 Every once in a while, Leviathan publisher EA attempts to salvage its started reputation as the most evil corporation in gaming by financing a particularly artsy indie video game. The title I look at today, Sea of Solitude, was just such a one back in 2019, born of the unholy communion between capital and that rarest phenomenon in this industry. An artistically capable studio with a vision. The nerve in these people to make a game so fine and make a buck rather than starve. I promise I won't take any more potshots of the monolithic corporation that pulls the purse strings. Honest. Instead, I'll tell you a little bit about why Sea of Solitude deserves your attention. Our protagonist is Kay, a young woman who is battling some series inner demons as becomes evident from the get-go. Kay's journey is touching because it is an odyssey whose final destination doesn't have much to do with breaking free of solitude so much as it does with personal growth. Change accepting that some things are outside your control that some relationships cannot be mended. There's something almost pedagogical to some of what Kay goes through. With the weighty teams the game examines, that should come as little surprise. The second section of Sea of Solitude deals with Kay coming to terms with her own willful blindness to the increasing suffering and alienation her kid brother experiences in school. Bullying forces Sunny to embrace increasingly violent thoughts as the only escape while Kay is too absorbed in her own life continuously nodding along listening to but not hearing his pleas for help as Sunny sings deeper into depression and despondency. I feel bad Kay. Maybe it would be better if... No! No, no, no, no, no! Maybe it would be better if I stopped listening. Is that really funny? I'm sorry Sunny. I missed everything you were saying. Can you start over? But first, look at this. My boyfriend texts me the funniest thought picture ever. What? Come on, I was just a little distracted. Don't you think these are funny? You have no sense of humor lately. My boyfriend doesn't know anything. Oh geez, calm down. You've been such a baby lately. I'm not a baby. Look, I'm sorry. I promise I'm You were talking about your friends, right? You had a great time with them? No! What? No, you never listened to me, Kay. Well then, what's your problem? Tell me. It sounds like I am the problem. Sunny? Sunny, wait. See you later, I guess. This is one of those games that, through the benefit of a gorgeous colour palette and a very particular style, is likely never to look aged in the way so many photorealistic games crumble after a mere two, three, five years. Lighting is massively crafted to transform the world. The change to darkness immediately sets a somber tone and creates tension in the knees. The quick, even breathless change between the different states of the world manages to translate to the players a kind of bipolar disorder at play within Kay's internal world. Sea of Solitude at the last forces you to examine your own behaviour as you follow Kay's scrutiny of herself. By game's end, every major relationship of her life, her brother, parents, boyfriend, has been served. But the most important lessons are the ones Kay takes away from her own shortcomings. Some of them resonated more than others, but what Sea of Solitude allows the player to experience is a sense of identification with its main character. In more than just the cursory ways, most games equate character to player. Most games are happy to simply align the player to the protagonist, inviting the player to follow along with the character and narrative without putting in the effort to persuade us. Sea of Solitude offers a deeper connection, based on the recognition of Kay and her emotions. These, many of us have felt, the drifting away of people important to us, a process we can do nothing about, our own selfish desires in the face of someone who might need us, and how easy it is for that need to fall on deaf ears. Sea of Solitude invites us to decipher its content rather than place a check mark in either one of two boxes, enjoy and dismiss, or to adopt YouTube's own language, like and dislike. Like this video, by the way. Recognition in Kay works in a way that calls to mind a quote by the literary critic Krita Felsky from her essay Identifying with Character. Glimpsing aspects to one's self in fictional beings involves a volatile mix of the familiar and the different. To recognize is to know again but also to see afresh. As I recognize myself in another, I also learn something about myself, and I may be startled or discomfited by what I see. I experienced just such a process in my playthrough, and I suspect many of you will too. Kay's journey is equal parts personal and universal. So it is that Sea of Solitude forges an empathetic bond between player and character. It's difficult indeed not to feel for and be concerned with Kay and her ultimate overcoming of her own shortcomings. And after playing the game, it is difficult not to wish to overcome our own. When I sat down to write this review, I did not expect I would be going into literary criticism, but the key to understanding Sea of Solitude is in its characters, and these can be unlocked through the use of literary theory, especially newer concepts. Not even concepts so much as different methods and tools as used by Rita Felsky and her colleagues in looking at character. There's plenty more to say about Kay, but I don't feel a burning need to say it. If you do, and you find some of the points about empathy, recognition and the legions I've raised interesting, you're very welcome to hunt down this essay and two more in character tree inquiries in literary studies. It is an excellent trio of essays, brilliant texts. Every single one of them has something new and interesting about looking to character. And I would say that the third one in particular, the one about thinking with character, about the act of rumination might be used to really penetrate Sea of Solitude in an interesting and critical examination. If you enjoyed this video, if you'd like to see more videos like it, why don't you smash that like button? Let me know in the comments more importantly. Tell me what you thought. What were your experiences with Sea of Solitude? Do you think you might play it if you haven't so far? I reckon you should. You should give it a chance, not in the least, because it is a very, very short game, under three hours, unless you are a completionist and want to say shoo to many, many annoying gulls, which I wouldn't blame you at all as someone who lives in a seaside town. And gulls are an absolute nightmare. At any rate, I'll see you again next time. I'm Philip Magnus, bye!