Across a dusky horizon, a locomotive barrels down ancient tracks. Bound for an uncertain destination, the train, unceasingly long and coughing out ephemeral emerald smog, trails endlessly through a desert purgatory. Aboard the perpetual line, a cargo of socialites and aristocrats mingle with paupers and vagrants. Obscured by bestial visages, the myriad travellers drown their bewilderment in expensive spirits and pleasantries, their questions and concerns hushed by the vices of high society.
In an unmarked car in the convoy, a young man, burdened by a biting malaise, confides in a weary passenger. With no memory of boarding the train, much less arriving at the platform, he stumbled through the car, remembering little more than his name, and the hours leading up to his faithful departure. This confusion would be understandable in the best of cases, but for the young man, the circumstances behind his sudden arrival left him particularly disturbed, for only moments ago had the man perished.
“If On A Winter’s Night, Four Travelers” lives through its depictions of death, both in the immediate present and in how it confronts the lives of our protagonists. Told through grim vignettes, “Four Travelers” tells the tale of people consumed by passion, anger, and grief, spiraling to a tragic conclusion, a slow-burn melancholy in the tradition of classical horror.
While this would be plenty interesting on its own, where the game really shines is in the art backing it: Talking about the story without discussing the uniquely evocative sprite work would be meaningless. Framed in an isometric lens, the game brings effervescent life to decadent mansions, mortifying dread to a hellish otherworld, and all-encompassing sorrow to a war-torn battlefield. The beauty used in depicting the morbid, morose and macabre is the lynchpin in “Four Travelers’” dreadful drama.
A stunning work packed into a fleeting runtime, “If On A Winter’s Night” is gorgeous, if not narratively well-trodden. An utter gem. Besides… it’s free. Incredibly hard not to recommend.
In an unmarked car in the convoy, a young man, burdened by a biting malaise, confides in a weary passenger. With no memory of boarding the train, much less arriving at the platform, he stumbled through the car, remembering little more than his name, and the hours leading up to his faithful departure. This confusion would be understandable in the best of cases, but for the young man, the circumstances behind his sudden arrival left him particularly disturbed, for only moments ago had the man perished.
“If On A Winter’s Night, Four Travelers” lives through its depictions of death, both in the immediate present and in how it confronts the lives of our protagonists. Told through grim vignettes, “Four Travelers” tells the tale of people consumed by passion, anger, and grief, spiraling to a tragic conclusion, a slow-burn melancholy in the tradition of classical horror.
While this would be plenty interesting on its own, where the game really shines is in the art backing it: Talking about the story without discussing the uniquely evocative sprite work would be meaningless. Framed in an isometric lens, the game brings effervescent life to decadent mansions, mortifying dread to a hellish otherworld, and all-encompassing sorrow to a war-torn battlefield. The beauty used in depicting the morbid, morose and macabre is the lynchpin in “Four Travelers’” dreadful drama.
A stunning work packed into a fleeting runtime, “If On A Winter’s Night” is gorgeous, if not narratively well-trodden. An utter gem. Besides… it’s free. Incredibly hard not to recommend.