Excerpt

Chapter three: Surrounded by the Magical and the Surreal

"And suddenly I was a shark!"

-Molly Finch

Every great video game has a water level, even if that level contains no actual water.

At the most basic level of game design conversation, a video game's description can be reduced to a collection of verbs, and the gameplay is in part the result of those verbs. Mario can jump. But what does jumping allow him to do? Stomp on enemies. Cross gaps between platforms. Break bricks to gain power-ups or to access alternate level routes. When these verbs are suddenly replaced with an unfamiliar set of abilities or are forced into an unfamiliar environment, that's when you've entered a "water level," a situation where an abrupt change in spatial awareness or movement options forces the player to rethink how to interact with the game. The water levels in Super Mario Bros. on the Nintendo Entertainment System are literally levels in which Mario, the quintessential and originally-named Jump Man, is stripped of his jumping abilities, and instead forced to tame buoyancy in an alien underwater environment. The player is now dodging—not stomping on—enemies, and where falling and rising were equally controllable on land, the underwater friction makes sinking much slower than swimming upwards. The game developers are warning the player against comfort. This game, the developers might say, won't hesitate to pull the rug out from under you.

But a water level isn't always a water level. It can be a space level within an otherwise terrestrial game. It can be a flying level within an otherwise terrestrial game. It can be a wacky, upside down, reverse gravity level in an otherwise, well, terrestrial game. The water level inverts the player's expectations, and what the player expects is often a world analogous in many ways to our own real, terrestrial world. Humans approach playing games and designing games via human sensibilities meaning a physics rule, such as gravity, is expected to be a constant, default experience. When we press the jump button, we expect the player character to return to the ground plane. The return may be softened by a jetpack or extended by a double-jump, for example, but the return will happen. Obviously, some games do present alternative default in-game states, but if the player avatar is human-like and the environment Earth-like, then the verbs offered will most likely be familiar to Earth-dwelling humans.

A water level can be simultaneously frightening and interesting to a player, much like real water can be to a game designer.

_____

"[What Remains of Edith Finch] originally started off as a scuba diving simulator." Ian Dallas tells me this without even a pause allowed for revelation or awe. My surprised response, "really?" doesn't merit a comment from him. He's told this origin story too many times to other fans and journalists. I like to think that the jump from scuba diving simulator to cursed family is such a logical leap in Ian's head that to be impressed would be to question the game's very existence. Of course, it started as a scuba simulator. An adult starts as a baby. A tree starts as a seed. A mountain starts when tectonic plates overlap. And What Remains of Edith Finch starts as a scuba diving simulator. A thing is that thing because of the things before.

Ian wanted What Remains of Edith Finch to evoke a sense of the sublime. Speaking to Gamesindustry.biz in a 2017 interview he says, "For me the clearest memory of [experiencing the sublime] was scuba diving as a kid and seeing the bottom of the ocean slope away into a seemingly infinite darkness." I can relate … in theory. I'm from Kansas, where no coast is natural, and the deepest trenches still flirt with human toes. The idea of a bottomless maw is more horror than sublime, but I suppose if I try hard enough, I can imagine trusting the buoyancy of water and its assumedly benign creatures enough to fake a sense of awe amid my panic. Almost.

Why are water environments so jarring and, for some, so evocative? Simply put, oceans—and the life they contain—are naturally problematic for humans. Ocean life is a reclusive neighbor, approachable but forever mysterious. More than 80 percent of the ocean has never been seen by humans. Absolute comfort with such a staggering unknown is impossible. The waves, tides, and currents are gods we know exist but exist without motive. That's terrifying. Even innocuous creatures at the surface mock us. Jellyfish, kelp, squid, and dolphins all embrace the same currents that would drown us. We sink. They dance.

I am most comfortable sitting in a coffee shop, not floating in water. How easy would it be for a shark to eat me underwater? Very. Conversely, imagine how easy it would be to punch a shark trapped in a Starbucks. The power works both ways, sure, but there are far fewer dead sharks in a Starbucks than dead humans in the ocean.

The ocean forces me to accept the inability to retreat. Where gravity and friction allow me to run on land, these very same forces act against me underwater. I am forced to trust foreign, disinterested forces, and what's scarier than trusting something without motive?

Where the potential for death collides with an awareness of our insignificance along with the acceptance of both, that's where you'll find the sublime. That's where you'll find the seed of what would become What Remains of Edith Finch, a place of awe and discomfort.