We were talking about ways of using the medium to feel things that you wouldn't usually feel in a video game, like being grossed out and awkward and embarrassed. It's a really teenage experience. The first kiss, and it goes for too long, and it's just foul.
We are saturated with superhero media to the point where even self-criticism has been done to death with franchises like Watchmen and The Boys. But with its debut choice-driven narrative adventure, AdHoc Studio has managed to find a unique angle for the superhero genre. In Dispatch, the story focuses on an office-based lackey and corporate manager of said superheroes, rather than the heroes themselves.
Less a walking simulator and more of a hiking simulator, Firewatch captured hearts when it took gamers for an adventurous, lonely summer in Wyoming's Shoshone National Forest. From unravelling thrilling mysteries to building a complicated relationship over walkie-talkie, Firewatch is a unique adventure game with few analogs. Firewatch developer Campo Santo announced a second game, In The Valley Of The Gods, at The Game Awards in 2017, but it has since fallen into development difficulties after the studio was acquired by Valve.
This is one of the themes and indeed the mechanics of Lost Records, a narrative adventure about four teenage girls who develop an intense friendship in rural Michigan during the summer of 1995.
