Magical Realist Gameplay in "What Remains of Edith Finch"
*A snippet of a much longer work-in-progress* At once, Edith Finch and One Hundred Years of Solitude seem to both celebrate the possibilities of imagination and warn against complete detachment from reality. This warning appears in Edith Finch in the form of Lewis’s story, in which the player controls Lewis as he slices fish in a fish cannery. Using the right joystick, the player repeatedly performs the mundane action of moving his hand to drag the dispensed fish into a slicer. The story is narrated by his psychiatrist, who begins to detail the coping mechanism Lewis develops to escape the mundanity of his life. He begins imagining himself in a fantasy world where he’s in control of everything. While simultaneously using the right joystick to slice the fish, the player uses the left joystick to guide an imaginary version of Lewis through this world as it grows in visual detail and complexity. As this section progresses, it becomes increasingly clear that Lewis is losing his sens...