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A broken childhood
Probably one of the main problem in families is alcoholism. In Finland, alcoholism is a very big problem and I remember many of my childhood friends’ parents being heavy alcohol users. Sad thing is, that many kid who grows up with this kind of parents, are very likely becoming the same later in their life. Lydia is a short indie game, that tells harsh little story about alocholism and what harm does it do to your children.
A small Finnish indie studio Platonic Partnership did great job of bringing this issue up in a form of a video game. For me, Lydia is more like a small interactive educational “game”, since it doesn’t hold up much of a gameplay nor skills. It’s a story of a little girl and her way to see world through imagination. She lives with her parents that are more love with the drinking, than her. Every night she’s scared of a monster and she want to find where and who it is.
Easy to do but hard to watch
The gameplay is very simple; walk and interact. When talking to people player can make one of three choices how she would respond. I think Lydia has couple different endings, my ending was a sad one. But, that’s the harsh truth of the reality. I like bold and into-your-face type of things without sugar-coating anything. In my life I have found, that the best way to make people understand and them to see the errors of their ways, is to tell it as it is. The game has many various language options, which is always good.
The visual style is dark and gloomy, with faint colours. A quick glance might make everything look haphazard, but I can see this style is intentional, with all the characters and surroundings. What was little bit bothersome, was the slow pace of the game. It was slow to move around, but I can imagine this being some kind of representation of her life being as walking in a deep mud. It was very much like in dreams, when you cannot run or move fast, even though you try your hardest to run away from monsters.
Lesson learned?
In the end I like Lydia. The story, educational point and making a statement is something I believe many parents should play or at least see. Maybe todays youngsters who plays Lydia will learn what kinds of issues alcoholism brings, and hopefully they can learn and take the lesson all the way into their adult life.
4/5
“Probably one of the main problems in families is alcoholism”
There’s also #LydiaDonation DLC available. Revenues generated by your purchase to Fragile Childhood (A-Clinic Foundation)
One More Level 