Of Their Shadows Deep

Though I have considered myself a fan of gaming, broadly speaking, for most of my life, I see myself as essentially brand new to interactive fiction. The point-and-click adventure games of the late 1980s and early 1990s were what initially captured my heart in my youth. Interactive fiction always lingered around my periphery, but never outright captured my gaming attention. That is, that was the case until only very recently. For reasons that I’d be happy to share in more detail in perhaps another forum, Of Their Shadows Deep was the first title I selected to dive into this contemporary form of the genre.

From the outset, I was struck by the conscientiousness of the accessibility options and tutorial. I could clearly see that great care and attention to detail was given to gently guide the player through the initial setup. For me, one eager to experience interactive fiction anew, but a bit rusty to the intricacies of parser-based interactive fiction, this initial tutorial immediately set any anxieties I may have had at ease.

The world and setting of Of Their Shadows Deep felt intimate and gentle, buttressed by Amanda Walker’s beautifully evocative prose. This was a world I was happy to linger and to dwell within. The riddles within the game never adversely interfered with my exploration of this world. I generally welcome all sorts of puzzles and riddles in games, even of more difficult forms like obscure riddles, brain teasers, and abstract puzzles. But in this particular case, the balance of the riddles’ difficulty felt right here, more forgiving, especially juxtaposed against the contemplative central theme of the game.

The serendipity of finding this game comes at a period of my life where I have been wrestling and toiling to find suitable mediums to express and share the stories of my own heart. The poignancy of the game’s central message-- (Spoiler - click to show)a deeply personal mourning and processing of the degenerative loss of language and words, and the compounding tragedy of witnessing an unavoidable loss within those for whom we deeply care for, who had also held their own passion for language-- overlaid against my own struggles to express myself yielded an important and apropos aspect of the fragility and impermanence of our stowed words, our language, our expressions. Through Of Their Shadows Deep, given my own proclivities, I feel as though I have come to a slightly better understanding of the risks of heralding my own self-inflicted tragedy by continuing to keep many of my words locked away, but also the importance those same words hold. The power and beauty of the language we express and share with one another cannot be overstated, because they serve as our connections to one another. We are never guaranteed our ability to express our language, lest we lose it forever. A deeply moving and vitally important message that I needed to hear.

Of Their Shadows Deep is a short game, one that can be completed within a few hours or so. As I said before, I like to linger and dwell within worlds like this, and I was able to complete it in about 4 hours or so. Even though this world is relatively small and the experience relatively short, it was without question a treasured and cherished experience; one that I will not soon forget. It has greatly inspired me in numerous ways, especially as I embark on sharing some of the ideas and stories that I’ve been holding onto that I intend to create as works of interactive fiction (ones that feel suitable to tell as IF). I very much look forward to experiencing more of Amanda Walker's previous and hopefully future works.