Joystick : Escape From Reality: Platformer game takes flight, blurs line between dreams, memory
‘Alight (In dreams)’
Developer: Twofold Secret
Platform: Any Internet browser
Price: Free
It’s disconcerting how similar dreams and memories can be. Some dreams, like some memories, can be clearly recalled —every detail clear and vivid.
Sometimes all that’s left of our dreams or memories are just fragments. A phrase, a color, a room in which someone you loved would always sit and read. And sometimes, those fragments of dreams and memories bleed together.
‘Alight (in dreams)’is an online game about this —the space where memories and dreams merge to form an emotional tapestry of one young man’s life. The player assumes the role of a nameless protagonist who finds himself reflecting on his life through a dream. He unfurls wings and soars through scenes of his life depicting watershed moments and growing insecurities.
As a game, there isn’t much to ‘Alight.’ There are no real puzzles to solve or foes to defeat. It’s a platformer, a game requiring the player to jump from platform to platform or over obstacles. In ‘Alight,’ you have limited flight —you can soar upwards by flapping your angel-like wings a few times and then glide the rest of the way until your stamina runs out.
The primary challenge is navigating from the starting point, usually a door that leads from the last dream-memory, to an end point. There you’ll find a clock, a candle and a feather. Choose one, and you’ll have to make it back to where you started, but your choice will affect the challenge of your return trip. The sky glows red, darkens and closes in around you to form a deadly maze.
At its most basic, that’s all ‘Alight (in dreams)’really is: a maze. But what makes it worthwhile is its remarkably constructed atmosphere.
The world of ‘Alight’ is sparse, evoking half-remembered dreams and fragments of memories. Leaping from the door of your character’s childhood home suspended in the skies of his dreams, you’ll land on a basketball court. It’s also in the sky, painted in your character’s subconscious. The designs of the levels are minimal and fragmentary but with purpose: That’s how we remember our lives. Even the game’s seemingly trivial choice at the midpoint of each of its seven chapters —candle, feather or clock —is given remarkable weight through the unfolding narrative.
That story, more than anything, is what compels the player to keep playing. Bittersweet, the protagonist ruminates on snapshots of his life one line at a time, fed in fragmented parts to the player by smoke markers in plain sight.
It’s worth mentioning that ‘Alight (in dreams)’ is a browser game. Browser games used to be the domain of mindless middle school diversions, at best offering levels of stimulation like ‘Tetris.’ They are now fertile grounds for artistic, emotional statements like ‘Alight.’ Although the format causes limitations — you won’t find any high-definition graphics here, and there is only one song on the soundtrack, although it is a beautiful one —’Alight’ embraces those limitations to create a distinct aesthetic.
‘Alight’ captures the feeling of flying and falling that comes when you don’t know if you’re awake or dreaming. It’s soaring because you’re back at a place you loved, and it’s sinking because you did something horrible there. It’s how it feels when you realize that sometimes waking up is the most terrifying part of the night.
Published on January 29, 2012 at 12:00 pm
