A man lost in the middle of the Arctic Circle remembers, at his most critical moment, the love of his life. The history of South of the Circle and its almost non-existent game system helps us to reflect on the differences of our medium with respect to other entertainment.
Despite the fact that South of the Circle is now being released on consoles and computers, it is not a recent production, but rather comes from that collection of games that were exclusive to the initiative apple-arcade and that, little by little, they are ending their exclusivity contract to end up reaching the rest of the platforms. It will not be a game that will have many problems to adapt, since South of the Circle is a work whose use of controls is very limited. Just a few buttons to choose a response mood, in such an abstract way that we will never be entirely sure what our character is going to say. This is accompanied by a simple movement with which to guide our character, usually forward. It hasn’t been an experience that really reinforces the bond that forms between avatar and player, which makes me think about this process and how some games are able to achieve this effect and others aren’t.
You see, when I recently played As Dusk Falls I could have described a similar situation. It is a game with a structure very similar to that of an animated visual novel, in which we only make decisions and do not even move the character. And yet, I have no hesitation in calling As Dusk Falls a video game, because at all times I connected with the protagonists throughout their odyssey and felt that their lives and their futures were constantly hanging on me. my decisions and reactions. If it is not the lack of mechanics and control, then what is it that makes us be hooked on one experience and not another? Where is the limit in what benefits from our environment or only uses it as a vehicle? That’s what I kept thinking while playing South of the Circle and once finished, the answer is still not definitive, but it is a little clearer.
The work of State of Play tells the story of a Cambridge professor at two different times in his life. One in the middle of the Antarctic polar circle, where he is going to make a series of measurements on the climate until his plane crashes and he must seek help to survive and return home. As he does so, memories of an affair with a woman, also a university professor, will accumulate in his mind.
The story of South of the Circle is one of those that I would like to see more of in video gamesThe story of South of the Circle is one of those that, deep down, I would like to see more in video games, because it deals with a dark age of academicism in which, in the midst of the cold war and through galloping machismo, it was the men who signed the theses and the worth of many women in the intellectual field faced a very difficult ceiling, if not impossible, to overcome. But, although the approach is good, I don’t see State of Play as interested in using the language of our medium to tell this story. Except for some almost anecdotal flashes, it is a game that is very reluctant to give up control to the player, even of the camera, since he is the one who knows where to position himself and when the events have to happen so that everything fits. And yes, it blocks; but to the point that the player feels displaced to that dangerous condition of mere spectator. And I use this word (spectator) knowingly, because I am a fan (and defender) of those works that do not seek game systems that test the player’s skill and reaction, but rather want offer a free scan and a pace of play that trusts enough in the one who has a control in his hands.
On the other hand, with South of the Circle it gives me the feeling that everything wanted to be too controlled. So much so that even the decisions you seem to make at the beginning lose weight throughout the adventure. By the end of the play, the game wants to be subversive and suffers from gimmicky and illogical, not because something interesting could not have been done thanks to it, but because it betrays the rules that he himself presents. And again, you have that feeling that, behind everything, is the hand of the designer who always seeks to have total control and not give it up to anyone for anything in the world, because it is his story and only he knows how to tell it.
I want this type of video game to make it clear that there is a reason to be sold on Steam or any store and not on a movie and series platformWhenever I play a title like this South of the Circle, which has good intentions, which seeks to bring themes to the video game that do not find their place when mixed with the action; I consider it a small tragedy that they are not able to present interesting mechanics to support it. Perhaps I take it so personally because I want to believe that our medium is capable of amusing and entertaining in the same way when you build a story that talks about some professors who study the climate at Cambridge as when you narrate the epic of a warrior in a universe medieval fantasy. I want there to be a place for everything in video games and, sometimes, magic happens and works like Papers, Please, Return of the Obra Dinn, Her Story, What Remains of Edith Finch appear… that show us that it is possible. But I also want this type of video game to make it clear that there is a reason to be sold on Steam or any console store and not on a movie and series platform. In the case of South of the Circle, I’m not sure what his goal was.
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