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Books3's A Mortician's Tale (PC)
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| [August 30, 2018 01:11:26 AM]
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Today I finished A Mortician's Tale for my third entry. I believe that a simple game like this really had a strong way of putting a message out there about funerals thanks to its strong ties with death and simplicity. The last three levels that I encountered all had a lot stronger narrative and moral implications than before. Charlie is asked if she is okay with burying a young man who committed suicide. There is then the option of deciding whether you want to do an open funeral for this man or not. I chose to do the funeral which was against the young man's wishes of wanting to be cremated. While attending the funeral and listening to the grieving family was sad, I felt worse when preparing the body, because I felt as if I was disrespecting the dead. Later on, Hillside Heritage Inc. has taken over Rose and Daughters and the scummy company practices are displayed before the player's eyes. I never knew that a funeral company had so many ways to deceive their clients. The game also presents this trickery well due to the larger company stylized website and emails from the director tricking a family into buying a package instead of doing a home funeral. The emails from the computer show how the lives of all the characters are doing and also how Charlie not only feels bad about working for Hillside, but also that she wants to respect death through home funerals and green burials. The final level reveals that Charlie has gone on to create her own eco-friendly funeral home, along with the other characters also living happily with their lives with Matthew Jeffery leaving the company to be a bus driver. I think that the way that Charlie decides to leave the company revealed through the emails and website tabs on the computer is a way that the game has the players feel more personalized with what is happening. This way, the game can spread the message of good funeral practices while the player feels as if they can make their own choices in how their or their loved one's deaths can be more respectful to not just the environment, but also to those around them.
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| [August 27, 2018 09:52:49 PM]
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In my first session with: A Mortician's Tale, I have gathered that this is a game centered around funerals and deaths from the perspective of funeral directors and
the people who take care of the bodies. I chose to play this game, because it was a game that I had never heard of from the list of potential games we could play. After,
playing through the first two funerals, I can confidently say that I am shocked (in a good way). A Mortician's Tale does not hold back with the themes of realism and death,
and invokes emotional responses from players with its direct conveyance of information. The gameplay is very simple with everything being controlled by the mouse in a
point and click style of game. This simplicity allows the game to keep the player's attention on learning about preparing bodies for funerals. While playing, I barely
payed any attention to what I was doing with my mouse and focused more on finding out that the eyes sag after death so eye caps are needed to keep their lively shape intact.
So far, A Mortician's Tale has kept a small cast of characters: Charlie, Jen Love, Amy Rose, and Matthew Jeffery. While each of these characters offers advice and information
about dealing with death and competently doing a job at the funeral home, this tight cast allows the game to put an emphasis on the ambiguity and suddenness of death. Each
new level brings a new completely different grieving family with a different request on the burial of the body. By the time the next level passes, the deceased's name has
already passed from my mind, but the experience of learning what goes into a successful funeral stays. The narative of the game has not really gone much of anywhere to be
honest. So far, the game has focused on preparing each body differently and learning more about the cast of characters through email. Not much is really given to the player
in regards to personal information about Charlie, but I learned much about the personalities of Jen Love, Amy Rose, and Matthew Jeffery. While the game doesn't give any
choices to the player, the way that the player interacts with the grieving family after preparing a body is very intriguing. This is especially interesting thanks to the
email subscription that Jen Love sends Charlie which gives tips and advice on how to act during funerals and deal with the loss of loved ones. After reading these tips, and
then witnessing the way the funeral atendees act really gives a different perspective on the ways people deal with death. At first, the atendees for Mrs. Garcia's funeral
seem rude and anything from grieving, but the follow up email from the requestee reveals that the funeral was a success and that the family was able to get together and
really heal together. This leads to an understanding of the actions of the atendees. For example, the couple joking about how Mrs. Garcia would have hated the pictures on the wall but at least she can't see them anymore
at first seems rude, but now it can be seen as a way of not only putting their minds off the tragedy, but also remembering specific nuances about Mrs. Garcia. A Mortician's
Tale has really piqued my interest in learning more about death and funeral preparations, because of how little is really known publicly about these sorts of prepartions and
what goes into making a funeral successful along with how people deal with death.
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Books3's A Mortician's Tale (PC)
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Current Status: Playing
GameLog started on: Monday 27 August, 2018
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