Adventure Gamers - Forums
You are here: Home → Forum Home → Gaming → Adventure → Thread
Post Marker Legend:
- New posts
- No new posts
Currently online
Adventure Game Scene of the Day - Wednesday 20 June 2012
I asked Kuru if I could post a few screenshots from games which I found remarkable in some way. He said yes, so for the next 6 or 8 Wednesdays you’re stuck with me. Sorry, no SOMI, no DOTT, no Sam&Max; on Wednesday. Kuru will of course be posting the rest of the week.
The pic is the very last screen from the Czech adventure In the Shadow of the Raven (1999). Its visual style has a certain childlike charm, but everything else is totally forgettable. The reason I want to save it from oblivion is the remarkable theme of the intro and epilogue, which strangely enough doesn’t have much to do with the rest of the game: monk Severin’s search for the meaning of life. And at the end of his wanderings he finds it. In spite of the atrocious English (and I’m saying that as a non-native ) and the clumsiness of the cut scenes, there can be no doubt about it: he finds Enlightenment as described by Christian mystics, Buddhists, Sufis, by all world religions. Even the Dark Night of the Soul is shown for a second or two. Truly amazing. There are other games with vague spiritual musings, but none like this.
From the intro:
At the beginning there was a word. Nobody knew it. But many were looking for it: hermits in their caves, poets in hysterical poems, ordinary people in sex, ascetics in self-denial, kings in streams of blood, prophets in crowds, children in fairy tales, medicine men in dreams – all of them were looking for the word. But try to find it without searching, just flow as a River. Try to stop the water – it will accept your hit. Become a Stone on the road, a flower on the meadow or the smell of waking wood. Feel the joy of never-ending fusion and forget yourself.
And now for something completely different…
What did the Buddhist say to the hot dog vendor? Make me one with everything.
Now playing: ——-
Recently finished: don’t remember
Up next: Eh…
Looking forward to: Ithaka of the Clouds; The Last Crown; all the kickstarter adventure games I supported
Ooh, I have dim memories of this game, but it was really forgettable. The developers probably didn’t agree on whether it was supposed to be a comedy or a philosophical tale.
I didn’t know In the Shadow of the Raven was so profound. Nice review, Fien.
I’m back to looking for the Word (the way ordinary people do ) now.
It could always be worse, remember that.
mjp
Thanks a lot Fien for posting about a game I’d never heard about. I’m never going to play it, so I want to know: what is the meaning of life that the game reveals at the end?
Thanks a lot Fien for posting about a game I’d never heard about. I’m never going to play it, so I want to know: what is the meaning of life that the game reveals at the end?
42? Oops, wrong game.
Difficult roads often lead to beautiful destinations.
I dont know this game AT ALL… maybe Fien should take the Scene behind the scene
I remember playing a demo of this years ago. It really did have little to do with spirituality - you had to get rid of a guard.
Wasn’t there a sequel planned?
I want to know: what is the meaning of life that the game reveals at the end?
Well, it’s nothing special. Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.
Oops, wrong game.
It could always be worse, remember that.
mjp
The meaning of life is like a tree in the desert, without roots, trunk or leaves. It does not exist, but we need it to be comforted against the loneliness of existance.
if i can add myself to the philosophers here, i would say the meaning of life is nothing but the deference between what you what mean to accomplish every time you get out of bed and what you really did before you lay your back your head .
and that would.. be a nice intro to a Rock song.
what is the meaning of life that the game reveals at the end?
Sorry, my interpretation. The game doesn’t mention the meaning of life, only The Word. So I guess it would be more accurate to say that Severin first has a strange dream he doesn’t understand and in the end just stumbles into this “never-ending fusion”.
Now playing: ——-
Recently finished: don’t remember
Up next: Eh…
Looking forward to: Ithaka of the Clouds; The Last Crown; all the kickstarter adventure games I supported
You are here: Home → Forum Home → Gaming → Adventure → Thread