Perfect Tides

Wow, 2022 was a great year for adventure games! Not only was there the previously mentioned Return to Monkey Island and Norco, but also One Dreamer, Nightmare Frames, and The Plague Doctor of Wippra. And, oh my goodness, the utterly wonderful Perfect Tides

Meredith Gran’s semi-autobiographical tale of being a teenager at the turn of the millennium, the early days of the home internet, is absolutely spellbinding, and that’s without aliens, spaceships or mysterious hauntings. It’s a game about being on the cusp of maturity, of wanting to be seen as an adult but finding safety in the trappings of childhood. And it’s a game about the fractious nature of teenager and parent relationships throughout this time. Protagonist Mara’s father died a couple of years previously, and her family is living in the wake of this grief.

What makes this so fascinating is we’re assumed to be perceiving Mara’s teenage behavior through adult eyes, able to see the glaring, horrible, heartbreaking bad assumptions she’s making, while being utterly sympathetic with her for making such mistakes. Her inability to recognize her mother’s personal grief, and to instead interpret it through childish self-absorption and solipsism, is the most utterly honest storytelling I can remember.

But, importantly, it’s not a gloomy game! It’s also about taking the first adult steps of rebelling, of first tastes of alcohol and first parties, and the decisions you make are never portrayed puritanically. Mara’s internal tumult is the story here, in beautiful, frustrating, and heartbreaking ways. We see her responses as melodrama, but we also understand that for her, this is her real life, occupying all her emotions.

I cannot express how wonderful this game is, and my subsequent joy that a sequel is being worked on.