Stranded: Cast adrift in a strange and engrossing point-and-click story

LEFT-FIELD is a series of reviews and essays on new and old independent games that have an experimental or narrative quality.

The player is a man who awakens upon a barren, rocky island. Taking stock of his situation, he concludes he is doomed. In desperation, he laments to a seagull that has joined him in his misery. The seagull intones that, in seven days, the player will face judgment. As the water rises and the days begin to tally, all the player can do is ruminate upon what judgment will come.

The gameplay of Stranded primarily facilitates its cryptic narrative, shown through short vignettes that mark each day of the character's isolation. Players point and click to interact with elements of interest on the island. Some minor interactive elements include a riddle in the form of a sliding tile puzzle. The player also engages in choice-based dialogue, which affects the game's ending.

The prose has some good flourishes. Some of the text is grounded in the straightforward inner monologue of the player. Other reflections and interactions with the seagulls, who make good on their promise to dole out judgment, take on a poetic and inscrutable quality. There are a few awkward turns of phrase, but these are largely minor and, in a way, add to the inherent strangeness of the player's predicament. The game quickly veers away from the tropes of a simple desert island survival title, avoiding triteness for something more unique.

The art of Stranded is simple but well-drawn and animated with a sort of pixel impressionism that made titles such as Another World appealing. There is some nice sprite work here, particularly in the ending, where the island the player has taken for granted throughout the game takes on a very different form. The game's approach to composition is minimalistic and marked by a tension between the calmness of its shore sound effects and some quite ominous atmospheric pads.

I think Stranded is an exploratory meditation on the human condition and its relationship to the environment. The concerns of the player, agonizing over their powerlessness and guilt, begin to reveal how little they know about the nature of the island. The tree on the island signifies the potential for new life and regeneration, and in the end, the player's life changes to adapt to a new form capable of survival, or their death ultimately nourishes life on the island.

Stranded is the work of South African developer Adriaan Odendaal, a multimedia and content designer for firm Internet Teapot. Odendaal has some experience with narrative and experimental games, with Stranded following the release of Tego Dego Present, a surrealistic point-and click one-bit title created in partnership with artist Eduardo Politzer. Stranded hopefully represents the first of many excursions to come of Odendaal's work in narrative games.

Stranded can be played for free on itch.io.