Whistling the Vagrant Song: A Review of Where the Water Tastes Like Wine (Odd Columns, #1)
This is the first Odd Column — a possible series that we’re doing because the world seems to be on hold. They’ll probably be shorter than the posts on Wednesdays, and are more likely to not be associated with current events. This first one here is a review of an underrated video game from 2017. This is one of the things while we’re quarantined, but if you’re looking for something to do, might I suggest picking up a copy of our book, The Horn, the Pencil, & the Ace of Diamonds here.
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If you’re like me, then you’re probably feeling pretty stressed right now. It feels as if the world is falling apart, and there’s not much to do about it. One thing that I think needs to be emphasized is that you need to remain engaged – and if so, we’ve had a couple of pieces that make some fairly broad suggestions, but you should probably look up local mutual aid networks and try to do your part. Call your elected officials, demand they take action. Ask for a rent freeze and a mortgage holiday. Or, if you’re in Missouri, maybe do that and then tell the governor to resign, because he’s not doing his job.
On the other hand, if you need a moment to relax, that’s also fine. Many of us are feeling burned out, and a bit of relaxation is probably in order. If you’re looking for something that allows you to do that, but still helps you feel in touch with things, I have just the recommendation for you. Get Steam or GOG, or make an account on itch.io, and get a copy of the video game Where the Water Tastes Like Wine.
This isn’t a game like others: if you’re expecting to be staring out at the world over the barrel of a gun like in a First Person Shooter, or managing resources and building things like in Animal Crossing, or giving directives to soldiers and heroes like in a strategy game, you’ll be disappointed. In fact, in many ways, you aren’t a hero but, at the same time, you’re not asked to be.
I reiterate: this character is voiced by Sting.
Set in a time-screwed 1930s – it’s mostly the dust bowl, but you can meet people who live in your future, as far forward as the 1950s and 1960s – Where the Water Tastes Like Wine casts you in the roll of a minion: you lost a card game with a supernatural entity called the Dire Wolf (voiced by, of all people, Sting. The guy from the Police is in a video game about a skeleton collecting stories during the dust bowl.) He has transformed you into a spirit, and sent you to walk across America, starting in Maine, to collect stories.
So you set off, and periodically, you will witness things or hear things, and record the story. Sometimes, you will find yourself at a campfire, and sit across from someone, and they’ll share part of their story with you, but you have to ply them with stories of your own. The stories you tell them are then spread across the country, and they mutate and change in the telling, becoming tall tales and legends.
As people open up to you, you begin to see past their surface appearance, and you are treated to beautiful art that shows the metaphorical truth behind their appearance. The old sharecropper transforms in your vision into a crane-headed angel; the bonus army protestor is a ghost constantly being torn asunder; the union-organizing coal miner is the heart of a collective of mole-people.
Getting them to open up to you, and watching them slowly reveal this true self is how you judge your progress in the game. These are the stories you were sent to collect: and in telling them, the people you are speaking to begin to heal.
It’s a fairly simple game – there’s no reflex-heavy portion, though there is a bit of memory and matching in plying the people you meet with the right stories – but the artwork and music are lush and inviting, the writing is solid and effecting. The game itself was a commercial flop – it received fairly strong reviews, but in the words of the creator “in the first few weeks fewer people bought the game than I have Twitter followers, and I don’t have a lot of Twitter followers.”
The over world, a beautiful and lovingly rendered map of the united states.
Personally, I feel this to be a tragedy. Yes, the game does have a slow pace, but I found that it remains engaging the whole way through, and you eventually get the hang of traveling quickly around the overworld, which really increases the pace a bit.
Another part of this is that the game did what video games apparently weren’t supposed to do: it showed compassion to its characters, whether they be people of color, disabled, poor, queer, women, or any of another constellation of traits that got a game labeled as “pandering” by gamergate.
I bought the game shortly after it came out – it was one of the video games that I learned about that were slated to come out in 2017, some of which (Night in the Woods, Persona 5) were good, and some of which (YIIK: A Postmodern RPG) were not.
I feel that Where the Water Tastes Like Wine falls into the former category, and between planning for my class later and cleaning my house, I fully intend to play it for a bit later today.