In the words of Thunder Lotus Games, Spiritfarer is "a cozy management game about dying", and I don't think I could have summed up the experience of playing any better than that. The subject material, along with the colorful art and expressive animations that the trailer showed off, really drew me in- indie games often tap into the deeper, more affecting and personal levels of their subject material than a AAA game with a similar premise would reach. Spiritfarer merges addicting management/crafting gameplay with both small vignettes about individual characters, their lives and how they died, and a larger narrative surrounding the main character Stella and her role in all of this.
The experience of playing Spiritfarer will be different for everybody. Your player character Stella takes on the role of the Spiritfarer from Charon, and it is her task to help the game's 16 "spirit" characters prepare to move on to the afterlife. Preparing to move on is different for every spirit, as you may expect. Some of them need closure on unfinished storylines from their lives. Some of them just need a place to be comfortable for a while. Some of them need to try to rekindle relationships from their pasts. But the key thing is that none of them will go on to the afterlife until they are ready, and in the process of helping them prepare, you will learn so much about their lives, their relationships, their regrets, their triumphs, and how they died. Since each of the 16 spirits have different backstories and causes of death, different characters will resonate with different people playing the game. I guess I would consider myself fortunate that I did not personally connect with many of the characters' stories, but there were still several that hit me in a way that felt unique to me, and I would venture to guess that most people playing will find their own group of spirits with whom they personally can relate to. And in that way, Spiritfarer absolutely succeeds at its main goal- to explore personal stories of death and the effects that the people we meet leave on us.
Joining me for episode 62 of Tales from the Backlog (Spiritfarer) are Charlie and Lauren Young. I knew that this would be a great episode to chat with both of them because they are both intelligent and well-spoken, but it turns out that this game in particular made personal connections with them that they were kind enough to share on the show, and confirmed my suspicions that this game handled extremely personal and sensitive content effectively and with the proper respect. I really appreciate what Charlie and Lauren brought to the show, and this turned out to be exactly the conversation I wanted to have on the show; this spoiler section is one of my favorites I've ever done.
You can listen to episode 62 of Tales from the Backlog (Spiritfarer) in the player below, or you can follow the links to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Podcast Addict, Stitcher, Google Podcasts or search "Tales from the Backlog" in your favorite podcast app!