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Thunder Lotus Game’s Spiritfarer came out in August 2020 to acclaim and positive reviews. Amidst the despondency from the pandemic's effects, this game’s bright and warm stories are filled to the brim with kindness.
In recent times, indie games have provided a potent canvas for stunning visuals. Sable and Röki are testaments to that. Released a year ago, Spiritfarer similarly boasts of vibrant animations and calming soundtracks. The delightfully quaint world of the game provides a much-needed distraction from the everyday mess.
In the past two years, the coming together of people in the face of adversity has stood out. Human beings are inherently social, and the community gathering around and helping each other out is one of the most touching moments in these bleak times.
In Spiritfarer, the player’s main aim is to care for others, forge connections and identities through a lighthearted musing on death and passing.
What is Spiritfarer?
Spiritfarer is a simple management game of ferrying spirits of the deceased to the afterlife. It falls under the sub-genre of Metroidvania. Metroidvania games are two-dimensional, sidescrolling platform gameplays featuring a large interconnected world map, which are locked at the beginning.
At the beginning of the game, the player wakes up on the crimson shores sitting on a rowboat. The hooded figure of the mythological Charon, the ferryman who carries the souls of the newly deceased, greets them.
The protagonist is a young girl with bright hair called Stella. Charon passes over the duties of the Spiritfarer to Stella before leaving. Charon also provides Stella with the Everlight that helps Stella with everything she does.
Stella travels the world looking for spirits whom she can bring onto her ship. At Stella's heels is always her pet cat, Daffodil. He has his own little Everlight to keep pace with Stella. Daffodil adds a co-op option to the game where another player can control the cat.
Stella has to manage the everyday life of the spirits on board and help them fulfill their last wishes. Once the soul finds the closure they seek, they ask Stella to bring them to the Everdoor. Each of the spirits, after passing into the afterlife, becomes a unique constellation in the sky.
The life of a Spiritfarer
The world of Spiritfarer is filled with distinct locations scattered worldwide as islands, and being a management game, the player spends a lot of time gathering resources. Players can find resources like wood, mushrooms, berries and fruits, rocks and ores in the wild. Trees can be later cut on the boat into planks to make buildings.
Seeds, meat, and other such items can be bought at the Raccoon Inc. merchant shop located in multiple places around the map. Seeds like cotton can be grown and woven into linen, and sunflower can be grown and then crushed to make oil. On top of that, players also encounter surprises like shipwrecks with treasures.
Cooking becomes an enjoyable activity for the players. With hit and miss, players can combine different ingredients to see what they can make. Although the game is filled with recipes of different cuisines, Indians may take offense that ‘Aloo Gobi’ is tagged as a salad.
In the beginning, certain sections of the world are cordoned off with obstacles like ice blockades. Players can overcome them by upgrading their ships.
The game has a day and night cycle, and at night all the spirits go to sleep. The ship also comes to a stop at night in the game. The player can choose to sleep or spend the time crafting, cooking, tending the plants, fishing, and looking after the livestock.
Stella also learns new abilities by putting obols, she gets from the spirits, at shrines. There are six skills that Stella can learn - double jump, glide, zipline, bounce, dash, light burst. Each of them helps her with traversing the world or getting around her ship.
The spirits in Spiritfarer
The primary role of Stella is to cater to the spirits she takes under her care. She has to build personalized homes for each spirit where they feel comfortable. They have their different favorite dishes and likes and dislikes that Stella has to figure out.
The spirits in the game take shapes of various animals. The first spirit who comes aboard is Gwen, a deer. As the journey goes on, the ship then is home to a hedgehog, a lynx, a frog, a basilisk, a dog, a lion, to name a few. Each of them has their own quirky and eccentric personality.
The spirits tell Stella their own stories. Players learn about the lives that these spirits have led, their struggles and falls. They speak of where they came from or about their memories and lost loved ones or things they wished to do and could not. More than a ferryman, Stella becomes a confidante.
Certain spirits also trigger specific repeatable events in the game where Stella can gather particular resources. For example, Gwen introduces Stella to the Jellyfish Event, where Bright Jelly can be collected. At the same time, Atul, the frog, teaches her how to collect Lightning in a Bottle during the Thunderstorms Event. Spirits also teach Stella new things. Summer, a spirit in the shape of a snake, leads Stella to play her instrument for the plants to grow faster.
How does Spiritfarer amidst the pandemic
Spiritfarer harps on this vein of caring for each other. The player, while catering to their wishes, learn about the spirits’ stories and idiosyncrasies.
Amidst their daily chores of maintaining the ship and providing for everyone, the player empathizes with these characters and starts to care for them. Yet, Stella has to let each of them go.
With the pandemic, the notion of the inevitability of death has pervaded almost every household. Therefore, the act of letting go is not a choice but an eventuality that one must accept and live with. Spiritfarer provides the opportunity to meaningfully connect and feel for others even though one has to let them go at the end.
This indie game is a curious pondering on life and death and the connections we make in between but with a strong dose of kindness. Although it finds itself historically set when humanity was driven apart and locked in its homes, the game reflects the need to come together the most.
The picturesque setting of the game uplifts the gloom and seriousness of the topic it deals with. It tries to show that life is filled with joyful unions, experimental cooking, singing and dancing together, and sorrowful partings among a plethora of other things.
Future of Spiritfarer
Earlier this year, Thunder Lotus announced that they were working on newer content and updates to the game and were ready to unveil it. They shared the Development Roadmap 2021 for Spiritfarer on a post on their site.
The roadmap shows three major free updates in Spring, Summer, and Fall of 2021. Each will bring in new spirits to interact with.
The first two updates have already arrived. The Spring update brought Lily, the spirit manifestation of Stella’s younger sister. The Summer update introduced Beverley, new buildings to be built on the boat, collectibles and recipes.
The final update for the year is scheduled to add two new spirits and a new island to the game. With more recent updates refreshing the content and one further update to go, it is the perfect time to jump into Spiritfarer and set sail.
It promises not just a respite from the death and despair that the pandemic has brought upon us. It also tackles the very same topics by caring for others and helping them through their grief and anger.
