Few famous quotes drive me as mad as “Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans.” It’s not that the line (which originated from a 1957 issue of Reader’s Digest, but was popularized by John Lennon decades later) is an eye-rolling cliché that’s since been slapped onto a billion novelty mugs. It's more that it’s so regrettably true that it’s impossible to dispute a genuine bit of wisdom that has since been reduced to fodder for my aunt’s Facebook posts. No one knows that better than Alfred, the star of Forever Ago, a new narrative adventure game published by Annapurna Interactive.
The aging grouch at the center of developer Third Shift’s long-delayed debut has already lived a long life full of foiled plans by the time we join him on a grief-stricken road trip. Flashbacks between pit stops paint a picture of a man who has experienced both extremes of the fate spectrum, in a long life rerouted by unexpected rainstorms and engine failures alike. Third Shift embraces every twist and turn in a sincere narrative adventure that fits a little too snugly into Annapurna’s growing catalog of interactive tear-jerkers.
With its Hallmark nostalgia and underexplored gameplay, Forever Ago does little to elevate a run-of-the-mill story of loss and memory that telegraphs exactly where it’s headed too early. But like an enduring cliché, Alfred’s story doles out enough earnest wisdom to earn a bit of sentimentality. Forever Ago begins through the lens of a camera.
Two young lovers, Alfred and Audrey, set out on an adventurous hike together. They snap pictures of one another along the way, destined to be forever preserved in a kind of photo album that’s since been driven to extinction by digital media. Flash forward many decades later, and the once-sprightly Alfred is now a white-haired man behind the wheel of an empty RV.
If you haven’t put two and two together yet, you will by the time he walks into a convenience store and sees a leaflet about grief pinned up on a corkboard. I’m not sure if Third Shift intends for Alfred’s journey to be a mystery, but it’s obvious enough from the jump that I can’t imagine any of its twists will surprise players. Alfred is in the midst of a lonely road trip where he intends to revisit him and Audrey’s old date spots and recreate their memories.
For players, that mostly just means walking around a handful of neatly-designed locations, snapping optional photos that can be placed in your journal, and reconstructing the occasional memory by finding scattered flower petals. There’s a whisper of puzzling here and there, but Forever Ago mostly sticks to the same cinematic playbook as Mixtape. That’s fine considering its tight three-hour length, but it’s a shame that Third Shift doesn’t find some clever ways to use Alfred’s camera or RV to reinforce its story.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
