixable, with some fiddling around in the Steam settings but I cannot be arsed at the moment.  To get around the issues with the actual game running badly on my PC, my fiancé has agreed to let me finish off the last few achievements/skill points on his PC, which is newer and built for gaming.  So, at the moment, I'm just doing what I can and limping to the end.

There are quite a few other games I've been playing, but I either don't have anything to say about them or I want to write about them in their own posts.