Fictional universes are oft defined by what their positive affect feels like and what their negative affect feels like. This is the palette that the story is written using. In the videogame Silksong, the negative affect is a hollow, pointless, loneliness. Every character is a bug, crawling through the dirt, creeping out to see you briefly before they continue attempting to do something with their pointless lives.

They spend the game in religious devotion, attempting to climb to the citadel where they can meet their God. But most die along the way, or go mad and just start to kill anything nearby.

The currency in the game is rosary beads, to be used for prayer.

What is the positive affect drawn in? It's a kind of serenity.

So between the pointlessness and despair, is an occasional "ah, everything is just fine as it is" of feeling at-home. [...]

---

First published:

Source:

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.