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What Remains of Edith Finch
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WARNING: This episode discusses the topic of death which some users may find upsetting.
In this episode, Adam and Satsunami discuss the indie classic What Remains of Edith Finch. What new secrets will the duo uncover in the Finch household? Only one way to find out!
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For more Chatsunami content, please click here!
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Transcript
Introduction and Episode Setup
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome to Chatsunami. Hello everyone and welcome to Chatsunami. My name is Adam and joining me today is the fearless captain of the ship, Satsunami. Satsunami welcome back.
Discussion on 'What Remains of Edith Finch' Begins
00:00:27
Speaker
I didn't really want to interrupt you there, but this ship is sinking. Have you got a spare bucket? Oh, is that why the carp are swimming about my ankles right now? Look, why did you name it Titanic? Also, hello, everybody. Hope you're doing well.
00:00:41
Speaker
Well, I guess we better get this episode on the road then, since we seem to be sinking at an alarming rate. But anyway, so today we're going to be discussing the game What Remains of Edith Finch, developed by Giant Sparrow, published by Anna Perna Interactive, and released in 2017. So as a warning before we start the episode, this game deals with some quite serious themes which we're going to be discussing throughout this episode. So please consider this a kind of content warning for the whole episode.
Game's Influence and Personal Struggles with Recommendations
00:01:07
Speaker
Satsunami, so how did you first hear about Edith Finch?
00:01:09
Speaker
I think Edith Finch was one of those indie games that constantly pops up. Whenever somebody talks about, oh, when I play a really entertaining, narrative-driven indie game, usually Edith Finch pops up. It's quite surprising because every time it pops up I'll say, oh, I'll play it, I'll play it, I'll play it, and Adam, you know my track record for games. When I say, I'll play it, and I never do. Throw it on the backlog.
00:01:37
Speaker
Pretty much, and that backlog is... Do you know how I treat my backlog? It's like, you know, all those Christmas fires? You know, you throw a log onto it just to fuel the fire. It's like, yeah, I'll extinguish it someday and bring that log out. I never do it, but... You've just got a fireplace with a little ash nub, basically. Pretty much. Smolder in a way, just staining your walls. I'm like, journey, no!
00:02:01
Speaker
gone home, no! Firewatch, oh well actually I did start Firewatch, nearly made me tear up, I will say that. But anyway, sorry back to Edith Finch. Yeah, I remember hearing about this game for ages, but much like a lot of the games that I've been told about, I never really looked into it. I never really looked into it to say, oh is this what Edith Finch was about? Is this the kind of gameplay we're getting into? I don't really like going into games and knowing everything about them if that makes sense.
00:02:30
Speaker
Yeah, you were a bit of mystery still. Yeah, especially for indie games, because indie games are so rich and diverse and you get such an entertaining amount, especially for, and you name-dropped them earlier, with Annapurna Interactive, who have become my fast-growing favourite publishers currently, because I've been playing a lot of games from them. And again, I know there's a difference between publisher and developer, but, you know, they've
00:02:57
Speaker
published a lot of games that quite frankly have caught my interest recently. I think they published Firewatch as well, could be wrong in that. They also published Telling Lies, Last Stop. So when I saw Edith Finch was on Game Pass recently, I thought you know what, let's give it a go because I know of course you Adam, you had recommended this game quite a lot to me and I thought you know what,
00:03:21
Speaker
I'm going to do it. It's free on Game Pass. I'm going to jump in, I'm going to play it and it was a great experience. But I've got to turn the question back on you because you have non-stop been telling me about this game. You've been saying how amazing it is. So what was your exposure to it in the first instance?
Adam's High Regard and Recommendation of 'Edith Finch'
00:03:39
Speaker
Yeah, I think I only recommended it to you about 500 times. I mean, conservatively. Probably the same amount of times I recommended Castle Crashers to you.
00:03:49
Speaker
No, we're starting to think rivalling each other for that. No, so I heard about this game. So I said it came out late April 2017. Actually, the day we're recording this, it is nearly the five-year anniversary of this game. So I said it came out late April 2017. I don't think I heard about it until the end of 2017, because Edith Finch, this game, won the best game at the BAFTAs in early 2018. And it was getting a lot of buzz as 2017.
00:04:17
Speaker
that's when I think I first heard it mentioned. It sounded really intriguing and I was really keen to get it, so I thought it's always been quite well priced because it's a relatively short game, so I just decided to splash out and pick it up. So I played it at the end of 2017 and I instantly fell in love with it.
00:04:33
Speaker
it's still one of my favourite games of all time, it's in my top five best games ever. I absolutely love it and yeah I've recommended it to about every living creature I think I've come into contact with in the intervening five years but yeah so it was a game that really lived up to the hype for me certainly anyway so I'm just glad that it seems to have certainly resonated with you at least and it hasn't been a complete flop.
00:04:55
Speaker
Well, I mean, considering the fact that I kept spamming you non-stop with, like, theories and pictures of the game being like, now Adam, listen, listen, OK, see this log outside? It's the key to all this! It means something! It's the key to the curse, Nabbit! E.D. was alive the entire time! You're making the Finch house out of mashed potatoes. That's it, I'm going to the Finch's house! I don't think any of us expected him to say that.
Exploring the Depth and Layers of the Game
00:05:24
Speaker
Oh it is just such a deep game though because I remember the first time I actually played this game and I remember messaging you saying yeah it's good yeah yeah I played it because I was on a bit of an indie game binge and I played it I loved the art style and everything and then after finishing it I was kind of like okay I like it but I'm a bit confused about certain elements and then of course you were explaining some things and after looking it up again I was like
00:05:54
Speaker
Okay, you know, it actually made me want to go back and replay it through a second perspective. I don't think I've played many games like that where I've actively wanted to go back and replay the exact same game. Was that your experience, Adam, when you first played through this game? Oh yeah, I really wanted to go back up to this. And it's funny as well because, as you say, it's not often the minute you finish a game you instantly want to go back and replay all of it, certainly. Sometimes people want to go back and revisit a section of it.
00:06:22
Speaker
But it's especially as well for a game that, you know, this game doesn't change. You know, the story is always the same. You know, the gameplay doesn't change at all. So you are literally just retracing the exact same steps again. But it's so rich, as you say, and it's so rewarding. And you can find so much more just in the environment and in the story on subsequent playthroughs. It's really a rewarding experience to go back to it. So I completely, completely agree with you on
Emotional and Artistic Impact of 'Edith Finch'
00:06:46
Speaker
that. But I'm just instantly wanting to dive back into it again.
00:06:49
Speaker
I think I might have played it maybe nearly once every year since it came out because it's a short experience. And, you know, if I'm just looking for that, if I'm looking for something very thoughtful and, you know, a bit somber, a bit melancholic, then this is absolutely perfect. There's no better experience for in my mind.
00:07:04
Speaker
I'm actually surprised you go back once a year because this is a very, as you're up with you too, with your content warning of course. It is a very dark game. Yeah, like there's a lot in this. I mean, this is very much, I would say, a mature game and I don't mean the kind of infra-mature. I mean,
00:07:21
Speaker
like, this is very serious themes are discussed in this game and brought up. But again, I guess part of the reason I like it so much as well, because in many ways, this is, you know, as much as it's a game, I think it's as much an experience, you know, I think it really, it really gets you thinking. And that seems to have been your experience as well. It seems to have really kind of got you thinking about the game itself and about its themes and what it's bringing up and what it's talking about. I think that's the real strength of that. So it's a real kind of piece of art in a way, I do think. I think that's why I keep
Comparisons and Cultural Impact
00:07:50
Speaker
coming back to it.
00:07:50
Speaker
You could say it's a piece of art drawing and a tree trunk. You could say that very good. Very, very good. Oh, I'm going to hell for that joke, but yeah. So the melancholy begins. Not with a bang, but with a whimper. If I don't make jokes like that, honestly, I think I'd be crying. Yeah.
00:08:09
Speaker
as we were discussing there, half of the deaths in this game, or rather I should probably say endings as it were, but it's just a lot to take in. It's just, you sit there after and there's one particular character which you know who I'm talking about but I won't, you know, disclose who I'm talking about, but it's one character you play through as and you just sit there and you think, why? Wow, why? And
00:08:33
Speaker
It is just that kind of emotive experience. And you're right, this whole game is just an experience. That almost sounds like a bit of a buzzword, doesn't it? To be like, it's just an experience. But it really is, isn't it? Oh, it completely is. As I said, that's why I was funny about calling it a game. It is a video game, there's no denying it, but it doesn't resemble it in that kind of video game in so many ways.
00:08:57
Speaker
you know experiences that term I think is much better to describe going through this so yeah like it just a box of trends I feel so much from you kind of maybe a more classic video game yeah I was going to make another joke when you say box the trains but I'd rather not like this
00:09:13
Speaker
I kind of agree with you, we have to laugh or we have to cry. I'm going to do one of the two things. I have to admit, before obviously we jump into it, you know that way when you watch something? In the anime world, I think Jojo's Bizarre Adventures is used for this, but it's like every time you go around
00:09:30
Speaker
you'll see something very common and anime fans will say something like, oh is this a JoJo's reference? But I've been walking around, you know, like the shops and things and looking at something completely normal and all I can think of in my head now is, is this a need-a-thint reference? There's like, clearly not, but that's honestly how impactful this game's become for me. Everywhere I look I'm like, need-a-thint, need-a-thint.
00:09:57
Speaker
It's like The Matrix. It's like you know those old memes where it's like eating toothpaste? That's the Edith Finch reference. My god. Well, you can see the effect this game's had on both of us. So just say, we are going to be we are going to be spoiling the story of
Spoiler Warning and Story Details
00:10:11
Speaker
this game. So if you haven't played, if you haven't played what remains of Edith Finch, I would I think we are going to speak for both of us here. I think we both highly recommend that you pause the episode, go and get a copy of it if you can. As Satsunami said, it's on game path, so if you have access to that, it's a perfect place to try it out.
00:10:26
Speaker
and then once you've played it, it won't take you long, come back and you can hear our thoughts on the game and its themes. So before we dive into the game then, let's pause for a little minute and hear some adverts. So we'll see you on the other side. Welcome to Chatsunami, a variety of podcasts that talks about topics from gaming and films to streaming in general interest. Previously on Chatsunami, we discussed Game of the Decade, Deadly Premonition, the romantic thriller, Birdemic, and listen to us get all sappy as we discuss our top five Christmas films.
00:10:56
Speaker
If that sounds like your cup of tea, then you can find us an anchor, Spotify, YouTube and all good podcast apps. As always, stay safe, stay awesome and most importantly, stay hydrated.
00:11:09
Speaker
We are Beer and Chill Podcast. Podcast where we review TV shows, games, movies and whatever else takes our fancy. So what are you waiting for? If you're a cool kid like us, you're gonna listen to the Beer and Chill Podcast. You can get it anywhere from Spotify all the way to your Grandma's radio. My name is Jan. And I'm Craig Yisi. And we are Beer and Chill.
Game Plot Summary
00:11:44
Speaker
So Satanami, before we dive properly into the game here, can you give us the kind of cliff note summary of what remains of Edith Finch? So what remains of Edith Finch is an uplifting story about a happy-go-lucky- Okay, no, sorry, I can't do it. Got the wrong moves there, I think.
00:12:03
Speaker
wait we're not talking about tunic no the one with the fox no i mean there's so many similarities having not played tunic i'm sure there's so many similarities me neither actually i thought what's a new game with a happy go lucky character it's just
00:12:20
Speaker
So yeah, what remains of Edith Finch is the story of a young woman called Edith Finch who goes back to her family home and she decides to explore her family history. She learns about each individual dating back from her grandmother all the way down. Or sorry, is it a great grandmother? I think it's a great grandmother, yeah.
00:12:43
Speaker
Great-grandmother, sorry, I skipped a generation there. Yeah, her great-grandmother all the way down to herself and she kind of works through every family member finding out how they died. Some more brutal than others of course and it's just this very, I'm gonna borrow a phrase from past, so that's not me here but it's a very emotive experience.
00:13:07
Speaker
is one that takes you through basically a rollercoaster of emotions and I know that sounds so cliche to be like oh it's an emotive experience so any game can be like that Red Dead Redemption was like that you know it's like no no it's completely different basically you're kind of put on a set of rails and as you alluded to Adam the fact is the story is never going to change despite your actions or the way the story progresses
00:13:36
Speaker
it's always going to end up the same. And there's a kind of sense of futility every time you play through, because you know how it's going to end. Do you know what that actually reminded me of? Have you ever seen the Doctor Who episode, Adam? And this might sound very, very niche. But have you seen the Doctor Who episode where they go to Victorian London and it's Christopher Eccleston, he meets Charles Dickens? I was watching Doctor Who when Christopher Eccleston was a Doctor. I don't recall that episode though, I have to admit.
00:14:05
Speaker
think it was the third episode? It's like where all the ghosts are coming out the lot. I can't remember that one, unfortunately. I have to admit it wasn't one of the stronger ones, no offense to the writers, but I remember there's a particular line in that which actually makes me think of Edith Finch to a T, and I know now I'm turning everything into Edith Finch reference but
00:14:25
Speaker
In that episode, of course, the Doctor and his companion, Rose Tyler, they end up meeting Charles Dickens and they stop all these ghosts, they have this big adventure, and then when they go back to their spaceship, the TARDIS, Rose says to the Doctor, well, this will not mess up the timeline that Charles Dickens is going to write about all of these alien encounters and all these ghosts, but obviously hasn't written about them.
00:14:51
Speaker
the doctor kind of shrugs and he goes oh don't worry because in a couple of months it's reported that he died so she goes oh that's a shame and I think he turns round and he says something like oh well before you met him he was already dead so it's like although you're getting invested
00:15:09
Speaker
in these characters in Edith Finch and although Edith herself is getting invested in a family history, there's that inevitability that although she's diving into the shoes of those characters, they're already dead. They're already going on. It's just
00:15:26
Speaker
Why a sobering experience? Anyway sorry, I know that was a long-winded tangent there, but it just, it kind of summarises it perfectly of how even though all these people are long gone within the story and the narrative, there's still that kind of personal touch, if that makes sense. Sorry, I hope I summarised that. Okay, can I just say how frustrating it is that by this point, by this point in the Chatsunami run, I must have done at least five times as many summaries
00:15:54
Speaker
And you've done. Yeah, even though you've done far fewer, you can speak with such eloquence. And so perfectly summarise these games. Yeah, I still struggle to summarise the plot of Halo or of Starship Troopers. So it's incredibly frustrating for me, but that was an excellent, excellent summary and a perfect jumping off point for us. So what we're going to do in this episode is we're going to divide the core of this episode into two kind of major areas. We're firstly going to talk about the game itself, and then we're going to dive into more of the themes that kind of permeate through the
00:16:23
Speaker
So turning to the game, first of all, what did you think, first of all, of the story as a whole? And secondly, what did you think of the way it was told? Because as you said, Edith is diving into the memories of her ancestors, siblings, and it's divided into these kind of short stories. So what did you think of both the way it was divided up and also kind of the narrative as a whole?
00:16:42
Speaker
this honestly sounds like a bit of a cop out to be honest to say like oh you only get it if you play through it a second time but i remember i played through it the first time and there were certain elements that i was a little bit confused at so for example with
00:16:58
Speaker
Molly's story where she transforms into all the creatures and there's all this talk about the Finch curse and everything. I genuinely thought we were getting like a paranormal kind of story. Not in a bad way, because I mean I've played my fair share of cookie games, you know, especially with Deadly Premonition, as you'll be able to attest to Adam as well. I mean that game goes some places. I mean that's conservatively funny.
00:17:25
Speaker
Exactly. So when I first played through it there were some stories that didn't really hit the same, like especially with Walter's story or Barbara's story. It's like if you take these stories at face value they make absolutely no sense. But if you peel away the kind of surface level of them and you look underneath about what these stories are implying,
00:17:50
Speaker
my god you get a completely different experience. And I do like the fact that you have to kind of explore the house and you have to look and see who was who. You have to actually go through their bedrooms and see what kind of person they were before they died. It's
00:18:09
Speaker
really fascinating and you get some morbid imagery. For example, there's two characters who are the son of, or sorry, sons rather, of the matriarch of the Finch family. That of course being Edie Finch. And Edie Finch is a weird, weird character and I'm sure we'll get on to her. But long story short, Calvin ends up dying at a young age and we see that Calvin and Sam
00:18:36
Speaker
these two boys once shared a room and it's divided kind of in half so on one side you've got Sam's room where Sam's got all of these paraphernalia for the army, the military, that kind of things because he loved being a soldier whereas his brother was more into being a spaceman so you know his is all like
00:18:58
Speaker
It's covered in rockets, helmets, that kind of thing. But then as soon as Calvin passed away, it's kind of roped off. And you think, okay, you know, when you're first playing through it, you think, I don't know, but you're just like, okay, I'm getting from point A to B to the next story, let's progress this. But when you go back and visit it, you realise that this poor boy, his brother Sam, had to live beside that room until he was 18. Just looking at this
00:19:27
Speaker
velvet rope stopping them from getting to the other side. It's like a lot of show don't tell kind of storytelling which I really appreciated in this because I found myself, and I don't usually do this a lot in games, but I found myself exploring a lot of the environment and trying to see what's this, what does this contribute to the story because as I was saying to you before we started, I replayed through this again and I was just writing notes down like
00:19:57
Speaker
like, nobody's business. And it's just amazing to see what you can find when you actually look closer at the background. But did you feel the same way, Adam? Yes, it's funny because when I first played this, so before I played this one, I played another kind of, what remains to be different kind of fits into the walking simulator genre of games. And I'd played a game called Gone Home not long before, which is very much the same ilk. And Gone Home has you kind of as your main character exploring the kind of family home. And so when I started playing what remains to be
00:20:27
Speaker
I thought it was going to be very similar. I thought we were going to explore around the Finch House, and we're going to uncover the story there. But once we started going into the stories, it really grabbed me. And I was like, oh, this is really interesting. And then it varied things up. And visually, they're quite different, all the stories and stuff. And I found it
00:20:43
Speaker
really, really effective way of storytelling. It's something that really kind of grabbed me and drew me in. And then as you say, I love the fact that then you'll play a story and then you go back to kind of exploring the house and you can, it recontextualizes a lot of things. And, you know, even more so when you have subsequent playthroughs and you know the main story and the kind of each characters, what happens to each character, you can, you've been to look at the house in a different
00:21:06
Speaker
kind of way. So I really, I really love it. It's a really, I think it's a really good way to tell a story. And it's funny because it makes me kind of, of all things, it makes me think back to when we discussed Sonic Adventure, the first Sonic Adventure a few months ago, how long ago was we did that? I kind of mentioned that I didn't like the way its story was told, and it kind of divides it. The game's divided up in chapters as well. And I thought that kind of modeled the main story. But I think having this structure in Edith Finch is actually much more effective than, you know, if it had purely been you kind of exploring the house.
00:21:35
Speaker
and that there was no kind of delving into each character's past. So I really like it. So I really agree with you as well. There's an excellent mix between a straight up narrative, but also environmental storytelling and the two combined really, really effectively. I just think it's excellent. So kind of looking at the stories, was there a story when you first played through, was there a character story that particularly grabbed you at the time? And then has there been one since you played the game twice now? Has there been one that's in the second playthrough you got a lot more from?
00:22:03
Speaker
first of all can I just say maybe this is a gingle back to your content warning but Gregory's story never gets less shocking whenever you play it so of course for anyone who maybe might not remember who I'm talking about Gregory is probably the youngest character you play as who is literally just a baby in a bathtub
00:22:24
Speaker
and the implication is that the baby drowned in the bathtub, but it does it in such a way that it's colourful, it's bright, it's, you know, you've got the classical music, the triumphant waltz, I want to say, you know, as this cartoon frog is jumping around, or toy frog. I remember playing through a lot of the stories thinking, oh, they're going to all end the same way, that of course being each character you play as is going to die at the end, but with
00:22:53
Speaker
As soon as I became a baby in a bathtub, I think I messaged you immediately, Adam, and I was like, Adam, Adam, am I playing as a baby right now? Please tell me this one has a happy ending. I'm like, Adam, please. And then I saw what was happening as it was bouncing towards the lever and I was like,
00:23:13
Speaker
Oh no. Other than that, one of the ones that I feel as if I got really invested in researching was Lewis's story. So, Lewis is the brother of the protagonist of this game, Edith, and he is basically your kind of stereotypical gamer slash evictum of substance abuse
00:23:36
Speaker
because you can tell he's very proud of a lot of things, like obviously he's into his games, he was into a lot of fantasy, and it wasn't until I actually went back and played his story that I was quite interested in a couple of things in his room. So for example, and this is me bringing up my notes by the way, just in case anyone's like, bring them up.
00:23:57
Speaker
Yeah I was quite curious when I went into his room of course being a gamer myself I was like oh what kind of console has he got and it looks more like a PlayStation 1 but what it's actually called in the game is a Wonderland console so a bit like Alice in Wonderland and that is emphasized by a book that he's got called The Red King's Dream which is lying beside it who is also a character in the book
00:24:23
Speaker
through the looking glass and if you look at his other books he's got books like of course through the looking glass, Peter Pan, quite fantastical ones and what I also noticed as well is this kind of the side tangent but he's also on his conspiracy theories. For some reason he's got a lot of family videos which I didn't realise in the first playthrough, you know he's got like
00:24:46
Speaker
I think it's Don's, no, Sam and Kay, sorry, it's their wedding video. It's something to do with Don as well. It's a bit weird why he's got them, and of course he's got the figures that turn up in his fantasy. But the reason I'm bringing him up is because he exhibits something which, quite frankly, I never really knew much of, and this isn't really a term that is scientific. Well, it's
00:25:12
Speaker
technically scientifically supported, but it's not recognised by any of the mental health boards or associations, but it's a concept called maladaptive daydreaming. And before I go on and talk a little bit more about this, Adam, did you ever hear about this concept? I'd never heard about this until you brought it up a couple of days back. And I started spamming you with, like, academic articles, like the uni days of old. I know, it's different from the memes that usually send me.
00:25:42
Speaker
That is true. To get an academic meme meme meme academic journal meme meme. Honestly you guys should see like our messages together. Half of it's like a very serious, do you know what we should do? We should do this for the show. We should do that. I feel as if this would be a very mature approach and the other one's like Gerald Robotnik memes. So much Gerald Robotnik.
00:26:04
Speaker
really is. There's far too much that should be allowed. But anyway, so Maladaptive Daydreaming is a concept that was coined in 2002 by a really psychologist called Eli Somer. He basically had a very small trial group. So I just want to point this out, but he had a very small trial group of
00:26:26
Speaker
think I want to say about six people from high trauma backgrounds and you know you can read the whole article these put up on Google but honestly it's a fascinating read but basically the concept of maladaptive daydreaming is that your daydreaming gets so bad that you're basically daydreaming that you're part of a completely different
00:26:48
Speaker
world. The fact remains that although you kind of know that it's not reality, you become so obsessed and consumed with like this whole world that you've created for yourself. And usually it's a world where you're a figure of like high importance, you've got a lot of power, so it's basically detaching yourself from real life because let's face it, in real life
00:27:12
Speaker
a lot of things will happen to you that are outside of your control. Honestly, you can't control everything in your life but if you actually create a world of your own where, you know, you can control every single facet that comes through then, you know, why would you want to return to the real world? And it's kind of a dangerous mindset because it's kind of categorized as your inability to function
00:27:38
Speaker
in the yoga route because you're daydreaming so much. And this is something that ends up coming along in Lewis's story. So, Lewis works in a canary. Basically, he is in charge of grabbing a fish, throwing it under a gelatin, watching its head get chopped off, and then he throws it on tick and wear a belt. It's a very
00:27:58
Speaker
boarding job, isn't it? Yeah, it's very much kind of factory-lined manual work. And I mean, we've all been there before, you know, where we've done our job, or even at school, university, we've done something where we're just suddenly going autopilot and our mind's kind of drift.
00:28:13
Speaker
but throughout the story it's kind of told through this perspective of Lewis's psychologist. And the psychologist basically explains how he was having these thoughts of Grenanger as kind of this land where everyone loved him and revered him, so much so that despite his mother begging and everything, he let himself get so consumed by this that he ended up
00:28:39
Speaker
committing suicide is heavily implied rather that he committed suicide because he decides to quote-unquote get crowned, where I have to admit the first time I saw that I could tell what he was going to put his head into and I thought I have seen enough.
00:28:55
Speaker
French documentaries. I've seen Les Mis. I know what's going to happen here. I was like, oh, please, please don't. You know how it ends. That one to me, that really took me back because I was like, this is such a tragic story. And again, I have to admit, there's one other I just want to touch on because I know you'll probably want to talk about more in depth, but with a particular character called Walter.
00:29:20
Speaker
where I never really thought much of his story until I replayed it again and after talking with you Adam and you explained how the implications of how brutal his life must have been. Honestly it shook me thinking about it and I thought what a waste of life.
00:29:38
Speaker
And I don't mean that as an answer like, oh, what a waste of space. I mean, genuinely, he wasted his life thinking that the world out there was out to get him. And then the first time he actually steps out, he just gets killed. And it's absolutely tragic. But kind of flipping it back onto you, Adam, what once stood out to you? Lewis's story, you're completely right. I think Lewis's story is probably the standout.
00:30:00
Speaker
of the whole game I would say because it's the perfect, I think it's the perfect blend of gameplay and narrative Justin as you say so basically as you're doing the story you both control Lewis as he's working in the cannery slicing fish heads off and throwing them onto the conveyor belt but you're also controlling his journey through this kind of fantasy land that he's creating and it starts off being quite simple
00:30:22
Speaker
So if you're playing it on an Xbox controller, I presume a PlayStation controller as well, your left thumbstick controls Lewis in the fantasy world, while the right thumbstick controls his hand in the real world working in the cannery. And as you start out, the fantasy world's quite small, it only takes up about the top left corner of the screen, and most of it is the cannery setting.
00:30:42
Speaker
But as it goes on this fantasy world becomes much more complex and it starts to fill the screen until it's basically taken over the whole screen but you still have, you can still see the fish coming into the canner and you still need to guide them and decapitate them and put them on the conveyor belt. So it's just such an excellent representation of that condition that you were talking about.
00:31:00
Speaker
about Maladaptive Daydreaming. If you're ever looking for, I think, a perfect blend of narrative and gameplay, I think Lewis' story is one of the best examples you could ever show up to show how to do that, how to make that kind of perfect blend of the two. This one's not my favourite, but I do think Barbara's story, stylistically, is also great. So, basically, Barbara is, she would have been Edith's
00:31:22
Speaker
here we go Edith's great aunt I can't think of the great aunt yeah sorry she would have been Edith's great aunt and so basically she was she was a famous child star but then as she grew up her star fell and she fell out of acting and she's working a pretty mundane job basically her story takes place in Halloween and
00:31:38
Speaker
And it seems that somebody's broken into the house, and you play her searching the house, and eventually you have to fight off a mystery attacker and everything. And it's basically, when Edith gets into Barbra's room, she finds this pulpy comic book, a Halloween-based one talking about her murder. And so basically, you travel from strip to strip on each of the pages as you flick through and you control. And I think stylistically, it looks really fascinating.
00:32:01
Speaker
That's where you've got the main theme from the Halloween film, playing a long background. It really adds, I think it's an excellent sort of experience. Yeah, like Molly's, I think Molly's is a great one because Molly's is the first story you play. And it's a really like, as you said, it's like, really like, wow, you know, you're playing as this little girl and you first transform into a cat and you transform into an eagle. I think some kind of bird of prey. And then you're a shark and then you end up as a sea monster. It's a fantastic, like, introduction. You're just like, whoa, as you say, like, you think it's just gonna be the rest of the game. It's gonna be this really like kind of paranormal, like,
00:32:30
Speaker
tail. It turns out I'm not to be, but I think hers is such an excellent standout. As a story, perhaps gameplay-wise, Walters isn't the most interesting because it's quite simple in what you're doing and stuff, but I think
00:32:43
Speaker
narratively Walter is maybe one of my favorite characters just because I find his story like it's particularly tragic do you think there's enough differentiation between each story do you think because again like the gameplay's errors are slightly different but again it's not probably they're not never like that much different from each other but did you think there was enough differentiation would you like to have seen a bit more I think there was definitely a differentiation
00:33:04
Speaker
You could certainly tell the stylistic differences and it was kind of framed in a way of you could certainly feel as if you were in the character's shoes. As you said with Barbara, after that I think stylistically her chapter is probably one of the best.
00:33:20
Speaker
because, you know, as you said, she's this former childhood star and her quote-unquote death is reported in this very kind of trashy tales from the Crypt Kingdom comic. I thought that was really well done. There were some that were a bit underwhelming, like the ones that come to mind are Calvin and Gus,
00:33:40
Speaker
I honestly struggle to remember them at times because they are over with the Flash. Same with Walter. If you're not really engaging in the game, then they're maybe not as memorable. I think maybe Walter stands out because by the time you actually get out, you literally get the story hitting you like a freight train. You do get a sense of difference with the characters, I would say. No, I would say so. Would you agree with that?
00:34:08
Speaker
Yeah, I think there is enough of a difference. Yeah, for as much as you're kind of doing similar actions, I think there's enough of a difference in either kind of the way it's styled or else in the kind of narrative kind of tones it's going for. You get the story of Edith's brother Milton and then Edith's great-grandfather, sorry, great-great-grandfather Odin, who's the real patriarch of the Finch family and the man who moved the family to America by taking their house in Sweden
00:34:57
Speaker
slides into and then you would click down a lever and it would move to the next one, move to the next kind of slide. While Milton's story is told for this flip book, which I think I really like Milton's the way it's done as well because you can control how fast you go through the flip book and everything. You can go backwards and forwards like a real one. I really enjoy Milton's and they're very simple, but they do break it up and I think it's still a very effective way of telling both their stories because again, we kind of get that.
00:35:01
Speaker
and sailing it across
00:35:20
Speaker
It keeps Odin as a very mythical figure and we don't really get a kind of a personal sense of who he was. It's very much of a difference. He's like a marble man, basically. It's just a statue, really, is all we kind of know about him. While Milton is the brother who's disappeared and we don't know his fate, it's not confirmed that he's dead.
00:35:36
Speaker
It's presumed that he is, but, you know, his flipbook is kind of him. He's an artist and it's him creating this kind of door, painting this door that he's unable to go through and it's this kind of, it's just kind of a bit more fantastical. It's a bit more kind of in line with Molly's story. It's just kind of more fantastical element to it and, you know, it kind of as a way of this characters having disappeared with no trace. I think there's enough, I'd agree, but there's enough differentiation in there, I think, to kind of mark each character out. And one thing I do, one thing I love about this game is I think it's, I think visually it's stunning.
00:36:04
Speaker
I actually love the way it looks like the graphics maybe aren't the best, you know, if any game out there, but I think they're perfect for what the game is. There's a great blend of color throughout the game. And again, that varies from story to story. Barbara's is quite like there's quite a lot of pasty colors because it's a comic book or something like Walter's is much more kind of monotone to reflect his life of kind of living in this bunker underground. And the house itself, can I say like as the game starts, you start with an edge of this forest, which leads up to the Finch House and you can just see the top of the house poking through. And I think the house is absolutely
00:36:34
Speaker
Stunning to look at architecturally. It's amazing so you can see that kind of original house But it's been built on top of as each family member dies their room is kind of turned into this shrine for them And you know nobody else uses it so that meant for like Edith and her two brothers They had to build completely new put in your rooms on top of the house So it keeps like stretching upwards into this kind of a natural a natural structure. I really like it Did you did you like the kind of visuals of the game?
00:36:58
Speaker
I feel as if it was one of the highlights of the game for sure. What I actually loved as well is this could have easily been one of those games that you walk through the rooms and then that's it, the tell a story, the story ends, that's it, absolutely gone.
00:37:13
Speaker
Yeah, what they did was they incorporated this kind of, I don't want to say puzzle-finding gameplay, they made you go through secret tunnels, secret passages, and they really showcased the creativity throughout the game and how you could explore the house. So it wasn't a case of just walking up the stairs, it was more a case of being able to explore to your heart's content, and I thought it was really well done.
00:37:40
Speaker
and I thought the easter eggs as well were absolutely fantastic. As I said before with Lewis's room, you had the Alice in Wonderland stuff, you had the small figures that turned up in his daydreams, you had all these kind of small hints.
00:37:56
Speaker
towards what influenced him. With Milton, you had all the artwork, you could see what influenced him. It was just spectacular. Firstly, I thought it was done so well and it told you so much about the characters. One thing I want to point out, which I didn't realise in the first instance, was do you remember Dawn's room? Well, Dawn, Gus and Gregory's room. Yeah.
00:38:20
Speaker
In the corner of that room, there's like a board that says like 7am, get up, 7.30, salute the flag and everything, and it's very regimented, and the whole room itself is like an army barracks. And after a minute, I remember going through that room the first time thinking, why is it like this? Why isn't it as colourful as the other rooms? And then I realised because the father of those three children was Sam,
00:38:45
Speaker
who was the wee boy I was talking about earlier who was really into the military, and he grew up as soon as he was 18. He left home, he became part of the military, then he became someone who was into hunting. You know, so the fact that the army was always a part of his life also seeped into his family life.
00:39:04
Speaker
So his children literally lived like soldiers in that room. It's amazing how other characters' personalities seep into other rooms. Honestly, I think it's fantastic. Yeah, as you say, it's just another example of how great the environmental storytelling is in this game.
00:39:20
Speaker
And exactly as you say, this is a game well worth replaying. I think you will pick up so much more and you will find so much more. It just recontextualizes everything. I know we were both talking about the swing set, not maybe realizing so much about the swing set the first time around, maybe not even noticing it, but it being such a prominent thing kept seeing, kept seeing afterwards. And that's the swing set where Calvin dies.
00:39:40
Speaker
Sam's brother, as you mentioned earlier, and that being such an important thing in his life. Before we move on to kind of talk about the themes of the game, as one kind of final point here, let's talk a little bit about the characters themselves. Is there a particular member of the Finch family who you really kind of really struck a chord with you and you really found very fascinating?
00:39:58
Speaker
other than Lewis, who we've already kind of talked about in length. I honestly think Edie was quite interesting, I have to say, and I know we'll probably go on to her in the second half of this discussion, but the facts that she has lived through in the past, as it were, all of these generations of finches under the presumption that they've all died because of this curse.
00:40:21
Speaker
thought it was fascinating. I watched a video that is very popular. I really don't have to introduce it to many people because I think it's got like 4.2 million views as of this recording and it was one that I recommended to you which I think you've already seen it. Yeah it is a really good
00:40:38
Speaker
It's a video that basically characterises Edie as being the villain of Edith Finch. Maybe not overall, like not saying that she is like this mastermind that's been, you know, cutting the strings of like the swing or, you know, knocking Barbara over the head or anything, but indirectly affecting all these people's lives and kind of putting it under the reason of being
00:41:05
Speaker
Oh, it's a family car, so there's nothing we can do about it kind of thing. And it almost felt like a hoping mechanism. Like, are you OK with me ticking off? Talk about this bit. Yeah, let's get into it. I think this is a good kind of bridge into the themes.
00:41:21
Speaker
with Edith, she initially, when I watched that video I thought they made a fantastic point that throughout the entire game she is saying how her family's affected by this terrible curse and I have to admit the first time I played this game I totally bought into
00:41:38
Speaker
I was like, oh yeah, this is a curse. That girl is a cat. She's turned into a man eating octopus. This is a family curse. But then the more and more you play it, you obviously realise, okay, that's hyperbole. The monster under her bed is just jump ropes, and she's taking on all these elements from around her, like the owl mask in the wall, when the creature from below draw another wall. You know, it's all kind of different things. But with eating
00:42:06
Speaker
I did notice something interesting in her room and I don't know if you picked up on this Adam. In her room you know where there's a kind of shrine to Odin? Yeah. And there's a bit where you can see there's two particular books. Now I don't know if
00:42:22
Speaker
these books are based on anything real or there's any excerpts from them. But there's two books in particular from Odin that are on his shrine. One of them's called The Mysteries of Death and Thereafter and Joining the Great Majority. Now I don't know if this obsession with death goes even further back, because there is that kind of illusion that there was like a family graveyard and things from when
00:42:49
Speaker
Odin kind of travelled over because they thought that's it, we're cursed, we're going to move over and then of course they ended up sinking with the old house. But I'm wondering if that's kind of continued from Odin. What I'm trying to say is Edie's not the kind of catalyst for starting like a new curse, she's more like a torchbearer for it. I don't know if it's like survivor's guilt or it's
00:43:15
Speaker
you know, like you can see as well that Airy reads, there's a particular book on her bird science that's called, I think it's like Norwegian Folk Tales, and you know she's really into that kind of thing, like really exploring all these concepts, and you can tell she's certainly someone who is absolutely obsessed
00:43:34
Speaker
with death having basically shrines of people in their house. I mean, look at Barbara's room. I'm going back to her. Her room actually has a cake in it that is from her 16th birthday. Did you know that? I did not know that. I did not say that one at all. Wow.
00:43:50
Speaker
Yeah, no, there's a cake that says Happy Birthday Barbara and there's 16 holes in the cake, which makes me think it must have been for her 16th birthday. Is that how old she is when she dies as well, isn't it? I don't know whether that's a cake like the Brot Inn.
00:44:05
Speaker
you know in just left or I don't know it's just it's weird there is like a lot more we can go into with Edie but Edie was definitely the one that struck a chord with me but one thing I did notice as well and I don't know if you've noticed this but she had like a origami shark near her bed. I didn't rate her well.
00:44:24
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know why. I don't know if that spot influenced Molly, or if Molly already had a toy shark or something. I don't know. Maybe she read Molly's final diary entry. Of course, going off of one of your points that you brought up when I was really playing this game.
00:44:39
Speaker
the fact that she's got like all these wooden pallets down in the basement ready to like draw the next Finch to die. That actually really shocked me because I never noticed that on the first playthrough. Yeah it's again one of these details that I only picked this up in my this must be this must have been my fifth playthrough. I think if they get four of a fifth playthrough and it was only then that I only in this one that I noticed that that ominous pile of of logs you know of the sliced logs in the basement.
00:45:04
Speaker
But yeah, was there any particular character you felt an affinity towards? ED is particularly fascinating and what I find fascinating as well is when I first played the game I saw ED as a very sympathetic character and because there's kind of a struggle throughout the game that EDIF narrates basically between EDI and EDIF's mother Dawn and EDI's very much the one who believes in this curse and wants the details of the family and their deaths to be memorialised and remembered and Dawn's very much the more kind of pragmatic one who wants to move on and kind of get
00:45:31
Speaker
away from this because she sees the damage and I'm sure we'll talk more about this soon. But I kind of saw Edie as a very sympathetic character and Dawn as a more villain of the piece but on subsequent playthroughs and after watching that video that you mentioned before which was done by a creator called Joseph Anderson just to give them their credit which is a really good video and I'd highly recommend watching it after you play the game really made me see Edie in a very different light so I totally agree that she's a fascinating character
00:45:57
Speaker
I think the more I play it, the more I'm drawn to Walter as a character. So Walter is one of the sons of Edie and it would have been Edith's great uncle. And so basically what happens is Walter, I can't remember how Walter is at the time, but basically as a young boy, he witnessed, it's implied that he witnesses the death of his sister Barbara on that kind of fateful Halloween night. And this basically
00:46:19
Speaker
traumatizes Walter and he becomes so paranoid of death and so convinced that he's going to die that he basically flees the house and flees above ground and takes refuge in this kind of shelter that's built under the house and that's where he stays for the next I think is about 50 years or something that maybe it's more than that
00:46:37
Speaker
he stays underground in the shelter and that's his whole world is and his story as you play his story his story basically revolves around you doing monotonous tasks opening a can of peaches every day and then the calendar changes you know and years go by and you start off in the 60s then you're into the 70s and then it goes to the 90s and you and it's just plenty he's writing this journal and you can hear his
00:46:58
Speaker
And then eventually, as you say, he just realises that he wants to get out and he wants to experience the world again, come what may, and he tunnels his way out, or unfortunately, right into a railway line where he's run over by this train. It's a tragic story in itself, but the more I play about it, the more I just think about what happened to this boy and this man and everything, and how just traumatised he must have been from that night, and what it did to him. And the fact that, in a way, Edie knows that Walter's there, under the house.
00:47:24
Speaker
the rest of the family. Edith doesn't know, because Edith is perhaps a shock at discovering that Walter was under there, because Walter dies when she's quite young, not long after Edith's been born. But I think the other family members know he's under there, but nobody does anything to help him.
00:47:37
Speaker
Everybody just kind of leaps him there and just lets him retreat away into this kind of isolation. I find that so tragic the more I think about it. The more I play the game and it's just that nobody tries to help him. He does have such a tragic life where he just hides away until unfortunately the minute he just breaks out. It's interesting that he breaks out. He doesn't come out the door of the shelter. You go down, you basically descend into the basement and that leads you into the shelter of Walter.
00:48:01
Speaker
He doesn't come out that way, he like, tunnels through the wall and goes to the outside, which is just unfortunately not his railway tracks he doesn't know about. And it's just, the whole thing is so tragic and I just find myself drawing more and more to Walter and just his experience as something that is particularly tragic and kind of melancholic. This is probably me getting a bit too personal here, but as someone as well who, like, when I was younger,
00:48:22
Speaker
I have to admit learning about the concept of death and kind of the fact that basically everyone barbell disney who's in these immortal like freezer apparently. Is that aged or? I don't think it's funny.
00:48:36
Speaker
The fact that when I was a younger year old learning about death and everything, it really, even today, I don't think so much for me it's a fear of death, but more like a fear of the unknown, because obviously we could be here forever talking about the different theories about what happens after you die and everything.
00:48:54
Speaker
It is like a really daunting concept for a lot of people, and I can only imagine what this character Walter was feeling at the time, seeing his own sister killed in front of him, the fact that he ran downstairs and he'd never left since.
00:49:10
Speaker
I have to admit, a lot of people do suffer from that. There's loads of people who suffer from things like agnophobia, for example, that they feel as if they cannot leave the familiar walls of their own house or their flat or wherever they live because they think
00:49:26
Speaker
If I step outside, something bad's gonna happen to me. Going back to what you were saying about Edie, this is something that did turn me against her because initially I was totally with you. Do you know what it reminded me of? It's a bit like, see when you watch a film when you're a young child and you watch a film and you're like, oh yes, screw those people, screw those adults, these kids are having fun. And then, you know, when you watch the film as an adult, you have a completely different perspective.
00:49:54
Speaker
and you're just like, damn those kids are dicks. No, that way. And that's what it felt like with Edie, because first time playing through this, I did think of Edie as, you know, this poor old woman who, you know, she suffered from this terrible family curse. And then once I went back and we played it, I was like, hold on a minute. She knew that he was on the ground and she went out of her way to like secretly. And that's what they said because she never told Edith at all. And I doubt she told
00:50:23
Speaker
the rest of her family about it, but when you go down to the basement it is chocka block filled with cans of peaches, cereal, just everything and the fact that she was enabling this behaviour. I don't know, like maybe I'm jumping the gun on a discussion a bit here, but would you say the family curse could potentially be an offshoot of Edie having some kind of mental illness?
00:50:50
Speaker
Yeah, I think so. Let's move into our, this makes a nice pathway into the second part. Let's talk about some of the themes of the game. I definitely think there's a strong case that you say that this is perhaps some kind of mental illness on the part of ED. I think this is mentioned in that video that we talked about, the one titled The Villain of Edith Finch.
00:51:09
Speaker
where if you look at Molly's death, so obviously Odin's the first one to die, but in a way the death that really seems to have the biggest effect, particularly for Edie, seems to be Molly, and Molly being the first story that we play and are the oldest of Edie's children, but the first to die, and she dies when she's 10 years old, and basically what happens with Molly is that one evening, for whatever reason it is, we can presume that Molly maybe misbehaved or whatever, but
00:51:31
Speaker
Molly is basically sent about without any dinner and she gets up and she's really hungry and she tries to get out but Edie won't let her out so she begins to look around her room for things to eat and so she ends up eating some of her gerbils food, she eats toothpaste and then she eats these kind of berries off this mistletoe that's kind of adorning the bathroom and then she ends up having these kind of I guess hallucinations where she you know where she turns into a cat and the shark and things like that.
00:51:55
Speaker
And then, you know, she dies that very night. And it seems to basically be that she dies from kind of the poisonous effect of those berries. You know, this is a, again, it's not a, this was never clearly Edie's intention, but you know, the death definitely falls under parental neglect, I think is what, you know, what we could term this. And that seems to have had such a, we've got such a catastrophic effect on her psyche that in a way she can
00:52:17
Speaker
you know, it's such a horrible to confront that reality that, you know, your actions directly led to the death of your child, you know, is such a traumatic thing that almost no way to protect yourself. This is when the whole legacy of the curse really takes off for Edie in particular, she mythologizes it, and then it becomes this thing almost celebrates the wrong word, but it's almost this, you know, it's this thing that makes the Finch family famous. And we see a lot of we hear a lot of things during the game, we see a lot of things that where she talked to newspapers and the stuff about elements of the curse and what the more kind of fantastic
00:52:46
Speaker
elements around the Finch family, and so I think you're totally right in that we could maybe look at this as a kind of mental illness in a way, and just an attempt to disassociate from the reality by kind of really making this fiction around the curse. If we want to see the curse as more fictional than actual being truthful. It definitely takes a kind of spiritual role, doesn't it? It's almost as if it's like it's not just death. It's, God, this is like a works of Spencer's advert. This isn't just death.
00:53:15
Speaker
it is an Edith Finch death. It does feel like this kind of mystical, oh look it's not my fault. Like as she said you know it's parental neglect but by Edith actually saying that, oh how was I supposed to know? It's just the curse. That's why Molly died. It wasn't because she decided to send her upstairs without any food and
00:53:38
Speaker
she locked the door so she couldn't escape. The same with like Walter, it's like oh it's not my fault he was hiding in the basement, oh it's not my fault. That is actually one that disturbed me. I think the Barbara one disturbs me a little bit more than some of the others because she has the, as we've talked about, she has the comics
00:53:58
Speaker
doesn't she? That's like proudly displayed on the screen. And that just seems weird. That's like if either of us passed away again to kind of celebrate our legacy. We had like this kind of, I don't know, like, you know, it's like if I turned up to you if you're not, you turned up to mine and we both started saying like the Gerald Robotnik speech, it'd be like totally inappropriate. And obviously it's like, it's not the case. So it's like, why would you have something like this?
00:54:26
Speaker
becomes more disturbing as well when you consider that likely Edie had some involvement in the version of the story that's in the comic because the layout of the the Fitch House is exactly how it is and there's also the detail about how you get into the basement through the kind of music box puzzle which is details that only a family member would know so that adds a you know it's never it's never explicit this is it's kind of implied that we can maybe think that perhaps she had some involvement with
00:54:51
Speaker
providing the story which adds another level of quite horrific extra subtext to this. And you feel sorry for Barbara because even Edith comments that whenever she's asked about her family the first person they ask about is Barbara because she was a childhood star who featured in all these like really quite frankly you know like these stereotypical films about Bigfoot for the kind of is it the 50s? Yeah it looks like is it yeah like late 40s early 50s
00:55:19
Speaker
Yeah, and it just looks like a planet Hollywood kind of museum. It doesn't really look like the room of a teenage girl, if that makes sense. Like some bits do, but you know, it's all adored in, you know, the, do you know what I mean? Like the kind of past trappings of an actress, but by that point when she turned 16 she was no longer really relevant anymore and no offence to Barbara.
00:55:46
Speaker
But, you know, it's like she was almost treated as like a commodity, because you can see her boyfriend, especially, who is always a piece of work. But, you know, he treats her more like a kind of… he treats her more like an actress, if that makes sense, rather than being a supportive partner. Like, even when Sven
00:56:04
Speaker
so Sven gets his finger cut off of that same barbarous father, so Edie and Sven go to the hospital to get it fixed, and the boyfriend hears a scream, and he jokingly says very apathetically, he goes, oh yeah, you should scream like that! Not saying like, oh are you okay Mr Finch or anything, no no no no, he just straight up says that, and you're like, that is weird.
00:56:29
Speaker
It's just like such a weird relationship they have, coupled with the fact that you'll never know how she actually died in the game. You know, there's a truth out there of how Barbara died, but as you said, it's clear that Edie definitely worked with and gave this elaborate story about oh, how she died because of all these monsters. And you know, there's several theories, because I'm curious to hear what kept you falling too, but there's like theories that the boyfriend did it that was crazed
00:56:59
Speaker
fans, they're broken. It was like a gang of people trying to rob the house that killed her. Where did you fall on that one? I personally think it's the boyfriend. Well as well because we find the inter he's never found. So to me it implies that he did it and then he disappears. Again you can read it so basically the kind of first half of the story is basically what happens is the boyfriend goes in the basement and then
00:57:19
Speaker
he goes missing and so Barbara ventures down to try and find him and he basically jumps out to scare her to try and get her to like get her famous scream back then she ends up like throwing him out of the house at that point so I look at that as perhaps you know she tried the first bit is true and that she tried to throw around in some kind of scuffle and
00:57:36
Speaker
he likely killed her then, whether it was intentional or when he's accidentally acted until, you know. But that's kind of the camp I fall into. What about yourself? I would probably agree with you, because the thing is, going back in the theory of the monsters being like rabid fans, I don't know if that's like Edie's own projection onto the way that America treated Barbara. You know, like they welcomed her in as a friend, and as soon as they got her, they turned immediately, and they tore her apart.
00:58:04
Speaker
car and everything. And I don't know, I don't think that's probably what happened. You know, obviously the monsters didn't happen, and I don't think it was maybe crazed fans. And I just want to point out, this is the closest we'll ever get to a true crime episode, by the way. For now, certainly. Oh, absolutely. But yeah, no, I would say The Boyfriend probably did it.
00:58:25
Speaker
because again it's like the retelling is just so filled with, it's filled with so much you know emphasis and fantastical elements that you really just can't tell can you? Yeah it is that blend and it really comes back to that idea about this curse being true for fiction and as you say like what is true, what's not, you know what's exaggerated, what's not.
00:58:49
Speaker
To me, to me, one of the big themes of this game is the fact of how people, you know, deal with grief and deal with loss and the kind of effect of the impact of trauma. And you can see that on basically most of the characters in the in the game. So obviously we've discussed how Edie very likely.
00:59:04
Speaker
disassociates from her own actions to kind of makes this really mythologise this curse as a way to deal with what's happening rather than kind of confronting the truth. We see Walter fleeing down you know to the bunker to deal with the trauma of likely witnessing his sister's death. As well like Barbara's other brothers, Sam and Calvin, have you can see they clearly affected by trauma. It's quite interesting to remember when it comes to Calvin's story
00:59:28
Speaker
And basically we learn about Calvin's story for this poem that his twin brother, Sam, writes. And I think it starts off with them talking about the effects of Barbara's funeral, and they both made this pack to each other never to be afraid again. So they kind of have the opposite reaction to Walter, who very much embraces the fear. Calvin particularly fights against it, and that's why he gets on his swing and he's determined to do a complete 360 loop.
00:59:54
Speaker
on the swing. And he ends up doing it, but it ends up like, you know, ends up resulting in him flying off the, you know, off the swing. And the swing is placed precariously near this cliff. And so he flies down and falls to his death. And so again, that's a kind of effective trauma. And then we see his brother Sam, as you say, who has to live for, I think, about eight years in, you know, in this room that's, you know, he had to share
01:00:15
Speaker
and he has to share with his brother's ghost, virtually no one half of it is roped off. And then he said as soon as opportunity, as quickly as he can, he joins the military and goes away. And then he has a very kind of, even when he comes back, you can see the effect of these, as much as he tries to present himself as a very historical, kind of emotionally repressed figure, you can tell this is likely a result of the trauma of, you know, losing Calvin and losing Barbara. And then as well, obviously, Walter's disappearance, whether he knows where Walter's gone or not,
01:00:44
Speaker
very much tries to just kind of repress his emotions but we can we can see a lot if you look a lot he's a he's an avid photographer Sam and you can see lots of his photos scattered around lots of the photos are of the swing set you know after still coiled up around the tree after Calvin had fallen from it
01:00:59
Speaker
can see what an effect that had. And even as well, when he's describing, when we get to Gregory's story, the way we experience it is through a letter that Sam writes to his ex-wife Kaye, who was, Kaye was there with Sam, sorry, with Gregory at the time, and she kind of leaves Gregory unattended to speak to Sam on the phone call as they're kind of going through, I think, the divorce at that time. And then he writes this letter where he kind of eulogizes Gregory and it
01:01:21
Speaker
In this way, he kind of makes his version of Gregory. There's no way of knowing because Gregory was so young when he died and he talks about, oh, he reminded me so much of Calvin and everything. And you can just see this constant trauma affecting him. And then we have Dawn, one of Sam's children, who very much rejects the curse and is very much trying to get away from it because she can see the harm that it's doing, especially when her children start to die from the effects of being in this family and the grim reality. Because basically, these characters are living in a graveyard.
01:01:50
Speaker
The Finch House was basically a graveyard if you think about it because we have these rooms that the minute somebody dies are turned into shrines and they can't be used anymore so that's why the house has to be built vertically up and new rooms have to be put on. You can only imagine growing up in this environment and I think it's just an interesting look at how people deal with grief and deal with loss. Is there any kind of themes that you really found coming through this game?
01:02:14
Speaker
Well just kind of going off on that point you just said there about being surrounded by death, there's actually a line that Edith says where when you're walking through the cemetery she actually points out that the cemetery was built before the house was finished. So you're totally right death is basically a core theme of both the house itself and the game as a whole because even when you go into Edith's room have you noticed that when you look in the
01:02:42
Speaker
cages, or the bird cages, she actually has pictures of the animals in the cages. So it's almost exactly what she's doing for her own family members. Again, go back to what you were saying, it's really spooky. When you go into the basement and you see all of these plaques of wood just ready to be painted for the next finch,
01:03:05
Speaker
It is really daunting when you look at that and you think, wow, this is very unsettling. But I think you're right. Death is the core theme of this game and the different reactions to it, how to deal with it. Because after a minute, being someone who's nearly 30, I have seen my fair share of people who have passed away in my life
01:03:25
Speaker
and one of the ones that's always stood out to me is a boy that I didn't really know very well in school. I remember one day he was a boy who lived nearby me and when I was walking home this boy struck up a conversation with me and we started talking about random things and then he went his way, I went my way and then I found out a week later that he had just suddenly dropped dead from a heart attack
01:03:49
Speaker
And throughout my life, you know, like whether I've been old or young, you always get people in your life that are going to pass away. That is the inevitability of life, which I know that's a bit grim for an episode of Chatsangami, but it's a sad kind of fact of life that one day people die, and that's kind of how it is.
01:04:10
Speaker
throughout this game they explore it in different ways and I have to admit I appreciate their kind of brutal honesty towards it. You know like for example they don't shy away from, as much as it's kind of controversial, they don't shy away from Gregory drowning in the bathtub and obviously they don't do it like in a very gratuitous way but they do it just to laugh.
01:04:33
Speaker
that they leave you disturbed thinking, oh my god, this poor child. And the fact is well that when you go into his room, you realise that Gregory shared a room with Don and Gus, and Don had to actually sleep in between Gregory's car and Gus' bed.
01:04:51
Speaker
as well, which I think must have been so traumatic for that poor woman. You know, I know she's a character but that must have been so, so traumatic. And you see like all the different takes on death, like there's one sort of very explicit like Sven getting crushed by the dragon, even though Edith lifts it up as Sven fighting the dragon, at the end of the day was crushed tragically by a dragon.
01:05:15
Speaker
But they can get other ones like Milton, who I think technically he survived, but if we're looking at the perspective of Edith Finch and not, is it the Unfinished one? Yes, the Unfinished one was Giant Sparrow's first game, which has certain links to what remains of Edith Finch.
01:05:33
Speaker
Well, if you look at Milton's character and you assume that he passed away as well, life doesn't always give you kind of a tidy, neat conclusion to people. You know, especially when it comes to death, Milton and the game is never found and done.
01:05:50
Speaker
I think that's one of the things that starts to push her away from the idea of the family person away from Edie as a whole. Because something I found quite interesting was if you actually look in the, like, you know the homeschool that she set up? Yeah. There's actually, this honestly completely skipped me by when I first played this, but there's actually a project that she set her kids where she actually taught them
01:06:18
Speaker
about the curse of the Finch family. And although she's gotten a board like this poster about the scientific theory or scientific methods, sorry, there's this kind of emphasis on scientific rationale. She's also got like another poster that says family history fact or fiction.
01:06:36
Speaker
it seems kind of weird how even she's buying into it, if that makes sense initially, until she loses two of her sons in the most tragic ways. Because I think that Edie and Dawn lose their children in very similar ways, you know, in the sense that for Milton she'll never know what happened, and maybe for Walter, maybe Walter's kind of the equivalent, like she probably wouldn't have known what happened until she came down and saw that he'd been hit by the train.
01:07:06
Speaker
In terms of loose, you could honestly compare loose to probably molly, I would say, both of which were out of their hands, if that makes sense. Like, E.D., although obviously E.D. was wrong to lock.
01:07:22
Speaker
Molly in her room, and it was wrong of her not to feed her so she turned to that. She couldn't have controlled that child's actions, you know, she probably couldn't have predicted that she would have gone straight for the toothpaste or the berries or, you know, and it's the same with Dawn, that although she did everything she could to get Lewis into the Canada factory, getting him a stable job, to get him away from the drugs and everything,
01:07:46
Speaker
the fact he was a grown 21-year-old man who was doing this monotonous job over and over and over again, creating this fantastical world which was so much more appealing compared to his life and the factory. And it's absolutely tragic because despite Don trying to bring some kind of rationale and reason into our children's heads about the farmlickers, they still lost their lives. Well, except for Edith.
01:08:13
Speaker
to yeah we all know that she kind of survives until the very end but Dawn was the one to kind of outright reject. Is that right in saying that Dawn's probably the one who outright rejects the Fable curse? I think she definitely does. I mean she definitely views it as something that is directly or indirectly causing subsequent deaths
01:08:35
Speaker
And there's a reason, actually, after Milton's disappearance, she basically, when you get into the Finch House, all the rooms are boarded up, basically. They were locked doors, so you have to kind of find alternate routes to get into them initially. And that was apparently what Edith's mother did after Milton's disappearance, because she clearly views, you know, this family history as something that's causing, whether it's directly causing it or indirectly, it's making people...
01:08:56
Speaker
more reckless or whatever, or leading them to these unfortunate fates. And as you journey through, you can see that Milton has clearly been to a lot of these rooms because he's done a lot of his drawings and paintings on a lot of the walls. And it does make you wonder whether as he researched these stories, he maybe had a similar reaction to Walter and tried to basically flee, tried to get away as far as possible. So it makes you wonder if perhaps he had the kind of traumatic reaction to learning this and the kind of fear of what was in store for him.
01:09:21
Speaker
I guess we'll never really know if Dawn totally rejects it, whether she truly believes it's not real or whether she just sees the negative impact it's having is determined to resist it and fight against it, eventually to the point where she takes Edith, her last remaining child, away and they get as far away as they can until, unfortunately, Dawn is diagnosed unfortunately with cancer and dies shortly after that leaving just Edith. But yeah, she definitely is the one who has, certainly in comparison to Edie, who very much embraces this curse, whether
01:09:49
Speaker
it be real or not, Dawn is very much the antithesis of that. I've got a question for you about Edith in particular. Despite the fact that she hasn't been told any of this, do you think it's actually changed her to become someone better or completely different, compared to the run-of-the-mill Finn?
01:10:07
Speaker
And then I think she exhibits a lot of those same tendencies because we find out, we don't find out straight away, we find out maybe, maybe halfway into the game, maybe slightly under halfway the game, that Edith is, I think, 22 weeks pregnant at the time that she's back at the house. She is doing activities that you probably shouldn't do at that stage of your pregnancy. She is doing a lot of climbing, a lot of precarious, I think where she could, a point where she kind of precariously walks across them.
01:10:31
Speaker
a tree branch, you know, things that you definitely should not be doing, you know, at that stage for your own health and for the unborn child's health. So there's a lot of that kind of Finch recklessness, which goes all the way back to Odin, you know, shipping his house across and then refusing to like abandon it when it's sinking and leading to his demise.
01:10:49
Speaker
For as much as perhaps she is a bit different, I think you can definitely see that kind of fringe DNA in there. And I think there's just maybe it's probably just a byproduct of having grown up in this sort of bizarre world surrounded by death. And I think you're completely right in pointing out that death is the major theme of this game and how we deal with it and how a lot of people need to find meaning.
01:11:09
Speaker
Because that is a human reaction to find meaning for death. And like, why did this happen? You know, we can't always accept the randomness and the chance of death. We sometimes want to find a reason and a method to the madness. But what I really appreciate about this game as well, and I'll be interested to hear your thoughts on it, is I really admire how this game deals with death compared to how most video games deal with death. And death is, in my opinion, usually quite a flippant thing in video games. You know, to be honest, it's usually the prime objective.
01:11:35
Speaker
of the player in a lot of video games is to deal death, or else death is something that's only given meaning to certain characters, you know, to name characters and to high-profile characters, like in the Modern Warfare series, you know, God knows how many people die in the course of those games, but really, like, the death that's given a big emotional weight is, and slight spoilers here, is soaps in Modern Warfare 3. That's death we're really meant to care about, not the, you know, not the thousands who have died before that, but what do you think about, you know, how this game kind of deals with death compared to other video games?
01:12:04
Speaker
I think it's very refreshing to be honest because don't get me wrong I don't think a lot of other video games like for example you brought up Call of Duty there I definitely think that if they took an Edith Finch approach can you imagine how long that game would be?
01:12:21
Speaker
moralising it would go on. It's like Jim, yes, I shot him, his brother Tom, it's like, oh god, gotta get through 30,000 names. It's like, yeah, I'd like to see a speedrun of that. I honestly think it's a breath of fresh air compared to some of these games, because you're completely right, these games do treat death as more of a system rather than like a story beat, and usually in these kind of games
01:12:45
Speaker
You don't really get to see death unless it's like a villain that gets killed, or it's like a particular character that you're supposed to feel emotional about. Like, for example, even in the Gears of War series, when there's another FPS, it's like spoilers, but like, domes.
01:13:01
Speaker
death and that, you're supposed to feel really sad. Don't get me wrong, we still do, but with Edith Finch, you almost feel a bit like a, pardon my phrasing for this, but you feel as if you're a bit of a voyeur, don't you? You're peeping through literally these peoples, you're looking into snippets of peoples' lives.
01:13:22
Speaker
I actually remember when I went to visit, I think it was Scarborough in Orkley, and nearby there's like a huge madder house you can go in. In it there's like a room where the, I don't know the official name, but like the lady of the house used to live in this room, and like her bathroom's been preserved, and like her room's been preserved, and she's got all these like items scattered around the room. Thinking back to that moment it
01:13:47
Speaker
kind of reminds me a little bit of like you know when you go into the bathroom for Edith Finch and you know it's like the bright pink. Surprisingly enough I think that bathroom was pink but that's completely unrelated but yeah it's like the bright pink bathroom and everything and it's this snippet of someone's life.
01:14:06
Speaker
And it actually genuinely got me thinking, because if it's the same thing to Finch, you go into these people's rooms and you almost feel like an outsider, like especially since Edith is supposed to be a family member. You know, she's not an outsider. She's not the delivery man or woman. She is the youngest and last member of the Finch family, technically. But you know, I mean, she isn't someone who should be considered as an outsider yet as you go through the game.
01:14:36
Speaker
that's almost what it feels like. It feels as if you have been purposely kept outside, and I feel as if the way they incorporate death into it is absolutely fantastic, because as I said before, death and life comes in many ways, and especially in this game they explore everything from tragic
01:14:57
Speaker
infant accidents to try to conquer your fears and succumbing to that. One of the ones that actually intrigued me was Sam's death, which I don't think we've talked about yet, but as we said before, Sam saw his whole family, like his brothers and sisters, all die due to
01:15:17
Speaker
really horrible acts, as it's Molly died because she ate many berries, Calvin died because he swung around the tree branch. Did you know Sam's in Calvin's seat? Yeah, can you actually see him? Because I know you can hear him. You can hear him kind of running away. Yeah, he's at the very beginning when you're swinging. You can actually see him at the corner.
01:15:35
Speaker
and then when he yells to his mum that he's, you know, he's coming inside, he runs away. But yeah, he was there for that, which technically you could also attribute. Maybe a thing of survivor skill, because he does kind of say that if he hadn't goaded him and said, oh, I bet you can't do that, then maybe he wouldn't have done it. So maybe there's that kind of guilt and, like, reinforced by all the pictures of the swing sets and everything. I honestly, out of the four of them, between Molly, Calvin, Barbara and
01:16:05
Speaker
him. I feel as if his is probably the most ironic of deaths because as you said he is like a soldier who basically their job is to look for death and to go out and put themselves in the line of fire and somehow he survived all of that only to be killed by just a random hunting accident and it's the most random thing ever.
01:16:27
Speaker
And that's the thing that also links back to a sense of realism. You know, because life isn't always going to be point A to point B, it's not going to be, again, a typical video game where you go from point A to B and, oh no, I've died. Let me respawn and everything. It treats it with a lot of reverence, I would say. Like, would you agree that it treats death with a respect compared to other video games?
01:16:52
Speaker
Oh yeah, like each death is given weight here. It's not a trivial thing like it is in a lot of other video games. Each death is given the weight and significance that these events deserve. I think as well, because we don't get to know everything about these characters, but we do get to inhabit their shoes.
01:17:10
Speaker
When you said, I think you had an excellent point when you talked about it being voyeuristic. The game really is in that way, because we are inhabiting, not only are we going to peep in through the peepholes to look upon these characters, but we're inhabiting their very last kind of movements on Earth. There is something very voyeuristic about it, and the way it deals with death and that sort of
01:17:29
Speaker
way of looking at it and then you know dealing with it and then seeing how other people deal with it and rationalize it I think is really remarkable and is something I think to be celebrated in video games and I linking back to a discussion we had a little while back with friend of the show Craig you see from the beer and chill podcast and we talked about mature content in video games I would list this game as a mature game you know there's not blood or gore or anything like that in this but it
01:17:55
Speaker
It deals with such lofty and such weighty issues that we'll have to confront at some point in our lives, as you say. I think it really makes it a fascinating experience and something that really is very thought-provoking. As we come to a close here, is there any last themes that you saw in this game? Anything else you want to mention?
01:18:15
Speaker
One thing I think I want to point out, and it's going back to your own discussion on Walter, I was just going to ask you, did you notice something in particular about his gravestone?
Walter's Memorial Discussion
01:18:25
Speaker
Has it got a train on it? Or is that his memorial that has the train? Yeah, that's his memorial, yeah. But if you go to his gravestone in the Finch Cemetery, you see a moment where you kind of look through and you can see they've got like a tiny version of him.
01:18:40
Speaker
looking out to the ocean. Now, I have to admit, initially when I looked at that the first time I kind of thought, oh that's lovely, you know, he's forever looking out. But then the second time, you know, after I watched that video and I looked into Edie a bit more, it's like, do you not think it's almost as if it's like him being trapped there forever, always looking out into the world that he could never be in? That's an excellent point. I think that is a perfect encapsulation of Walter's life, honestly.
01:19:05
Speaker
I don't know, it just gave me kind of shivers thinking, as you said, I never only gave it much thought the first time, but going back to it, I thought, poor guy, like genuinely really poor guy. I suppose the other theme, just before we close off as you said, but the other theme I just want to point out is the theme of inevitability and how we deal with it. Because as you said, the theme of death is the central theme here, but there's also a theme of inevitability towards certain
01:19:35
Speaker
fates as it were, whether you want the inevitability to be just something normal like everyone's gonna die to this kind of grandiose, oh it's gonna be a curse.
Themes of Inevitability and Family Legacy
01:19:47
Speaker
I think that's a really fascinating look and it's certainly interesting to see how adaptive
01:19:52
Speaker
each person is, and the family, because you don't really get to see Kay or Sanjay's perspective on it all, really. I suppose for obvious reasons Kay probably would have left after what happened with Gregory, but you don't really get to see their kind of outsider perspective, which is quite interesting to defer that role to Edith, that's what we're talking about there, but it isn't anything you would say. I think maybe one other thing, what kind of two themes that come through in this
01:20:22
Speaker
are issues to do with family and also kind of living with the past. And they're kind of related to the things we talked about, about living with loss and confronting death. But the very fact that this Finch household is a mix basically between a graveyard and a museum.
01:20:38
Speaker
in many ways, and every new member of the Finch family is growing up directly next to the memories of, you know, their ancestors who've passed before them. And, you know, I don't, I mean, maybe some people live in circumstances like that, I don't know, but we don't usually live to that extent.
01:20:53
Speaker
you know, with our past and with our family's past. But we all do to an extent live with the legacy of our family, you know, through stories we hear through objects that might still be with us with also, you know, with memories we have of family members.
Living with Family Stories and Memories
01:21:06
Speaker
So, you know, I think that's an interesting theme as well and how we and how what we think about how we think about the
01:21:11
Speaker
past how we deal with it and how we how we live with it you know whether we how we choose to memorize do we mythologize it do we or do we try and shun it and push it away do we just forget about it I think I think that's kind of interesting themes as well but I think the main one is clearly death and then for me as well it's that it's that kind of dealing with grief and loss and the
01:21:32
Speaker
come through with this game. So as a closing point, is there any kind of closing remarks you'd like to say about this game, any way you'd want to sum it up? I mean I know we've gone through and absolutely spoiled this game rotten, but yeah, if you haven't played this game, they'll
01:21:47
Speaker
I would 110% recommend this game. This is one of those games that I would say wouldn't really strike you the first time. It's one of those games that you have to sit with you, kind of mature within yourself and then you kind of think, alright, okay, I'm ready to go back and look at what I've missed because there was a lot I missed in the first playthrough. And I would usually say that because you know what people are like nowadays, they want that kind of
01:22:16
Speaker
good first impression and this game isn't your kind of stereotypical oh we're gonna go in we're gonna you know show you all these bombastic set pieces there's some beautiful pieces in this game don't get me wrong but it's not an action game except for maybe Barbara's side tangent bit but that's
01:22:34
Speaker
more a horror game which don't get me wrong, that actually really freaked me out.
Recommendation for Narrative Depth
01:22:39
Speaker
Did that creep you the first time you played that? Oh god yeah, it still gives me a bit of creeps to be honest with what I played but it really did kind of freak me out because it's very different from what you've kind of done previously.
01:22:49
Speaker
It's honestly a fantastic narrative experience, and I would wholeheartedly recommend it. The thing that kind of holds me back from recommending it though, and I don't know if you feel the same way, is there's a lot of heavy themes in this game, as I said before.
01:23:07
Speaker
for a lot of the game there are a good number of children that die in this game. You've got Molly, you've got Calvin, you've got Gus as well. God forbid you've got Gregory, who is probably the youngest character to die in this game, and it's quite an emotionally taxing game.
01:23:26
Speaker
I would say, but if you're looking for something different, and as you said Adam, I think you're completely right, this is a mature game and it doesn't need to have over the top swaying, it doesn't need to have over the top gore, it just has a very small intimate story between faculty members and I think it does it fantastically. I would happily pee for this game again
01:23:50
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I can only really say ditto to all you've said above. I said at the beginning that this is one of my favorite games of all time. I absolutely love it. I absolutely adore it. I constantly come back to it. And I do believe it is well worth coming back to because you're going to constantly be finding new things and just add more layers are going to be added on to this story.
Advisory on Heavy Themes
01:24:12
Speaker
Again, it's a short experience, but it's really a memorable one. And I just find the game, I find the game so thoughtful,
01:24:20
Speaker
And I do find it very deeply moving despite how short it is and despite the fact that as a game, it's quite limited in terms of what you're doing. The gameplay is very limited. To me, it doesn't bother me. I think it's perfect.
01:24:39
Speaker
be and yeah I just really adore it. You're completely right though there has to be some kind of advisory warning for this it is dealing with a lot of heavy themes and there is a lot of potentially kind of triggering events in this game and you know if you don't feel you can handle that I completely understand there's no nothing wrong with that at all I completely understand that.
01:24:59
Speaker
But, you know, if you do think you can confront these things and handle it, I think it's well worth experiencing this game. As Tsunami said earlier, it's on Game Pass. If you have that, go check it out. It's well worth that. And I think as well, it's usually on sale. You usually find it on sale. You can get it on PC and PlayStation. So I think it's been ported to Switch recently as well. So it doesn't cost that much compared to most other games. I think it's well worth its price. It usually retails at about £15 or something like that. I think it's well worth the price of admission because it's something that will stay with you.
01:25:28
Speaker
I really do fundamentally believe that. It is an experience that stays with you, and it provokes thought to make sure you consider. You can see how it was both of us. We both went away and thought about it, continued to think about it, look things up, analyze the game further. I think it's amazing. I think it's a wonderful one.
01:25:47
Speaker
I would completely recommend this to everybody who thinks they can handle what's
Provoking Discussion and Sharing Perspectives
01:25:52
Speaker
in the game. So with that being said, thank you so much for playing this game, for listening to me badger on about it for so long. Thank you for playing it, and thank you for doing all the research. You did an absolute wealth of research this one, so thank you so much for digging into this and for sharing your thoughts.
01:26:07
Speaker
Oh no, thank you for introducing me into the world of Edith Finch, and apologies again for bombarding you with all the research that I had, because honestly, I'll probably post it on Twitter, but I've got like a whole load of notes on my phone being like, huh, if you look at Lewis's gravestone, you can see he's got a crown on it. If you see this and that, God forbid, it's like, what you must have been thinking, you must have been thinking, oh God, that's enamic, I'm trying to sleep at 3 in the morning.
01:26:36
Speaker
It's like, you know that meme where it's the guy with the pillow over his ears and he's like trying to get to sleep and then there's like the picture of the window? Yeah, you can imagine it's like you trying to get to sleep with me just at the window. Like, do you want to hear my latest Edith Finch with Edith? Number one, Edith was the bad guy the entire time.
01:26:54
Speaker
No, honestly, I was fascinated because you were picking up so many details that I hadn't even picked up. But that's why I think is another great thing about this game. I think people are going to come away with different things, as much as the story's the same. I think people are going to find different things and then you'll be like, oh, I never even saw that. But then you'll say something and probably that person probably never saw that. So it's a great game for provoking discussion. Again, that's maybe some of the highest praise we can give it.
Conclusion and Replay Value
01:27:15
Speaker
You know, it's a game that you'll want to share with other people. I think it's well worth sharing.
01:27:18
Speaker
Yeah, and sorry, that was the last point I wanted to bring up. I'm closing down the file now. Okay, that is me Edith Finch Free. Yeah, but honestly Adam, it was such a pleasure playing this game. It was a lot of fun to play through. It was thought evoking. It was, yeah, it was just a fantastic experience. So thank you for encouraging me to play this game.
01:27:41
Speaker
No, I'm glad I picked a winner. That's all I can say. And I've least, I've recommended at least one good game to you. So I can rest easy now. I don't have to worry about the mountain of failures that may result from other recommendations I make. So I got to eat a fish at least. I had a home run with that one. Well I mean, consider a guy who recommended you a month of Sonic. I enjoyed my month, I mostly enjoyed my month of Sonic. So you got a winner there. Yeah, you just throw as many games at the world as you can. One of them. One of them's sick.
01:28:10
Speaker
Oh dear. So anyway, we'll bring our discussion to a close there. So thank you again, thank you again, Sansu, for all your work and for bringing so much to this discussion and really provoking a lot of thoughts. And you know what? Honestly, I want to go back and play this again now. After all the stuff you brought up, I want to find all these details you weren't mentioning that I hadn't found. So there we go again. Maybe go back and have another one more trip through the Finch household. Well, I'm going to pull what they do right now and I'm not going to stop you.
01:28:37
Speaker
throw open the doors today. Let me explore at will. So thank you again, thank you once again Satsui for all your work and thank you to everyone who's listening. We'll look forward to seeing you in the next episode but until then stay safe, stay awesome and most importantly stay hydrated.