Spiral

Folklore Studios are a new studio that aims to focus on creating games with the purpose of leaving a mark on the player. There’s a particular quote from their website that encapsulates this vision: “Folklore’s focus is to craft deep experiences that resonate with players and make them think about their journey long after they’ve finished it,” and when playing their debut game, Spiral, you can see that vision embedded throughout the game. 

Spiral was born through the games project manager, Jes Vaillancourt, and creative director Mikhael Vaillancourt’s grandmother’s cognitive degeneration and the realisation that this touched everyone they knew in one way or another, and no one was talking about it. In an email Jes sent to me, she said, “We wanted to open the discussion, offer a way to understand it better, and see the person behind it even if it was difficult. Celebrating amazing people that we love and cherish, their lives, and their memories, and making sure that we see them for who they are when they don’t remember us.” Jes also stated in the email what their mission was with Spiral. “Creating a bridge of empathy is our goal; we’ve talked with the Alzheimer Association at the beginning of our work and multiple times during the process, but we didn’t work with them, and we’re not trying to create an educational experience.” And this shows as you play the game, as it’s more trying to give you the experiences of a person suffering with this type of disease and the way it impacts the individual and the families and close friends around them. 

The game centres on Bernard, who is an old man when we first meet, and we go on a journey by descending a spiral staircase and living through some of his most important life memories through the doors that you’ll come across. We get to learn of his relationship with his parents, the mischief he got up to with his sister, the bond that he held with his close friends, and how he got to know a special lady in his life, Emily. 

It’s a credit to the way the game is paced, as all of these relationships are given the room to breathe, to give the player the chance to really understand Bernard’s life growing up before a new element is brought in. This created a narrative that really took hold and, in some ways, made me feel like I was part of the circle and part of Bernard’s life. I got to know all the characters well to understand the special part they had in Bernard’s life, so when the confusion and the memory loss started to show, it was very impactful, not just for Bernard’s family and friends, but for me too. I must commend the writing on show, as it is one of the title’s strongest points and the main power behind feeling these emotions. 

The gameplay elements within Spiral are vast, mixing it up continuously. One area will have you watering flowers for your mum, playing detective to hunt for clues to where the family dog has gone, to a full-on Dungeons & Dragons-esque area with turn-based combat and puzzles. There are many more other different styles in the game, and this approach really led to some moments of welcome uncertainty on what you were going to be doing next. This also fed my emotional attachment to Bernard that I mentioned earlier; seeing these different sides of him as he grew up did bring thoughts of my own childhood and worries for the future that I wasn’t expecting to feel.

Visually, Spiral looks good. There has been some great work on the backgrounds and environments, with much detail included in everything you see. The broken splinters of the world floating around the stage is a great effect, signalling that you are in some kind of broken memory. The style of graphics used has also been implemented well, with the cel shaded style very much welcomed.

The character models were the blame for the issues I had with the game. Mostly quite stiff in their movements, not showing too much emotion while talking, it was the cause of taking me out of the game at various moments. When there was a lengthy scene involving conversation, my interest did dip slightly as I was just watching motionless characters just standing there, talking. Some of the clothing too was like the characters were wearing cardboard, like dresses having no movement whatsoever. It’s the studio’s first game, and their achievements are very commendable, but there are a few rough edges that could have been smoothed out a little for a better experience.

Thankfully, the full voice acting makes up for the graphics shortcomings with some wonderful performances from everyone involved. It must have been a challenging part of the development, as there are an array of characters that needed their own voices, and finding and organising the talent must have taken some time. Thankfully, each actor has brought an individuality to each character that I really appreciated, and you can tell they put their all into the performance. The game would have lost so much impact if this was text-based conversation, but thankfully this was a road that Folklore Studios didn’t go down, and it makes for a much better experience.