The Messenger

When I was growing up, I spent as much time playing games on a browser as I did on a console. Whether NewGrounds, CartoonNetwork, NeoPets, CoolMath4Kids etc. Some of my fondest memories were spamming through Super Meat Boy in-browser during class racing friends to the finish. However, that feels like a feature of a bygone era. Flash was decimated unceremoniously and Steam’s ubiquity for PC gamers, and Switch’s dominance of casuals doesn’t leave much room.

And then, there is The Messenger.

The Game

I could speak longer about how much this game moved me, than it actually takes to play. If I had to come up with a genre, I would say a third-person walking simulator. However, that doesn’t really matter because what makes The Messenger special is its immersion. The concept is simple - you are a teen who talks with people in your small town taking things to and fro. However, its simplicity creates atmosphere.

You enter not into a bustling world, but a sparse, lived-in one. You are greeted with your character and the task at hand. Yet, you overslept. This, alongside the soothing lo-fi track, sets the tone for this game: take it at your own pace. I am a huge fan of sparseness in video games. I know that oftentimes sparseness is the consequence of shipping a game too soon or over-promising and failing expectations, but I have come to appreciate absence as a part of the world design. This is actually one of my favorite parts of playing Mass Effect. The planet explorations, yet there are only three other characters on it (a whole planet!). Or, walking down massive industrial monstrosities populated by 30 people. Sitting in the absence of life is unnerving. In the setting of space, it reinforces that sense of smallness. That you are here, but you are a part of something inconceivably large and unknowable. I think that’s beautiful. In The Messenger, it makes the world feel less. You let your feelings fill in the sparseness you walk through.

The “world” if you can call it that is a micro-Earth - you can see the curvature of the planet as you walk around. There is no map, no guide, no quest markers, no achievements and no timer. You have nothing to do, but kick rocks and explore. It reminds me of family in small towns in Eastern Washington and Hawai’i. Your relationships are different in these contexts. Expectations for kids aren’t high, but our bonds create a special type of intimacy that feels like our own. And this game captures the essence of that intimacy. Each NPC you meet is their own person in their own world with problems that seem enviously simple. That can be resolved by you sending a letter or retrieving a mis-delivered package. So, you walk. You lose your way. You forget who needs what. You stumble upon something crazy (not going to spoil), but you can’t interact with it, so you just move along. You get bored. How excellent.

It feels good to get lost without consequence. To meander, to be late. In only the way a child can.

Underneath everything I have said is perhaps The Messenger’s most important quality: you can play it right now in your browser.

I cannot overstate the importance of this quality. The friction between recommending, finding, and loading up the game is almost non-existent. In a world where even free-to-play games take searching, downloading, installing, and loading before stepping into their world, we still have one game that’s only about being a video game. It isn’t trying to sell you something. This game rejects everything the modern AAA, venture-funded games industry stands for. You just get to have fun. No strings attached.

The Point

This game hit me in an unexpectedly emotion way. As someone who has been traveling, applying for jobs, and cycling through bouts of over- and under work, it feels that the world is too big and time moving too fast. That we aren’t allowed to make mistakes, to take our time, and to break from the path in front of us. That a minute off task is a minute wasted. It’s a miserable feeling that is often rewarded in video games. Emblematic in never-ending task and quest lists that drag us around a map to keep us in the game, for no other reason than to be here rather than somewhere else. You can almost feel the ticking clock in the backdrop as you try to simply be in the world.

Yes, there is a task list in The Messenger, but everything you do is because of someone else making a mistake. There is no order, there is no timer. Take your time and feel out this world. More than anything, act like the aimless teen you used to be. When you weren’t so caught up in being right, becoming right, or avoiding being wrong. When you weren’t capable or easily distracted or lazy or having fun. I don’t dream of adolescence or childhood because I was taken care of, I miss it because of how in the moment I used to be. I wasn’t reflective, critical, or self-aware. It lends you a sense of “in the moment-ness” that is difficult, if not impossible, to recreate in adulthood. I miss wasting opportunities and letting something else, for better or worse, fill in the space.

Go play the game!