Spiral

Release Date: September 20, 2024

Adventure, TPP, indie games, games for impact, singleplayer

93%

Steam

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A third-person adventure game about controlling a character who's dealing with dementia. In Spiral we follow Bernard - taking part in the key moments of his life and watching as the disease gradually consumes his memories. It also changes the gameplay itself.

Plot
Gameplay
Graphics

Spiral is an adventure game dedicated to the difficult topic of dealing with dementia. It was developed by the independent studio Folklore Games from Canada.

Plot

The main character of Spiral is Bernard, whom we meet as an old man. The protagonist suffers from dementia, and our task is to accompany him in the most important moments of his life, starting from a childhood full of delight, through adolescence, ending with adulthood.

By helping Bernard in nurturing the memory of who he is (a writer, a homebody, and also a lover of role-playing games), our task is not to save him from the progressing disease. Instead, we can only try to understand what our character is going through, observing how dementia gradually consumes his memory.

Gameplay

In Spiral we view events from a third-person perspective (TPP). The central role in the game is played by stairs in the shape of the titular spiral, on which doors are placed that serve as transitions to Bernard's subsequent memories. During them, we accompany the hero and perform various activities, experiencing with him individual moments from the past.

Apart from the main threads that push the plot forward, there are optional side memories available. Although getting to know them is not necessary for making progress, thanks to them we can learn more about individual characters and understand the context of some events a little better. Additionally, in this way, we make the game world richer with items associated with them.

Special mechanics have been prepared for some memories. For example, there is a mini-game about fishing (which we first encounter when watching his father teach Bernard how to cast and operate a fishing rod) or even stealth elements (we unlock them when the protagonist and his friend have to hide from their mother, who is angry with them).

The authors made every effort to convincingly present the illness the protagonist struggles with. Dementia's influence on Bernard's earliest memories is marginal, but over time it becomes increasingly visible, encompassing the appearance of the surroundings, music, as well as game systems, like the menu, degree of completion, and even saved game states.