What we've been playing
A few of the things that have us hooked this week.
22nd December, 2023
Hello! Welcome back to our regular feature where we write a little bit about some of the games we've found ourselves playing over the last few days. This will be our last What We've Been Playing of the year - of 2023 - which means when we come back in January, we'll be able to talk about what we played, or what we did not manage to play, during the end of year break. That's exciting isn't it? Anyway! This week, it's a mixture of Indonesian coming of age stories, retro remade Zeldas, and small lakeside towns.
If you fancy catching up on some of the older editions of What We've Been Playing, here's our archive.
Link's Awakening, Switch
I recently started playing Link's Awakening on Nintendo Switch with my son, and something wonderful has happened. Even though we haven't gotten very far through the game itself yet (we saved BowWow from the Moblin Cave and are now on our way to the Bottle Grotto), it has already sparked something in my son, and his imagination is on fire.
After we finished our first dungeon the other evening, I told him it was time to get ready for bed. I then did some general tidying up (it never ends), before heading upstairs to make sure he had brushed his teeth and what not. But what I saw when I made my way into his room was not what I was expecting. Rather than finding him tucked up in bed, my son had cleared a space on his desk and was carefully mapping out Koholint Island in gorgeous cartoony detail in his sketchbook. I beamed.
The thing that I found truly remarkable was that he had also started to fill in bits of the map we had not got to yet, just with his own thoughts and ideas of what is still to come. And, bizarrely, he wasn't actually all that far off.
He had drawn a castle towards the far east of his map, and a big expanse of desert area down one side. While he didn't get the rapids or the cliff areas of Link's Awakening, he had drawn another little town-like settlement a bit further along from his version of Mabe Village. Of course, having played the game already on both GameBoy and Switch, I know of the existence of Animal Village. I am not going to tell him how much he has guessed correctly, though. I want this all to be a surprise for him as we play on further together.
Thankfully, he breaks up for his Christmas holidays this afternoon, and I can't think of anything better to do when he gets home than curling up on the sofa with a mug of hot chocolate and a fluffy blanket, ready for another trip to Koholint Island. ‘Tis the season, after all.
-Victoria
A Space for the Unbound, PC
I love that Toge Productions is finding success with games like Coffee Talk (1 and 2) and now A Space for the Unbound, because it's opening up an Indonesian development scene to us that comes with different perspectives.
A Space for the Unbound is a great example of this. Simply speaking, it tells the story of teenagers growing up in Indonesia, being at school and doing things teenagers do. There's a deeper storyline which emerges as you play, but on the surface, it's a coming of age tale.
What strikes me about it is the incidental tourism of it all, not just in the sun-drenched areas I explore but also the pervading attitudes of the people there that surround it. But none of it is forced - I'm not pushed into experiencing anything. It's just there. And it's just there, I presume, because these are the surroundings developer Mojiken grew up in. No one there consciously thinks about it because it's fundamental to them.
But it makes me think. It makes me think about the differences and the similarities I see, and about how gaming connects us. Maybe it's a simple thing for Mojiken but it's something that marks out A Space for the Unbound distinctly to me. And I know it's probably idealised for the game, but that's one idyllic setting to be in. Frankly, looking out of my rainy office window today, I know where I'd rather be.
-Bertie
Lake: Season's Greetings, Xbox
If you enjoyed Lake, the cosy narrative game that was part small town drama and part soothing postie simulator, you'll likely love Season's Greetings, its recently-released Christmas DLC.
A prequel, this add-on sees you take on the parcel-delivering duties of Merdith's dad Thomas Weiss, roughly six months before the events of the main game. Set over the Christmas holiday, there's plenty of packages to drop off and a story that largely sows the seeds for what we know happens next, while introducing a couple of fresh subplots. Veteran postie Thomas is content in his small town world, but getting towards retirement age and wondering if there's more to life than his job. Meanwhile, Lake star Meredith is still stuck in the city, to the extent she can't make it back in time for Christmas.
Season's Greetings once again unwraps its story through interactions with Providence Oaks, as you deliver their parcels and letters and get involved in more of the local goings on. There's perhaps more of a story here, and less of a reliance on delivering letters to fill the time, as the narrative looks to culminate around a big New Year's Eve party. But it's still gentle stuff - playing matchmaker to visiting love birds, navigating the local rivalries between shopkeepers, and helping a sympathetic colleague dodge the eyes of a malicious manager.
That is the appeal of Lake as a video game, though, and something which seems all the more perfect after a long, long year in the real world. It's a gentle-paced Crazy Taxi with a story - a Cosy Taxi, if you will.
-Tom