Friday 16 February, 2018

NOTE: Spoilers ahead and behind (my past entries). Entry submitted 2-15-18 at 11:25 PM.

Played for a total of 3 hours today. I wanted to finish the game for the last OPA entry of this game. I right up until the end it was pretty exciting and a little terrifying. Throughout today's play-through you figure out that someone has been watching you. So until I figured out who it was at the end I was paranoid for every little sound I heard from the environment, especially like something is moving in the bushes. But nothing popped out, I guess this isn't that kind of game.
To pick off where we left off earlier when we're heading fishing. Henry/Hank find a clipboard that has the conversations that Delilah and Henry have been having throughout the whole Summer. Henry is knocked out by the person that has been watching them. From this point on, both Delilah and Henry start becoming afraid and paranoid. I believe there were options to verbally attack Delilah during some conversations but I tried to keep a level head as possible. Henry and Delilah are thinking there some kind of conspiracy and so they decide that they/Henry should investigate the fenced off area. You find some high tech communication devices and documents, later figure out they were drafted by the mysterious man, detailing Delilah and Henry's life and personality. They begin thinking that this whole place was created to observe them both but you later find out that that isn't the case. I've already given out too much so I'm just going to say that what seemed like a whole big dramatic plan/event was actually not that big. There is no secret research facility doing experiments on the inhabitants of the forest. It was just facade for something smaller. A story about a former lookout and his son. They figure out that the son has died and the lookout/father is to blame. Delilah's angry at both the failure of a father and herself because she didn't report about it. It's not really apparent on whether she gets completely over it. After solving the whole mystery of who's watching them, the former lookout, and a murder. A fire is enveloping the entire forest and Henry and Delilah escape. Now right before escaping, Henry is in Delilah's lookout tower waiting for the helicopter, while Delilah's already left. Henry and Delilah talk on a ham radio about what they're going to do in the future. And Henry wants to be with Delilah, at least that's what I chose. But Delilah tells Henry that he needs to face up and go see his wife before anything. That the problems he came to the forest to run away from are still in front of him. This brings up a theme that is pretty apparent throughout the game, and that is guilt, escapism, self-acceptance and moving forward. Now does the game depict these themes effectively? I would say that the story brought up/presented the themes very well and it's just up to the player's dialogue responses on how well it turned out. For me I chose dialogue that I would think I would say and that I wanted Henry to accomplish what he came out to the forest to do, which was I believe to be moving forward and tackling your problems.
The former lookout/father is what Henry could be. He's a symbol of having run away from his problems instead of owning up to them and facing it head on. He was still stuck in the past.
I've kind of rambled on and pretty much spoiled the game for whoever reads this, so sorry. Anyway overall, I came into this game with low expectations and came out semi-satisfied. Semi-satisfied just because I'm a little annoyed that we didn't even get to see Delilah and that the ending felt a little underwhelming.

Good job Jonathan! You show that you observed the game very thoroughly and the theme of guilt, self-acceptance, escapism, self-acceptance, and moving forward. These are some good themes to work with in your OPA and how how the game makes the player address these moral issues. In the future, try to focus more on reflecting on the moral implications of game as opposed to summarizing plot points. Also, I’ve played Firewatch before so you’re all good on the spoilers :)