Lost Constellation is Short, Charming, and Entirely Worth the Time

It is my hope, my desperate hope, that we keep seeing games like Lost Constellation as the year moves forward. I know I gushed about Kentucky Route Zero last week, and I’d actually intended to write something about Far Cry 4’s hilarious co-op this week, but instead I was reminded by the appearance of the Lost Constellation QL yesterday that I’d not checked this out, in spite of being a backer of Night in the Woods. Of course, I had to remedy that mistake immediately, so it was off to itch.io to hunt it down and spend the hour and a half or whatever to run through the simple enough puzzles and check it all out. By the end of the game, I’d become unwittingly invested in it so much that the final sequence left me feeling all warm and fuzzy inside.

Similarly to Kentucky Route Zero, there’s a lot of discussion of loss and death in Lost Constellation, which the cynic in me notes is just shorthand for aspirations of profundity. Those wishing to make a piece of art that speaks to the human condition or gains a reputation of being “deep” need only approach the subjects of death and loss and people like me will naturally be drawn to it and want to talk about it. Where Lost Constellation diverges from KRZ is in its tone—there’s a stubbornness in Adina Astra’s dogged refusal to do what everyone tells her to do and die in the forest (which is the first thing you are told will happen), but there’s also a message about memory and its ability to keep those gone alive, in a way—Adina is told she will not be able to see the constellation again, but she can remember where it is in the sky. Similarly, Mae’s grandfather comments that her own grandmother is kept alive, in some way, by their memory of her (when Mae asks if her grandmother is also a ghost, his response is essentially that on a good day, she is). Mae’s interjections into the tale give a certain humor and provide some characterization of her personality which, I suspect, will give insight into her actions in Night of the Woods.

You are out to keep a promise to use the holiday of Longest Night to reconnect with the dead—a sort of pilgrimage to honor your colleague’s memory (or to meet with your colleague’s ghost, as the case may be). While in the course of your quest, you wind up forcing others to face up to their own mortality. You also maybe cause a massacre, or at least some kind of curse? There’s a blundering quality to your actions, as your dogged determination to reach your destination (the Frozen Lake) winds up killing gods and men and the odd forest witch. Of course, you also free some trapped ghosts, or at least you think you might have done, and you create a being of water and garbage who seems pretty unhappy, or at least confused, about his status as a being of water and garbage. Most importantly, I think, is Adina’s final encounter with her friend, where the two are able to say goodbye to one another again—Adina’s comment that she will be hurt and miss her all over again carries such a bittersweet tone to it that I was surprised, again, to have been moved by it. It is a small, unassuming game which carries more of an emotional punch than nearly any other game that I’ve played—indeed, had I not been playing Kentucky Route Zero last week, I daresay it would have been an even bigger surprise to me. This is the sort of storytelling and resonance which games are capable of possessing, and I’d love to see more like it in the future (I will probably get my wish when Night in the Woods releases). It’s hardly what I’m in the mood for 100% of the time, but knowing games of this sort exist alongside a big, dumb, hilarious open world game like Far Cry 4 is delightful and more than anything else shows how mind-boggling diverse video games are capable of being.

It is possible there is more to the game than I saw—I picked up several items that I wound up never using, and I don’t know what that might mean—but I don’t know for sure. I could probably stand to go back and run through it again to satisfy my curiosity; the game controls well with a keyboard and mouse, the visuals are charming, and the music is superb, so it’s not exactly a chore to play. Plus you can save pictures of your snowmen! You know, for whatever reason.