Looking Back on Firewatch. Part 1.

I am a gamer. If I'm known for anything on the internet, it's playing video games, so this blog will likely touch on the subject from time to time. This blog might actually give me the opportunity to reflect on the experience of creating a let's play series for Youtube, how a particular game made me feel, and what I took away from the experience. I have never really had a good forum to spew my thoughts on completing a series like Firewatch that I planned for months, prepared for, spent a single day playing, a few days editing, and two weeks of sitting back and watching your reaction to what I have made... well, of course the team at Campo Santo had a ton to do with the end product, I just interacted with their masterpiece and let you watch.

My journey with Firewatch began a long time ago when some of the promotional art and an early description of the game caught my attention. Olly Moss created some gorgeous 2D art that Jane Ng would later attempt to recreate in the 3D environment of the game world, and those early bits of art hooked me, and the narrative reeled me in.

The narrative in those early days of development was simple: A man, looking for an escape in the wilderness of Wyoming, which happened to be my favourite place in all of the United States. Set in the world as it existed in 1989, Firewatch captured the world as I first got to know it--born in '84, I came of age in the last years of the decade. I was born just early enough to have the games iconic typewriter, walkman, and boombox be a part of my life--they were the way I saw adults write letters and listen to Cyndi Lauper.

All of this is a product of another coming of age--not the one that happens as you set off for school for the first time, but the one that happens when your peers, those that started kindergarten along with you in the late 80s, begin creating the world's best art.

Firewatch wasn't set in 1989 in Wyoming by chance. It was written by Sean Vanaman who is more or less my age, and likely lived in the beautiful wilds of the state in the 90s when I got my opportunity to fall in love with Wyoming's mountains, lake, plains, and rivers.

My series on the game is still ongoing, so I'll save the spoilers and my reflection on the plot until we get to the end of that series for another post, which makes this Part 1 of a few. Which means I need a conclusion... don't worry, I've got one.

I now live in this world as a 32 year old, raised on ninja turtles, boys with rattails, and flourescent coloured clothing, and its my generation's time. The people that are taking chances, chasing their dreams, and making brilliant art are my age--raised on the very same pop culture, and I look forward to what is hopefully a decade of getting to experience amazing video games not created by the children of the 70s or 90s, but of my decade, the 80s, and if those people are as good at what they do as the eighties babies at Campo Santo, I'm in for a treat.

Thanks for reading. I'll talk more about Firewatch in the days to come.

-UTC