The philosopher-fellow is a neat deconstruction of the way people tend to prescribe “pretentiousness” to intelligence, and the streamer’s a conversation on the upward pressure on online celebrities to undertake risky behaviour in order to appease a fickle and generally uncaring community. The newspaper editor is a deeply unpleasant person, but his sensationalist way of looking at the world and interpreting what he sees is certainly poignant in an era dominated but Murdoch-run trash. Another character is part of the police force in the increasingly totalitarian state, and represents the tension between the necessity of police forces for the health of society, versus their potential for corruption, and the culpability of individuals within the forces for their actions. The Hatsune Miku-like, meanwhile, represents an ongoing conversation regarding the role of celebrity in society. Does consent matter with regards to synthetic beings? It’s not a topic of intense relevance to the world right now, but between technologies such as VR, AR, robotics and AI, it’s going to be a ethical debate that mainstream society needs to have sooner rather than later. From the jaded Internet news sity editor to the Hatsune Miku-like idol, from the pretentious philosopher (a.k.a my aspiration) to the live streamer, and from the assassin to the robot prostitute that deliberately keeps herself looking like a child in order to appeal to a certain type of client, the people that drop into your little bar are an eclectic bunch, each with their own personal stories of both joy and woe to share.Įach of the characters canvases a whole range of themes – the robot sex worker, for example, offers a discourse across a range of themes around consent. All you can do for them is to offer to mix up a drink.Įach character is heavily involved in the wider world, however, and the stories they weave depict everything from the socio-political ramifications of living within a ruinous dystopia through to their own personal challenges and philosophies as they struggle through life.
You are stuck behind the bar, and have no agency over the actions of any of these patrons. Clients come in, chat with you over a couple of drinks, and leave. In VA-11, you play as a bartender in a run down, soon-to-be-closed, sleazy watering hole. Regardless of the underlying reason behind it, it is a clear tread, and VA-11 HALL-A is another example of it. Perhaps it’s simply that a number of indie developers are looking to asset authorial control over their narratives, or perhaps this movement is in response to the increasingly tired power fantasies that mainstream video games indulge as a matter of course. I’m not sure what has encouraged this trend. In Rapture, you’re piecing together the horrific events that led to a village going silent, and all you can do is watch ghostly re-enactments of past events. In Bury Me, My Love, you’re following the story of a refugee trying to escape Syria… but you’re not on the journey and can only text message them. In Killing Time, you’re catching up on social media while on a spaceship, watching as the world you left behind falls to pieces. Whether it’s Killing Time At Lightspeed, or Bury Me, My Love, or something like Everybody’s Gone To The Rapture, the common thread among them is how little control you really have over what’s going on. There’s a trend among indie developers that are working in narrative-focused spaces (visual novels or “walking simulators”) to structure their games in such a way that you play the role of a witness, rather than a participant. In so many ways VA-11 HALL-A is exactly what I wish more game developers were doing. In fact, I can’t believe it’s taken me so long. Finally, after a number of people have been badgering me to finally move it off the backlist, the Nintendo Switch release of it has given me the opportunity to finally knock it off, and now I understand all the recommendations. VA-11 HALL-A has been kicking around for a fair few years now, but for one reason or another I have never actually played it before.
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