How to Say Goodbye

One of the many fantastic things about indie video games is that they have the liberty to tell any story they want. And not only this, but they also lack the pressure to produce a massive game with hundreds of hours of content. Sometimes all you need is a neat idea or a nice story to tell, and just make it come true. We’ve always praised the ability of indie games to get more personal and emotional, and this is sometimes due to the fact that they can be entirely developed by a single person sometimes. Today we are going to be talking about How To Say Goodbye, one of these emotional, small indie games that’s been making a lot of waves in the indie scene lately. So, what is How to Say Goodbye all about? Well, let’s get started with that!

About the game

A game presented by Florian Veltman, Baptiste Portefaix and ARTE France, How to Say Goodbye is mainly just about what its name implies it to be. In How to say Goodbye, we will play to solve puzzles while we are told the story of a character turned ghost, lost in an unknown world populated by spirits and very inspired by children's books.

"Help find friends who are prisoners of a mysterious wizard and accompany them on a journey to the other side", is the idea that its creators, who have been inspired by illustrated children's books, had in mind. We play by controlling the level and the scene, rotating it and somehow manipulating reality to help the group of ghosts and spirits that are trapped between the two worlds get to the other side. But beware, in this middle space not everything is calm, some evil spirits will definitely try to prevent them from getting to the other side.

A beautiful experience

"The goal is to escape the liminal space between life and death where they are trapped." This means moving the scenery, such as flooring and furniture, to guide the ghosts through the deceptive environment.

With horizontal and vertical movement, as well as evil spirits, playing is about slowly accepting that you too will have to accept death as you move forward as a ghost.

Dealing with the grief of death and facing the loss of a dear one is something incredibly difficult, but it is also something everyone’s going to have to face at some point in their lives. So presenting this as a game and a series of puzzles to deal with the experience is a magnificent idea.

Review: 8/10

Created by one of the minds behind Monument Valley 2: Panoramic Edition, the game features this spirit-filled world and will be played as a recently deceased person. Its publisher, ARTE France, has commented a little about the game. How to say goodbye is presented by Florian Veltman, former designer of Monument Valley 2 and Assemble with Care, together with Baptiste Portefaix, award-winning sound designer and composer.

Pros:

• Beautiful design
• Excellent Stories
• Amazing music

Cons:

• A bit too short