Afterlove EP

Fellow Traveller is a publisher that, I feel, rarely misses with the games they release. If you then consider that Afterlove EP was being developed by Pikselnesia, who were jointly founded by Fahmi Hasni (the person responsible for Coffee Talk and What Comes After), then it should come as no surprise that I had high hopes for this tale of loss and its aftermath. And yet, I find myself very much in two minds after playing through the game.

Maybe that’s pretty topical of me, though, as the game’s main character, Rama, is dealing with a similar problem. In 2016, after he played a fantastic gig with his band Sigmund Feud, a tragedy happened, seeing him lose the love of his young life, Cinta. We join Rama one year later, and the first thing we discover is that Cinta hasn’t really left him. Instead, she is a constant presence in his mind, apparently just about the only person he’s talked to for the past year.

It has taken him a year to put himself back together again, and he finally feels sort of ready to face the world, albeit while carrying this huge burden of pain constantly with him. So he gets in touch with his bandmates, Tasya and Adit, as he wants to present them with new songs to get their floundering musical career going again. However, the band isn’t exactly waiting with open arms to welcome him back. Having been pushed aside for an entire year, his bandmates have been dealing with the aftermath of the tragic loss of Cinta in their own ways.

Afterlove EP isn’t afraid to show us the hard truth of mourning: it can feel like an incredibly lonely experience, but it affects more people than you might imagine while you’re going through it. That’s not how Rama sees it though: his suffering is obviously way more important than that of others, since Cinta was his partner. While I understand this line of thinking, as something similar can happen in bouts of depression (as Night in the Woods so brilliantly showed us, and I can attest to due to my own mental health issues), in this game it starts to feel… off.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m the last person to judge anyone for their way of mourning the loss of a loved one. I have witnessed the impact such a tragic, senseless loss can have from very close by and am very much aware of how big a role time plays in the grieving process. But this is where my trouble with Afterlove EP really kicks in: Cinta, or at least the version of Cinta in Rama’s head, plays into this relentless self-pity. When Rama gets called out on it by his friends, she’s the first to go on the defensive. Hell, no matter what his bandmates or any of the other characters in the game say to Rama, she’ll be there to criticise their words, their tone, or even what they’re not saying.

It made me wonder if this was on purpose. Was Cinta really this kind of person, or is this all that remains of her because that’s how Rama chooses to remember her? It was giving Knives Chau in the original Scott Pilgrim movie vibes: a doting girlfriend who sees not a single fault in her boyfriend, whom she apparently just puts on a pedestal and worships. Luckily, the game does make an effort to delve deeper into that part of Rama’s mourning, but it came only halfway through my playthrough, and by that time I felt very uneasy about the conversations between these two.

This probably makes it sound like I am not sympathetic to Rama’s cause, but I am. I’m glad that the game offers you chances to rebuild relationships with your friends, get to know new people, or even get regular counselling sessions with a therapist. You get to choose which interactions to devote your time to, as every day gives you two time slots to play with. Will you take the time to work on yourself with a professional, will you give in to the attraction of someone new, or will you work on restoring what has been lost with your bandmates?

There is a lot to love about Afterlove EP. The visuals are in a beautifully handdrawn style that reminded me a lot of the brilliant If Found, and the game’s version of Jakarta is stunningly realised. As you might expect from a game with such a focus on music, the soundtrack by Indonesian band L’Alphalpha is absolutely stunning. It’s clear that this is a labour of love, even more so due to the sad passing of Famhi Hasni during the development of the game. It must be intense to have to deal with your own grief while making a game about that very same topic, and I really admire the team for being able to finish this project.

But that’s exactly why I remain in two minds about the end result. I desperately want to love it more than I do. The writing just didn’t really work for me. I get that the game centres around Rama and his feelings, but every other character seems tailored towards evolving his story, and not much more than that. It’s a shame too, because Jakarta feels so alive within Afterlove EP, and each NPC has such an interesting backstory to start out with. However, whatever sidestory Rama gets involved in, it always ends up with him being the centre of attention. That becomes painfully so in the case of vinyl store owner Satria’s storyline, where an important message about inclusion becomes just a footnote in this very straightforward love story.

I do believe that to many people, this game will be incredibly important. It offers recognition of what it means to grieve, to have to deal with being alive while the person you love no longer is. There are touching moments to be found here, for sure. The game also offers separate scenarios for different endings, depending on the choices you make here. What it means to heal can differ depending on your own experiences and values, and I like that. It makes Rama’s story feel more personal.