FORGOTTEN FIELDS STARS PC

Unfortunately, Forgotten Fields’ story is simply too light. This setup initially constitutes a charming premise and makes the otherwise-poor gameplay meaningful in a new way. The central conflict is whether he can be happy with his unstable life as a writer, or whether he would actually prefer something different.

Thus, the day inspires new directions for the book and this, in turn, allows Sid to reflect on the state of his life.

FORGOTTEN FIELDS STARS PC

The first scene effectively conveys his life’s tedium as we instruct Sid to shower, make tea and get the latest email from his PC revealing few book sales and looming deadlines.įrom this point, Forgotten Fields begins to parallel the lived universe of Sid with the fictional universe of his book idea. The story stars Sid, an unsuccessful, lonely and depressed writer struggling with a new book proposal as he suffers from writer’s block. In Forgotten Fields’ case, the emphasis is on its interactive narrative. However, it’s obvious that Forgotten Fields wants to be an emotionally resonant experience and games like it can often deliver valuable experiences without much focus on traditional gameplay. Dialogue options, for example, have little effect other than to rearrange the order in which a player will see the text.

When Forgotten Fields is functional, the experience is only skin-deep. Some stages are barely functional, both in terms of production and design - if the player doesn’t follow their objective as directed, it can lead to buggy situations that will require a reload. (I do recommend failing, though, for it often provides comedic spectacle.) For example, there are QTE sections, but each requires only a single button press without lasting consequences for failing. However, while I recognize the attempt here, the quality of gameplay varies between tedious and repetitive, technically unpolished and comically terrible. It appeared to me as if Forgotten Fields sought to transcend genre conventions, which is a move I applaud. Gameplay takes a variety of forms - one time I was point-and-clicking, another time I had to accurately throw objects via a first-person perspective, and yet another time an interactive cutscene unfolded while I was asked to make dialogue choices. Let’s say that it’s essentially a third-person adventure with differing camera perspectives, including first-person and cinematic interfaces. It presents itself as interactive fiction, and is a bit tricky to define with conventional descriptors.

Since I’m a big fan of this style, Forgotten Fields initially won me over with similar aspirations. There are certainly other titles like this - it’s just one example - but the point is that there is a class of games that aspire to this kind of experience. It didn’t stick to a single playstyle throughout its running time, but instead crafted a variety of gameplay sections that were congruent with the minds of the characters we were inhabiting. One title that fits this description is 2017’s What Remains of Edith Finch. Some games don’t focus on winning or losing, or even on providing ‘challenging’ gameplay, but instead dedicate themselves to the embodiment of fictional narratives or emotionally resonating experiences.

Forgotten fields stars