I finished my time with Tunic. I didn't see literally everything there is to see and do, but very close enough to it, at least all of the stuff that matters. I stopped by a kind spoiler-free internet guide for a few hints -- just the right dosage of hinting, actually, and carried the rest through on my own.
Where do I even begin talking about Tunic? There is too much. It's probably best to just talk about it in bits and pieces, I don't think I can talk about everything all at once. I'll try my best to block off and mark off spoilers, of which I'll be discussing in varying degrees, I guess. You should be able to highlight them to see them. (sorry to those viewing on mobile where this is awkward/not possible)
I guess the most important thing is that this game moved me in an incredible way. It made me feel an emotion that no other single game has ever made me feel -- care and love. There are a few games that play around with or evoke similar emotions, of course. Journey, at some of its best moments, has made me feel a sense of companionship. I guess Outer Wilds made me feel a new understanding of what it meant to "discover and explore". I know Tunic is pretty fresh, so the emotions are still a little bit more potent, but really it feels like it was more of a special experience. It brought me to tears afterwards, just reflecting on it.
Outer Wilds is in a similar "genre space" as Tunic, so I think there is some merit to comparing how they played out and how they made me feel. I think of course both do things that are unique and -- on a technical and design level -- incredibly crafted. But I don't really want to speak to that part, I'm interested more in the emotional experience and themes. In Outer Wilds there's this strong sense of "continuing on in the footsteps of others". Not only are you one of a long-time tradition of explorers of your race, but for most of the game you are following in the footsteps of the Nomai.
And even though none of their messages are really intended for you, the Nomai's scattered lore and teachings really make you feel like they're guiding you on this pilgrimage or journey of learning. They teach you so much of what you learn throughout the game, and that establishes a real emotional bond between you and them. Which is why when you find out what their ultimate fate was, it's one of the most poignant (and gut-wrenching) moments in the game.
When you finally "meet" a Nomai on the quantum moon there is this bittersweet feeling of connection that I feel like is probably not really captured in any other gaming experiences I've had (indeed, how could it be?). You can only have a few rudimentary conversations with them, far less than you'd want to, but it is enough, in a way. You met someone who has been through and understands much of what you do. And this shared understanding makes it so that even though this is the NPC that you interact with last, it's the one that you feel most closely bonded with. And this coming after so many repeated time loops of exploring, mostly on your own.
Tunic conjures a somewhat similar, yet somewhat different feeling, for me. With Tunic, I think the world is not quite as lonely as in Outer Wilds, but overall the world does feel somewhat "lonely" and somber. I think this is not literally due to the absence of people to interact with, but has more to do with the "ruined" nature of the world, and how you're left all of these clues from the past. Again, similar to reading the various stories and texts that you come across in Outer Wilds.
In Outer Wilds, like I mentioned, you're following in the footsteps of others, and they want you to succeed. There's certain areas that are even crafted specifically as learning experiences. The civilizations of the past =want you to learn=.
In Tunic this experience goes quite a bit more deeply. In Tunic the major "conceit" of the game is collecting the scattered pages of the game manual and deciphering the alien-at-first clues hidden within in order to gain a better understanding of the world. This is something that's enjoyable (and well-crafted) on multiple axes, the last of which is the one that made me feel these emotions of care and love.
The first axis is the "technical" one. The "puzzle design", so to speak, of Tunic, which I appreciated much more than many other similarly-puzzley games I've played. I think a lot of people talk about this, it's appreciable on a rather surface level, so I don't think I have to talk about it that much.
A second axis is how the experience of exploring and learning about the world of Tunic harkens back to a different way of experiencing a game, or a game world. This is something which largely gets chalked up to "recalling the nostalgia of old games". That's =part of it=, and I think an important part, but I think at it's core it's more than that. After all, Shovel Knight and Mega Man 10 recall the nostalgia of old games, but neither of those two games pay attention to this specific experience.
The experience in question ties into the inspiration of the album art behind OCReMix's Super Mario RPG album:
The experience of being "immersed" into a game, in a way that to me I think is more meaningful than what the term is generally used for these days (high fidelity graphics, diegetic UI, etc). Perhaps people have a certain yearning for this time in their lives because it contrasts with a time in which we check our phones while waiting for cutscenes to play, a time in which our eyes jump between what is happening on screen and what is happening on Twitch chat and how your favorite streamer is reacting to it.
Tunic generally forces you to be "hands on" with its world in a way that also harkens back to an earlier time. The gameplay pattern of constantly flipping through the in-game manual is something that at first blush would hinder the way you're immersed in the game, but actually does the exact opposite.
But the way that the instruction booklet is crafted is not just clever, nor is it just beautiful in its rendition (it is). The meticulousness of the design makes you realize that everything is done for a reason, and while that is technically impressive and satisfying to puzzle out, even more than that it made me realize that =so much care= went into this. So much care went into this thing that is designed for me, to help me. And you can FEEL this so, so much through the process, that the game =wants you to succeed=. It's rooting for you, and it cares about your experience.
This is one of the central themes of Tunic for me as both a game and an experience and I think many people will back this up in some way. In many games you play it's about defeating monsters and conquering challenges (of course, Tunic appears to be this way on its surface, too, that's the irony of it). It always feels like there is this "battle" going on between game creator and game player. Speedrunner is the epitome of this -- the creators have put up all of these barriers, obstacles, and tests for us and we need to figure out how to best break them down, bend them to our will.
And even for puzzle games, it generally feels like the game is "trying to stump you". Of course, it's not =actually= trying to make you stuck, the ideal experience is usually to get you to wrack your brains and make you feel allllmost hopeless and then eventually come up with a brilliant solution that satisfies you when it all clicks together. But there's still the feeling of "riddle me this!"
On an executional level Tunic is no different, but on an emotional level it is the opposite, Tunic does this fantastical thing of trying to provide you with everything that you need in your journey. And viewed under this lens, the meticulousness and "cleverness" of the design stopped coming across as technical excellence and started to make me feel this indescribable gratitude that someone put this much effort into my experience. The best analogy I can make is if your best friend, the one that knows you inside and out, planned an entire day of surprises for you, with all of your favorite foods, special jokes and treats that were picked out and crafted as part of an experience for =you= to enjoy. And even after all that, you discover that your friend even crafted a backup plan at every turn that you never even saw!
That's the level of care that was put into Tunic and that's kind of how it made me felt and I can confidently say that no other game has ever tapped into that feeling before. Tunic was of course unique because of its puzzle design, because of its excellent visual language, because of effective use of "show not tell", all of that good stuff. But this part made me really feel something. I know it's really weird to say that "a video game made me feel loved" but it really is something akin to that.
This ties into the ending of the game. I think I was a bit disappointed at first with the second ending of the game because I was expecting it to deliver in terms of story/plot/lore as opposed to the broader understanding of Tunic as an experience. When you think about it, the ending does not explain much at all about the big unanswered questions about the game. Those deep dark secrets that were raised by the "show not tell" worldbuilding. What is the deal with the sarcophogi? What is the meaning of the fairies? Why exactly is the Heir trapped? What is the Far Shore and where did the three keys come from? Does anything happen with the huge operation going on deep in the core?
It was not clear to me at first why sharing the instruction manual with the Heir "solved" the end of the game. After all, the manual does not really carry any new wisdom about the fate of the world, about the plot itself, about how to "solve the cycles", so to speak. I was convinced at first that all of the faeries would need to be collected -- that together the wishes of these spirits would need to be collected to evoke some powerful magic, to make everything right.
But the ending of Tunic is understood best at a higher level. I always thought that it was weird how ostensibly the Heir is supposed to be helping to guide you the entire way through the game, reviving you when you die (incurring a "debt", as it's said in the manual), but as a player I didn't really feel a connection with the Heir because they were largely absent in the game. Really it was the manual that I was forming a very real and substantive emotional connection with; this manual =cared= about me and despite not even speaking the same language really wanted me to understand everything I needed to know, to help me.
But of course the manual and Heir are kind of better viewed as one and the same, aren't they? The manual helping you =is= sort of the same thing as the Heir helping you. And sharing the manual with the Heir isn't some magical transfer of knowledge, nor is it some act of "proving your worth". It's an emotional connection, the "I've been through all of this."
As with Outer Wilds, the experience of having gone through a similar journey as others -- especially a long one made on your lonesome -- is a powerful thing. This is not just a videogame thing, it's a natural truth of human experience. If I think to the creators of Tunic, they would want nothing more than for me to experience everything that the game has to offer. That much is really clear from how the game is crafted, they're really on my side.
I've seen people write about the ending as sweet because a child is reuniting with their mother or writing about how the ending is about how you are finally a hero who has proved their worth after having gone through all the challenges of the game and I think those are both very surface-level understandings that really miss the mark. The heir is shown as this looming large spirit but in the ending the heir and the hero interact "as normal pals". Or parent/child, sure, whichever you prefer. But the emphasis is on the shared experience. "I walked the golden path". The golden path isn't meaningful =by itself=, it's only meaningful because of what went into its creation and all that went into its discovery. When you can say to the Heir "I walked the golden path", it creates a shared experience. That even though these two beings did not know each other, they understand what the other has been through. And like Solanum in Outer Wilds, there is so much they can feel connected about because of that.
There are some interesting thoughts I've had about how to understand other facets of the game through the "big theme" of Tunic. For example, I don't think this is a substantiated interpretation, but I couldn't help at one point but wonder if the purple miasmic spirits inside the obelisks were a representation of how much labor and suffering goes into the making of a game itself. That when we progress through these games that we play, we can only do so because of a heavy price paid by others.
But I've written enough already for now...
