~ Review ~
It is 1978. Ida Vaughan is an elderly patient on an airship-cum-hospital moored above a small Australian town. Like most of the residents, she is expecting this to be her last home. She seems comfortable here, sure of herself, patient and warm. But... How well can you actually get to know Ida in three days? As she herself remarks, "There's only so much you can know about a person I suppose."
Wayward Strand is interested in the things that pass you by far more than it wants to tell you one particular story. Its setting (check out that classy retro chic rendered in neat and simple realist style) truly has a life of its own. Staff and patients will follow their routines and indulge their own narratives without any input from the player. As Casey, a visiting teenager who aspires to be a journalist, you are free to explore. The airship is a small place, comprising a dozen stations at which you might encounter another character. They each have their own concerns and their own lives - which they might share with you. It's all about being in the right place at the right time, lest significant moments pass you by.
Most often, narrative games are restrictive because they want to guide you along a set path in order to tell one particular story. Wayward Strand is restrictive because there is no particular story. Omniscience might be a theoretical possibility in storytelling but in life, our perspective is always woefully limited. This is astutely demonstrated by role-playing a 14-year-old wannabe journalist tagging along to mum's work and meeting old folk. Ida may not be forthcoming about your line of inquiry, other characters may be avoidant, forgetful or easily distracted. Nevertheless, all will carry on with their day with or without you, leaving your journal full of random, incomplete, wayward strands. Meanwhile, Casey's relationship with her mother (a nurse on the airship) provides a backbone arc that prevents the game from feeling directionless, but even this more linear story is really about distance, and waiting until the other person is ready to reconnect. All this suggests that whilst the freedom we enjoy in everyday life may allow us to occupy many places, it is in scarce few of these places that we might actually have some impact on the world or the people around us.
For this reason, it feels wrong to sell Wayward Strand on its replayability. Whatever we choose to do, the seconds tick away and we lose whatever chances lie elsewhere. So whatever we choose to do, it is up to to us to consider it meaningful. Wayward Strand encourages this by often providing extra dialogue for the player who sits quietly with the residents of the airship, waiting, letting their companion open up should they choose. It is rare for non-playable characters to initiate conversation, rarer still for a game's limitations to bear such meaning.
Developers ghost pattern have made clever use of modest resources to invite thoughtful reflection, although sometimes those limitations do feel unhappily restrictive. Towards the end of your time on the ship (Casey will only be visiting for three days, each lasting about an hour for the player), you may find your dialogue options with some of the characters lacking - although arguably, this frustration is also true of life.
Wayward Strand is a resounding success from this small "experiential design studio" in Melbourne. It is exciting to wonder what more narrative possibilities could emerge from a title with a larger scope - but then again, ghost pattern are perhaps happier leaving us wanting more.
"A ghost pattern is the shape of what is no longer there upon what remains."
