Walking about at last year’s Playtime festival in Bruges, I noticed a game that wasn’t included with the other indie games being presented but instead had a completely separate section of the building all to itself. There were clay models being presented, developer notes, and you could even have a conversation with developer Samuel Baidoo themselves (although they had gone out to eat when I visited, sadly). The game in question was Plum Road Tea Dream, and it looked rather interesting, with its unique visuals and semi-autobiographical setting.
Plum Road Tea Dream sees you assist S., a queer person of colour who is struggling with all kinds of grief, from being rejected by a parent because of their queer identity to seeing other queer people or people of colour being attacked or even killed during the news at night. As you can already see, this is a game with a lot to say about the world we live in and how we treat the most vulnerable within it.
However, this is not a preachy game. Samuel isn’t here to tell you how to behave; they’re here to tell you what it’s like to be in their position, to see everything that happens and to feel everything that they experience. There’s a core of vulnerability to Plum Road Tea Dream that you don’t often get to see in videogames. There’s plenty of trauma to deal with and sadness to be dealt with, but all of it is done from a place of love, for oneself and for one another. There’s no blame or judgement here, only attempts at understanding and empathising.
All of this is very ambitious for a videogame, and there’s much more to Plum Road Tea Dream than just this game. It’s also an exhibition, an installation, even a play. Even this, the gaming part of the whole project, is something that defies categorisation. Calling it a videogame feels limiting to what this actually is. It is, for lack of a better word, an experience disguised as a video game. Yes, gameplay will feel familiar if you’ve played walking simulators before or even turn-based tactics games, but it barely feels like the most interesting part of the game.
That might be a little bit lucky too, as some of the gameplay feels a little archaic. Walking around is pretty slow (although you can adjust your speed in the settings), some of the visuals look slightly dated, and there are sound effects in the game which feel a bit out of place. Hell, to save the game you have to click a cauldron and then use the scroll wheel of your mouse to select saving the game. There is no controller support either, so if you’re not used to playing with mouse and keyboard, well, you’re going to have to learn.
All of these things had me a little worried at the start of the game, especially with those early levels, or games, as S. calls them, feeling a bit empty. They’re basically 3D-scanned rooms that you can wander around in, with nothing much to do within them besides gaze at the clay models. Outside of these rooms, the world feels very sparse as well, making you wonder if the game just hasn’t been fleshed out enough.
Luckily, I kept on playing, because I would have missed out on something special if I hadn’t. After those early games, you’re dropped into the Homeworld, a sort of hubworld for all these different sanctuaries. In these sanctuaries, you will meet different versions of S., or maybe just different aspects of the same person. It’s up to you to meet S and listen to what they need, what they feel like sharing and find out how you can help them.
Helping can mean very different things depending on what version of S. you’re dealing with. First, you’ll have to find a way to actually reach them, such as through playing hide-and-seek or creating new gods using a giant machine, for example. Then you’ll use your Sword of Sadness, a weapon not created to destroy but to set people free, on the crystallised versions of S. you meet to finally meet them in their true form.
Doing so triggers a kind of turn-based combat minigame, where you’ll have to think carefully about how to move forward. It’s an interesting take on how to psychologically deal with certain aspects of your emotions while also just being a fun part of the game. It’s a ritual, one of many created within the game, to create space for yourself and give yourself room to grow instead of stagnating.
Plum Road Tea Dream doesn’t just ask you to give kindness to S. though – it also sets you up to give it to yourself too. At different times within the game there is room to journal, and sometimes you’ll even be prompted with questions that will hit home if you’ve ever been in therapy or have dealt with issues related to your queerness or other aspects of your identity. This allows you to empathise with S. even more, as you grow closer through shared experiences.
And that’s the true beauty of this game. Once you’ve started connecting with it, it won’t let you go. Even if it only takes a little over two hours to complete, the game will stay with you for long after that, not just through the story you shared with S., but also by changing your relationship with yourself. Just be sure to be in the right mindset to play this, as themes like police brutality, homophobia, gay-bashing and threats of murder can be incredibly hard to deal with.
While Plum Road Tea Dream is a game that deals with heavy subject matter and takes place during a grieving process, it’s also a celebration of identity, and it’s an essential play because of it. There is joy behind the sadness, there is a will to live behind the hiding from threats, and there is celebration behind the mourning. At times like these, when people’s rights are in danger once again, and people can be murdered just for celebrating Pride or being born with a certain skin colour, it’s important to listen to these voices and remind ourselves that we are all people, sharing way more in common than what differentiates us from each other.
