“She's not here。 ”
She wasn't on the bench, and she wasn't in my heart.
I may never find her again.
The world has always been sad.
There is so much love in the world that I can't help, and you and I are just passers-by.
Empty, nothing left.
Only empty white and frame black remain. - Overture
White Gate is an adventure game made by developer Rusty Lake. The game inherits the game style of Rusty Lake, and when he wakes up, Robert Hill finds himself in a strange white room with no memory, and only a deeply closed white door at the exit... He can only get out of here by completing regular tasks every day and searching for memories in dreams, what happened to him? Where does he go from here? Do you choose to continue to live, or break free from this white "cage"?
The gameplay is very distinctive, at first glance it looks like a puzzle game, through clicks to solve puzzles. However, after playing, the narrative element of the game gradually exceeds the puzzle element, and the player will feel that he is not just solving the puzzle, but more like "participating" in a story, and each click is to further find out the truth of the story. This should be related to the design of the game, during the day, the player operates the villain in the third person, so the sense of participation is very low, separating the psychological distance between the player and the story. At night, the player operates the villain from a first-person perspective, restoring the entire story, thereby weakening the puzzle meaning and enhancing the narrative meaning. The change of perspective between the two will undoubtedly bring a novel feeling, which is also a design rarely seen in other games.
At the same time, the work uses the ultimate concise space, serious lines, realistic and magical painting style, bringing an extraordinary art experience. The alternation of black and white and color, until the final color replaces black and white, the experience can only be described in two words: "shock".
Moreover, compared with the previous works, "White Gate" can only be regarded as a sketch (the process is about 3 hours), and in terms of design ideas, "White Door" has a stronger story, in order to smooth the process experience, so the difficulty is relatively low to prevent the card experience from being smooth.
Although the process and difficulty are limited, it has taken a different path, using a unique narrative of double screen and double story line, which has made a sufficiently unique charm in the story; although the story is more of a supplement to the main line of Rust Lake, many Rust Lake elements ensure the "rust" taste.
Compared with the previous repressive, slightly thrilling adventure stories, "White Gate" is set in the week spent by the patient Robert Hill in the "White Gate" of the nursing center, robert Hill is also an old friend, although the image in the previous work is not pleasing, once a drunkard who wants to drink, once a decadent who wants to commit suicide, and a wife-killing suspect, "White Gate" answers the reason for its decadence.
The work uses empty and regular treatment and previous life fragments overlap each other, the screen uses a split-screen display, the daily treatment is process-driven, corresponding to the time to do the corresponding behavior; and the memory is driven by dialogue, according to the content of the confession to do the corresponding action. The black and white lines will follow Bob to retrieve the memory fragments, recalling the various scenes where he and Laura met and said goodbye, the colors become more and more abundant, but the story takes a sharp turn after finding the color, and Sarah, as a supporting character, betrays the Rust Lake Organization, erases Bob's memory of Laura, and the black memory becomes gold.
All in all, it is often said that love is a disease. This sentence is used to describe the sadistic story of "White Gate", which is really the most appropriate.
In the game's hidden ending, Nurse Sarah erases Robert Hill's memories of Laura in his mind, eliminating a virus called "Love." At this point, the collapsed Bob finally recovered. But in his memory, he would still come to the park involuntarily, pausing involuntarily in front of the bench, but there was no longer a blonde girl, sitting quietly, copying a robin that was about to fly away.
"You see, the robin flew away, and I've forgotten you."
"No, it doesn't. It's still in your head, which is why you still subconsciously stop in front of the bench. ”
A sigh, if life is only like the first sight, but everything is no longer the past.
once
It's the green early summer season, the insects are chirping, and everything is scrambling to release the courtship message. I walked aimlessly through the park when I suddenly noticed the woman in blue sitting on a bench: she was intently drawing something on the paper, her light blue pupils flickering slightly, like a sparkling spring—stirring the sunset into countless colorful pieces and stirring the hive in my heart.
In an instant, thousands of bees were buzzing towards the pale blue lily.
I approached her and a bird flew away.
She was drawing something, saw me, and put down her pencil.
I asked her, "What are you painting?" ”
She lowered her head. "It's a mockingbird." She said, removing her hand and closing the album.
"Sorry, it flew away."
She looked at me and said, "No, it doesn't. I've memorized it all in my head. ”
She closed her eyes.
It was June 1970, when I first met Laura, and in front of her I was cramped like a newly learned child, clumsy—but this scene was the most precious memory of my life.
afterward
I regained the lost color, erasing and whitening her little by little in the world of color. Finally, the beloved person is completely turned white. In the dream after this, things are not human, the bench is still there, the robin is still there, but the person who painted the robin is gone.
It was like a bird thrown into the forest, and the land was really clean.
I was walking in the park.
I saw an empty bench.
For a moment, I stopped...
A bird flew away.
I moved on.
But "I" don't know,
"I" don't know whether it would be better to live painfully with memories with her, or to let her completely disappear from life and live without worry.
"The spring waves under the sad bridge are green, and they were once taken by surprise."