Friday 16 February, 2018

Firewatch #3, 15 February 2018 — approximately 11:32 pm, NOT any inaccurate timezone report Gamelog may have produced. Please do not mark me down for lateness.
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Through my last binge session of Firewatch, I had the opportunity to see the game to its conclusion and take a moment to reflect on my experience. I've previously heard folks complain about the ending, decrying it to be anticlimactic and inadequate — ultimately failing to wrap-up the story that was otherwise so compelling. I figure that they simply have short attention spans and bloodlust at cause of their longtime dulling from Call-of-Duty-esque narratives and expectations. Firewatch is a game situated in idle pleasures and the joy in slow composure and subtle unfolding. While the narrative has a central conflict, twists, turns, surprises, and palpable mystery, it all progresses at the leasury pace of the rest of the game. Firewatch is sentimental, nuanced, and emotionally compelling, and doesn't need to rely upon high drama and the usual tropes we've come to expect — admittedly, their is a death, but it isn't what makes the story evocative and tragic. The moral dynamics of the game lie not in massive, binary decisions, but rather in human relationships, and questions on what obligations we truly have to others — this is likely what I will be writing about for the coming paper. We find in Firewatch the moral dimensions of human relationships, conversational speech, and the small-scale decisions of small-scale individuals. There is nothing grandiose in the actions of this game, nothing of massive weight and influence for anyone else but the few individuals involved; Firewatch is a game about, well, people that sit in towers and watch for fires in desolate forest — nothing more, nothing less. Moral struggles emerge in the lives of individuals.

Good job! While I agree that Firewatch has many small, moral decisions, I recommend on finding one ethical framework and applying that to the game. There are plenty of themes to focus on within the game, but make sure to have one strong focus supported by in-game examples.