Grove of Bones

Is it unjust to stand up against a wrong when one has profited from it in the past? Does past complicity rule out present resistance? How hypocritical must one be to partake in the benefits of a horrible situation only to rebel once it intrudes too far into one’s own interests?

Grove of Bones does not zoom out in such a manner as to explicitly ask these questions. Instead, it creeps inwards, to the heart of a mother who doesn’t have the luxury to consider ethics. When confronted with this, she must act.

Of course, on the other end of the screen is a player who gets to choose at their leisure how precisely the distraught mother will direct her action. This created a strange sort of internal division within me, where one part strongly sympathised with the protagonist, and the other was disconnectedly assigning ethical values to the options. This feeling was strengthened when I saw that reaching an ending (any ending) was called an “achievement” in-game, and that I got points for them. But they all got the same amount of points…

I’m not certain how much of this ethical critique was intended by the author, but I for one found it thought-provoking.