malvasia bianca

Going into Wanderstop, I was thinking that it might be at least at least somewhat relevant to my life. I’d heard that it was a game about burnout; I left my job last year, and I’m pretty sure I was at least a little burned out after spending so many years there. Which isn’t someting that I’m used to seeing reflected in games (they spend their time instead on the actions that, in a normal human, would lead to burnout!), so I would curious to see what a game about that would be like.

And I wasn’t exactly wrong in my assumpion about Wanderstop’s topic, but I wasn’t right, either? Alta, the protagonist, isn’t any normal burned out person: she’s presented as somebody who was literally the best warrior in the world, never losing any battle, and who can’t deal with no longer being the best. This maybe is normal enough in video games, but in the real world, it’s pretty bizarre: I’ve actually been unusually good at a couple of different things over the course of my life, but I’ve never remotely felt like I was the single best person at those things, and I don’t think I’ve been around other people who have felt that way either? I’m not saying that people like that don’t exist, I’m sure they do, but also there are many more of us out there who have been burned out for much more mundane reasons, because of stress and repetition piling up.

This kind of sidetracked me for a while. Does it matter that the game approaches burnout through that route? Why did the developers choose that route to approach the topic? The game’s Wikipedia page mentions Davey Wreden, C418, and Karla Zimonja as key developers – do any of them feel that they were literally the best in the world at what they did? If not, why did they choose that route into the game’s presenation of burnout? Is it because game protagonists are always larger than life (with RPG heroes so often being the chosen one who will save the world, for example)? Is it because they thought it would be harder to get players to care about more mundane causes of burnout (i.e. trying to bypass the reaction of “so you had to work hard for a while, get over it”)?

Once I got past that, though, there’s something more recognizable in the game. Alta really wants to get back to work, but can’t; that’s not really the way that burnout presented itself to me, either, but it’s closer, and it’s certainly relatable? (I’m certainly willing to believe that it’s how burnout presents itself in type A people; and, given that the post I linked to above is all about a list of things to spend my time on, I can’t claim to be all that for away from those symptoms.) And the fix that the game presents is rather charming: maybe instead of trying to run full tilt at what’s blocking you, you should make some tea instead? Make tea to chill out, but also make tea to touch grass, both literally (well, you’re touching plants more than grass, but still) and with other people.

You’re interacting with the people you’re serving tea to, of course, but also with Boro, the owner of the tea shop. And I quite liked how the game portrayed Boro: he’s taking a gentle approach towards Alta, not forcing her to do things she doesn’t want to do, but also with something firm at his core. (Steel wrapped in cotton, as the Tai Chi classics say; am I just bringing my own predilections into the game, or is there actually something there about differing martial styles?)

I dunno: I’ve got topics that I’d like to talk about in this post, but I honestly haven’t put in the work. It might be interesting to compare Boro with Giraffe from To a T – both very humane people who care about their (food-related) craft? (Does Boro actually care about his craft the way Giraffe does? I get the feel that he does, but can I back that up with citation from the game?) Or, when playing the game, I got the feeling that the last chapter was somewhat explicitly Buddhist, but I didn’t actually take notes to be able to justify that one either. And then there’s the way that the game presents Alta as being really pretty messed up in ways that go beyond what you see at the beginning, but also manages to present that with quite a bit of compassion.

Honestly, maybe I should just play through the whole thing again. And I might, if we choose it as our April VGHVI game? (It’ll be my month to suggest something, and Wanderstop is one of the games that I’ll offer as a possibility.) I probably will at least replay the last chapter if we do that; not sure I want to spend time replaying the whole thing, but I might? (Which, uh, gets back to the theme that I have a hard time stopping planning how to use my time in an appropriately productive way…) Maybe we’ll be able to figure out something more interesting if we do that; I’ll report back if so.