Some games are all about shooting. Some games task you with exploring new worlds and embarking upon crazy adventures. And some games… let you walk through a graveyard.
Boon Hill, a new Kickstarter project created by a guy named Matthew Ritter, wants to be that game. There’s no way to win or lose in Boon Hill, Ritter says: you just explore, and read and soak in the atmosphere.
And… it sounds amazing.
I don’t want to imply the game is aimless. Boon Hill is about inferred stories, about the connections people have that continue even after they die. The graveyard tells many tales woven by those who’ve long since passed on: stories of love, life, sorrow, and joy, told over generations.
The threads of narrative are woven throughout the gravestones for you to discover, if you have the inkling to look. A row of graves all with the same last name, most of them having died very young, suggests a specific set of circumstances. An epitaph that reads ‘Survived by no one’ is dour, yes, but clearly someone carried out their last wishes. Here, people are tied together by something as simple as similar birth dates, the places they were born or died, and even the styles of their grave markers. Subtle stories abound in the rows of stone.
Ritter wants $US5,000 to make it happen. You can check out the Kickstarter here.
Comments
2 responses to “A Video Game Where You Walk Through A Graveyard And Look At Graves”
Funnily enough, it’s not the first of its kind. (http://tale-of-tales.com/TheGraveyard/)
Interactive voyeurism/anthropology is fine and all, but I generally like it to be a bit more interactive than simply deciding how I’m going to read something. I like to have some kind of impact on these virtual worlds. At least with other walking/reading simulators like Dear Esther and even The Graveyard, the scenery was actually kind of pretty.