I cried at a game preview. There I was, sitting at my desk in Glasgow, watching a twenty minute hands-off slice of Hindsight gently led by designer and creator Joel McDonald and writer and narrative designer Emma Kidwell, with tears rolling down my cheeks. So just in case you’re feeling a little sensitive today, this is my warning. but don’t let it put you off the game.
From Annapurna Interactive, Hindsight looks like a beautiful exploration of grief; a colourful nostalgic journey through the memories of a woman called Mary, who has returned to her recently deceased mother’s house to organise her belongings. Each discovery of even the most innocuous of items sparks a vivid memory that takes us back to a specific point in Mary’s life.
It’s an acute part of the grieving process and McDonald and Kidwell have their own experiences that have affected the gameplay in different ways. “I lost my dad about 12 years ago. And it’s not necessarily the most obvious memento that I really cherish,” McDonald explains when we speak later. “My example is I’ll find myself watching episodes of This Old House, I don’t know if you’re familiar with that show, it’s a home improvement show on PBS here in America. And I strongly associate that type of thing with him because he’d always be watching on the weekends and do DIY things around the house. I find myself kind of gravitating towards that type of thing. Probably subconsciously as a way to remember him.”
Mary’s trip to her mother’s house is etched in a colourful but minimalist art style and through the story we don’t just pick up an item and go back in time. Each one is what McDonald and Kidwell call an ‘Aperture.’ The item itself becomes a portal to a forgotten memory and we can see and spin each one; a glimpse of the past held within an innocuous garden tap or a butterfly. Childhood memories dance through droplets of water or in a windchime.
We enter each one, journeying through nostalgia with each new item we discover in the world. It’s almost hypnotic as we have to find each new portal to a fresh layer of memory. Then at the end of each chapter, Mary has to choose the mementos to keep and move on. A painful but necessary decision as all we really want to do is hold on to everything that the people we love have left behind. Yet there are always items that mean more.
