- Platforms: PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Microsoft Windows,
- Genres: Indie game, Adventure game, Adventure
- Game play time : 2 hours
- Goal : Explore and investigate each family members final moments by replaying them, reliving how they interpreted what happened before their demise.
Story summary :
Exploration of the Flinch family history, each retelling their own version of events that occurred.
Why this game?
- I decided to research this game is because it’s a narrative focused game with 3D art. Furthermore, it’s a mysterious game that leaves the open interpretation to the players with what happened to the Flinch family members.
How is it linked to my game ideas?
Its a game about stories and legends handed down from generations with unreliable narrators telling their versions of what took place in the house. It just heavily reminded of how folktales are passed down to future generations, so I wanted to see how they conveyed the mystery of the Flinch family.
What did I like about this game?
- I like how it explains the stories and the history of the family and how even at the end you don’t really know everything or what really caused those deaths, it leaves the player in mystery.
- The twist at the end where you find out, you’re actually Edith Finch son, Christopher reading the journal that your mum left behind.
Detailed story summary : Click on the arrow
- The story begins with Edith inheriting the family house after her mothers death, we realise later she is 22 weeks pregnant and explores the old house to discover more about her family history for her son. Throughout the game she enters room to room, documenting their stories in her journal and gradually filling out her family tree. It’s heavily implied that the Flinch household was cursed due to the mystery of each family members death.
- After she visits every family members story, she reaches her old bedroom and recounts her family’s last night in the house: Edith mother (Dawn) and great-grandmother (Edie) getting into an argument about Edie’s refusal to leave and her insistence on telling the stories of others to Edith.
- Later that night Edith, finds a book left by her great-grandmother and what happened the night she was born. However, her mother takes the book away before she finished the book never discovering the end of the story. Leaving Edie and the house, taking her daughter Edith away for several years.
- The twist at the end is while you think you’re playing as Edie, you are actually re-reading the journal of your mother Edith, you are the son, Christopher leaving flowers on her grave outside the house.
Key mechanics :
- Walking
- Point & click
- Edith Finch | What Remains of Edith Finch Wiki | Fandom
- [Critical Play] What Remains of Edith Finch – The Mechanics of Magic
- What Remains of Edith Finch and the UX of Storytelling & Immersion | by ishikasoni | Medium
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