“They say you die twice. Once when you stop breathing and the second, a bit later on, when somebody mentions your name for the last time.”
This poignant but profound quote originally by American psychiatrist Irvin Yalom (paraphrased by Banksy) has always stood out to me and is probably one of the main reasons I got into writing. The flimsy theory being that my words, and with it myself, will live on long after I perish. But enough narcissistic self psychoanalysis, let’s get to the game.
Welcome to Elk is an exploration of this dark yet somehow beautiful thought and a mostly-successful attempt to convey the hard-to-describe tragic beauty and immortalizing quality of stories through a video game, inarguably the superior* medium of storytelling. In fact, the devs were so dedicated to this core theme of the sharing of stories they even had a contest pre-release to include fan stories in the actual game!
*Well not really, but it has the potential to be, this game being a good example of why.
Welcome to Elk Island
To put it simply, Welcome to Elk is a biographical game about stories, based on a collection of true stories.
After an enigmatic but intriguing snippet of narration about someone named Anders who walked to Elk every day, and who might or might not have died thrice, you’re welcomed to the island of Elk by Jeppe and Jan. You play as Frigg, an aspiring carpenter who apparently moved here to work under Jan, a friend of your Dad’s.
Personally, I love stories and especially games that take place in a small, remote town isolated from the rest of civilization with a bunch of weird and interesting characters to meet and befriend. Lucky for me, that’s exactly what the island of Elk is. A fictional island possibly somewhere near Greenland, Elk has a small but compelling cast of charming characters, each one dripping with… well, character.
Like in one of my favorite titles, Night in the Woods, you’re not overwhelmed by a huge world to explore, instead, you’re given a tiny game world with only a handful of distinct characters to get to know and love, which creates a more intimate experience. As you get to know the tiny island, its history, and its wacky residents, you learn their stories and get entangled in their lives and problems.
Turns out, Elk isn’t a cozy, idle town; in fact, there’s never a dull moment (there’s so much happening all the time, you don’t even get to do any carpentering!). There’s always something happening, and it’s almost always accompanied by a (un)healthy amount of beer-drinking. Over the 10 days you get to spend here, you’ll experience a collection of interesting stories – ranging from humorous to shocking to extremely depressing.
Exploiting the Mediums of Story-telling
Be it freezing to death, alcoholism, isolation after moving to a new place, anxiety, witnessing a murder, or being the victim of sexual harassment (the word ‘petal’ will disgust me for the rest of my days), Welcome to Elk doesn’t shy away from dark or uncomfortable subject matter, rather, it dives right at it.
The stories themselves are compelling but I won’t spoil them any more than I already have, they’re for you to experience. What I would like to talk about is what makes this title so interesting – the various tools of storytelling used to tell these stories.
The most simple and straightforward of these is just playing through the game. Each day you spend on the island features one or more of these (semi)biographical stories, or a variation. Then, after the events of the day, you might meet a stranger in your house on your way to bed, upon interacting with whom, the game transitions to live footage of a real-life person talking about a similar event that happened to them (the real-life inspiration of what you just experienced in the game).
The following morning you might wake up to find a mysterious bottle with a written story in it, a story very similar to what happened the previous day and what the interviewee was talking about in the live-action footage. In Elk, no matter what you prefer – reading, watching & listening, or playing, you’ll experience the story. This repetition of the same/similar stories can feel redundant but they’re usually different enough and each time the story is told adds something different to it.
Plus, there’s also a meta-layer of narrative that chips away at the fourth wall through the character of Anders, Frigg’s dreams and hallucinations, and the brilliant ending sequence, none of which I will spoil.
Another story-telling tool that shouldn’t be omitted is characters telling you about the history of other characters. There are only a few of these sequences but they’re honestly amazing. Through beautifully animated tableaus these stories are told with such finesse, you can’t help but connect with the character on display. In some of these sequences the whole style of animation changes as well which offers variety and keeps it interesting.
Speaking of, let’s talk about the visuals.
Colorful Characters in a Black & White World
From the very first frame, the game oozes charm. Except for the characters and interactable items, everything else is in black & white, which gives it a very clean, appealing look. In fact, with how colorful and almost psychedelic the art design is, the game not being this way would probably even be a bit too much on the eyes.
Though most of the game is black and white, this doesn’t mean it’s static or devoid of personality. By drawing the player’s eyes to interactable items and the interesting characters, this black and white design in fact highlights what’s important in the game, using the art style to guide both the gameplay (where to go, what to do) and the narrative.
The walking animation in itself is delightfully charming, as everyone on Elk seems to skip around cartoonishly instead of walking around like normal, boring real-life people. As I mentioned before, the animation style changes during certain story-telling sequences and these are pretty damn wonderful. In fact, it wouldn’t be a stretch to compare them to the best of Pixar! Not in the actual art style necessarily but in how compelling and effective it is at making you feel for the characters.
Coming to the music, this soundtrack is one of the best in recent memory (you hear that a lot in Gameffine these days, huh?)! The music is mostly folksy, at times soulful, other times cheerful and on more than a few occasions, eerie & menacing (the aforementioned ‘Petal’ moment comes to mind), and always top-tier. The sound design is spot-on and definitely succeeds in conveying how the game wants you to feel at that point in the narrative.
The fun off-key harmonica music when Frigg gets drunk on the first day comes to mind as one of the highlights – I had a wide grin the whole time that was playing! On the opposite side of that, the beautiful, melancholic track that plays when a certain islander passes away and the accompanying visuals are so haunting I doubt I’ll forget them anytime soon. But we’ll get to that particular scene later.
OK, But What About the (Mini) Gameplay?
So the narrative is interesting and meta and the visuals & music are great. What about the gameplay? Well, if you’re looking for a compelling consistent gameplay loop other than walking around and talking to people, you’ll be sorely disappointed as that’s pretty much what you’ll spend 90% of your time doing. However, there is a good collection of short, consistently fun minigames well-paced throughout the narrative, which cleverly ties into the themes of the game.
A character’s distress over not being able to remember their own parents is turned into a fun (but sad) minigame of making faces out of magazine cutouts; the island’s love of beer (or alcoholism problem) is expressed with a beer-pouring minigame; Bo’s success in making something positive out of the cruel ambition of his father is metaphorized in a creative & unpredictable mini-golf game, and so on and so forth.
My favorite definitely has to be the singing mini-game which is not only utterly beautiful and orgasmic on the ears but allows for a decent level of expression on the part of the player. There’s also a simplistic but fun card game too! The only downside is there’s no way to replay these mini-games outside of the story, I wish they had a co-op minigames section in the menu akin to Yakuza.
Tonally Inconsistent or Delightfully Off Kilter?
And with that, we come to the heart of the game. Like these mini-games make something fun and creative out of the dark pasts of the characters, so does Welcome to Elk as a whole make it a fun and compelling experience to play through, watch and read the many biographical stories it’s inspired by. By doing this though, sometimes the tone comes off a little strange. One second you’re experiencing something depressing and the next you’re having fun, which can make the message of the game a bit confusing.
But to be honest, I think this serves in the game’s favor. The game never gets bogged down in its themes and messages, it deals with heavy subjects with a healthy dose of (sometimes dark) humor and always stays fun and interesting (looking at you, TLOU2). The unpredictability of what kinda stories are coming next, the interesting and emotionally compelling nature of the stories themselves in all the different methods they’re expressed, coupled with the fun mini-games, not to mention the creepy yet ultimately meaningful meta-narrative of the game that keeps you in suspense and an ending that will blow you away… Gotta say, that’s an impressive package.
Biographical Real Talk
Looking through my pages of notes for writing this review, there is so much more to gush about and certain powerful, human moments and stories that will forever live on within me. And that’s exactly the point of the game, which it so wonderfully succeeds in getting across, though sometimes a bit of an adroit manner. Each one of us is a collection of stories. Everyone has a story to tell – heavy depressing ones or fun, lighthearted ones – and deserves an audience to carry them on. I for one will never forget Hermit Bar, with its recipe of a hot dog on the wall, a Spitkiss pinball machine in the corner, and the dozens of stories centered around it.
Welcome to Elk is a dark, funny, darkly funny but always beautiful exploration of the power of stories and the sharing of them between people. I certainly recommend you play it!
