Sometimes, a game is wrapped around such an inspiring, clever, and beautiful idea that you can't help but immediately fall in love with it. Such is the case with Haven by The Game Bakers which follows the plight of two lovers who, as the game describes itself, "gave up everything and escaped to a lost planet to be together." The whole idea of the star-crossed lovers is not new and is of course grounded in reality. In the world we live in, people have been and many still are forbidden to fall in love on the basis of political affiliation, social status, skin color, religion, and sex. The game embraces "love, rebellion, and freedom" as everyone should be by now. But human evolution on this matter has been slow, thanks to old traditions - most notably religion since it can't be questioned - and perhaps, tragically, this will never change because humans are forever cursed to be this way. The title of the game is perfect: Haven. It's common where we are often told that we ought to secure the rewards of the afterlife, the so-called "heaven". But when the values represented to achieve that don't match our own, it's no longer our truth. It's always interesting to me that people are quick to justify their life choices for something that's not based in our reality. Singer Belinda Carlisle seemed to get the message in the late 80's with her hit Heaven Is a Place on Earth but sadly, that didn't become the turning point for humanity. And she got one thing wrong: Heaven just doesn't exist anywhere, period. Haven however, does because it's a completely realistic concept.
I'm going on a tangent again. Back to the game: When I first booted up Haven last night, I thought that I would be in heaven. But that's exactly the problem isn't it? Because there is just no such thing. I do find the relationship between the two main characters endearing and it's easy to care about them. The developer is smart in the portrayal of the relationship between the two lovers, Yu and Kay. Though they do swoon over each other, they also constantly bicker... over everything, like a real couple. You get to see the interactions in everything they do, from chilling out in their ship to exploring the game's alien world. Then you get these really cute loading screens showing artwork of the two doing menial things together. When they are gliding outside of their ship, which is the main way of traversing the game world, every now and then they hold hands... It's magical. Sadly, it's the gliding mechanics itself that is really problematic for me. The two move so fast when they are gliding around and the camera is just so close to the characters that it's giving me motion sickness. This is especially true when trying to make precision drifts or when trying to navigate around objects. After about half an hour, I had to tap out of the game!
Still, I want to go back into Haven. There is just so much promise here, so much passion, and so much humanity. There seem to be a whole lot of hurt and darkness in it too though just waiting to ambush me and I am not just talking about the physical one I experienced. There is a scene in the beginning of the game that really touched me. I selected an option for Kay to bring up their pursuers into their casual conversation. The hurt in Yu's dismissive, pained reaction was palpable. Surely anyone who has ever loved can relate to this because there should be nothing wrong with love between two consenting adults. Absolutely nothing. For that to be illegal, for that to be a bane, for that to be something that must be destroyed, it cuts really, really deep. It's easily one of the most mature scenes in a video game I have ever experienced. It happened so organically and I didn't expect to be affected by a game so quickly during the initial play. Sure, this camera angle situation is going to be hard to rectify, but that is just something one has to deal with when looking for a haven in something like Haven. The rules of this old world of ours still apply: this world is not perfect, and neither is this game. The real question is, will I be willing to give up everything - like not having a headache - to be together with Haven?
1 comment:
It's too bad the camera view is causing nausea, I tend to get that as well and have shortened my game sessions to mitigate.
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