The Path of Totality

This is the second Lamp Post Projects game that I've played this IFComp. Like the earlier one (The Secrets of Sylvan Gardens), it takes place in a fantasy world with orcs, half-orcs, humans, elves, half-elves, and others, and with scientists like botanists and astronomers.

In this game, a solar eclipse is scheduled to happen soon, and the path of totality will go over a set of standing stones that are holy to an ancient God. Anyone who is there when the eclipse happens will be granted a wish. You can play as a true believer, an adventurer, or an astronomer, with different bonuses and endgames. I played as a true believer.

Along your pilgrimage, you have the opportunity to meet with two sets of two other pilgrims, for a total of four. The first pair are sibling half-orcs, while the second are a halfling man and (eventually) an elf woman.

You can choose to go with the group or not. I ignored the half-orcs at first because I wasn't as interested in them, but I joined up with them later once I saw the halfling.

This is a 'cozy' setting, a particular type I've seen a few times where there's not very high stakes, everyone is nice to each other (introducing with pronouns, asking consent before personal questions), there is no threat of death or severe injury. Just five chill people headed to the stones and some magical creatures out for mischief.

Most of the game is conversation, and most conversation is having a few topics you can explore in any order, and within topics being able to react to NPC questions by generally being kind, neutral, or mean. There are also puzzle segments in the game (some very easy, others more tricky). You can romance any of the four NPCs, although it can feel very fast paced due to the time constraints of the game (true love in two weeks, for instance).

It was a pleasant story, I felt I had agency (I skipped several conversations that didn't seem as interesting and focused more on a couple key characters) and it has replay value.

I have a four-year-old son who is very sweet. Recently he’s been sick, so he’s been extra cuddly, and when his fever got bad for a bit, he wanted me to sit right next to him and tell him facts about the planets and galaxies to distract him from how crummy he was feeling. But then – thankfully – he started to feel better, and when I asked him if he wanted me to read him one of the science books we’d gotten out of the library, he yelled “poop!” and demanded I flip him upside down.

Which is to say, even the sweetest of us hit a point where they have had too much coziness – this is more or less the major theme of Dosteovsky’s Notes from Underground – and I must confess that Path of Totality had me contemplating just where mine is located. Not that this is a flaw in the game, or that I think I actually wound up tripping over the line! It never pretends to be something it’s not, and it carries off its brief with craft and care. As someone on their way to witness a sacred eclipse in a DnD-but-sanded-down fantasy world, your journey requires you to overcome the kind of obstacles that would get you a PG rating for “mild peril”, but more importantly, to bond with an appealingly-drawn quartet of fellow travelers, each with their own wholesome aspirations and hobbies.

Deepening your relationships with them is really the meat of the game; for the first half, each day on the trail sees you manage a few low-key decisions about how best to proceed along your path to the best spot to view the eclipse, then at night you have a chance for a conversation with one of your companions. After that series of one-on-ones, you have a chance to establish a chaste romance, and as the challenges in your way ramp up slightly, so too do you learn more about some of the (largely low-key) issues bedeviling them, before you reach a happy ending. It’s a simple structure, but it works, largely because the character work is solid. They’re largely fantasy stereotypes, but played just slightly against type: the halfling who loves nature as well as writing stories, the orc twins who work together building furniture, the trans shapeshifting elf princess. I can’t say I was ever deeply surprised by any of the backstory revelations that unpeel as the game progresses, but that’s partially because they feel like coherent people from the moment you meet them. Similarly, none of them are harboring intense conflicts or uncontrollable passions, but as a middle-aged person myself, it’s actually kind of refreshing to see a game take an interest in people who are subject to the occasional bit of anxiety but are generally secure in their lives, goals, and work.

The trip itself very much is an excuse to allow you to spend time with your companions, though there are things to do. Beyond the quotidian incidents on the path, like bumping into other travelers to compare notes, or weathering an unexpected rainstorm, there are three more involved set-piece challenges, each of which involve dealing with mischievous fae. While they’re notionally different, in practice I found each was an exercise in trial and error, requiring a lot of clicking but without much in the way of real danger. I don’t want to spoil the latter ones, but the first is a sort of riddle contest that I found easiest to win by simply repeating myself until the fae got bored; the other two were physical traversal challenges, one of which was made trivial by my choice of background (at the beginning of the game, you decide why you want to see the eclipse: are you an adventurer hoping it will help solve a quest, a pilgrim looking for a blessing, or an astronomer seeking scientific knowledge?) They’re fine, but there’s a lot of clicking without much deep thinking required; they pace out the journey, but again, the real focus of the game is chatting with the characters.

So yeah, this is good, and I enjoyed it – but there were times when the coziness threatened to tip over into feeling cloying. Notably, while the romances are generally sweet, they’re aggressively chaste; I wound up getting close to the shapeshifter, whose powers require her to be naked to change her form, but despite this happening a couple of times, the description just matter-of-factly notes her doffing or shrugging on her clothes with no acknowledgment of sexuality whatsoever. I also felt like a late-game sequence where the companions meet a married couple who shelter them right before they reach the eclipse dragged and went back over previously-covered ground: there’s a truth-or-dare-without-dares dice game that gets played out in highly granular detail, but nothing much new comes out of any of the conversations, and everyone’s uniformly supportive of everyone else, so much so that I also wanted to tip the table over and scream “poop!” just for a change of pace.

Except, I had the option to, but I didn’t. For all that what I’ve described above is I think pretty clearly the intended experience of Path of Totality, you can opt out of just about all of it: alongside the positive, encouraging dialogue option, there’s almost always a second saying you’re not interested in hearing any more about woodworking, and what would a halfling know about birds of prey, and you can even make a transphobic comment to the elf lady. Heck, as far as I can tell the companions are optional, and you can decide to make the pilgrimage all by yourself!

I have a hard time understanding the kind of player who, after the game introduces itself via an extended conversation with a relatable, helpful pair of characters who ask to join you, decides to turn them down, mind – and I likewise don’t think many people will take the latter option in the frequent be cool/be an asshole choices. But it’s meaningful that they’re there, because even if I did sometimes chafe at how upbeat and cheerful everything was, if I’d really wanted to I could have peed in the cheerios at any time. By revealed preferences, then, I got exactly the experience I wanted, and it was a good one. I am glad, though, that I’ve got a good number of games before the next Lamp Post Productions game comes up in my queue, since I don’t want to overdose on the positive vibes (though if that’s a danger, I could take my son’s advice and flip myself upside down, I suppose).

this might be the last review i write this ifcomp (though ive played some games i haven't reviewed and i hope to still play more), bc im getting really busy, but i wanted to be sure to get to this one after the author's response to my review of fantasy opera.

this game is set in a fantasy world where you are journeying to see an eclipse and be blessed by a goddess. the setting is based on england but felt more like it's own thing compared to the setting of fantasy opera because of the focus on the religion, which i thought was really interesting.

this is the only game ive played that let me choose they/she as my characters pronouns and i was honestly so excited? which is silly maybe but it's nice to be able to match my real life preferences for once. there was a they/he character as well which was also cool to see. i am glad the game introduced the character jade before it asked me to put my name in though, that could have been really confusing (as that is the name i usually go by) 💀

along the way you meet various companions and can romance one of them. this felt much better integrated than in fantasy opera. i liked all the characters a lot and enjoyed romancing the shapeshifter.

there are also lots of opportunities to stop and talk to random people along the way or to take a moment to experience nature. in a lot of ways it felt like this was the real point of the game, like it's not the destination it's the journey, yk? maybe the real blessing of lorell is the friends we made along the way. and seeing an otter. /gen

anyway i don't know if this is like objectively the best or anything - it seems like other people haven't been rating it so high? - but it was just about perfect for me!