In the series "Getting to know 'Edith Finch' ", we're soaking up the game's moody, multifaceted atmosphere, and breaking down what it has to say about game design, the human condition, and the many ways that people create meaning for each other through stories, relationships, etc. Feel free to jump around to the following timestamped highlights:

0:30 -- Man, what a joyful game full of fun little details! Memorialized birdhouses, playful trompe l'oeil paintings, and a fully embodied player-character.

3:18 -- HUGE SPOILERS!! I explain a plot twist at the end of the game which adds a lot of crucial context and illuminates the core themes of family, death, and passing on memories. (We'll talk much more about this later.)

5:48 -- Getting into some really powerful feels & philosophy! Matriarch Edie's relationship to the Finch family house, considered as a metaphor for the beautiful complex lives that humans slowly create, only to lose that intriciate inner world when they inevitably die. The discussion goes strong up until 9:30, and then resumes at...

10:50 -- Going back even another generation, to Odin Finch (the mythical all-father!), whose story is told via antiquated 3D ViewMaster headset. I talk about how I relate to my own family and "roots". And about how the Finch family "curse" is really just a dramatization of what literally happens to all families, since all humans are universally cursed to die.

16:00 -- there are just TOO MANY clever details to notice in this game! Beyond the stuff I mention in the video, notice the content of the photos that Sam is developing -- a self-portrait taken in the bathroom we just stepped out of, some hunting photos (a la Sam's story), but also photos of the broken swing and of Calvin's gravestone -- showing that he is still mulling over questions about his brother's death even decades later.

19:48 -- Calvin's story: a wacky swing-simulator with super-high FOV and independent, GIRP-style ([ Ссылка ]) control over each leg! But also a poetic, tragic short story, and a romanticized memory of childhood. (remember how big and adventurous everything seemed as a child? [ Ссылка ])

21:50 -- Sam wonders if he bears partial responsibility for egging Calvin on, and asks if things could've gone any other way. This brings up ideas of free will, counterfactuals, nature versus nurture, and how much people's personalities/behavior can be changed. Illustrating this, Calvin and Sam are twins -- literally the same DNA, the same biological starting-point -- and yet they have totally different dreams, goals, personalities, etc.

24:50 -- 'What Remains of Edith Finch' does a masterful job of telling an absorbing emotional story; for that very reason I think it's important to step back and consider its themes and storytelling tools on a more intellectual level, to understand explicitly what the game is already communicating to us on an implicit, emotional level.

26:58 -- the Finch family is named the "Finch" family, because it's a reference to the relatedness and diversity of "Darwin's Finches" on the Galapagos Islands, who radiated from a single common ancestor to a family of species each filling different environmental niches! [ Ссылка ]

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