Zarf Updates

Dustborn is a queer punk-band secret-agent road trip with campfire singalongs plus beating up fascist cops with an electric baseball bat. What else is there to say? C'mon.

About twenty years ago, a mysterious Broadcast freaked out most of North America and gave a few people vocal superpowers. Now it's 2030. You've just stolen a Macguffin from the Puritans (Silicon Valley fascists); you have two weeks to cart it across the American territories ('Murrican-style fascists) to Nova Scotia (Canadian librarians, therefore the good guys). "You" are Pax, rowdy (super-)trash-talker and lead singer. Then there's Sai (your best friend, a brick) and Noam (your ex, a snot) and Theo (notional grownup, the boss but not of you). You've each been dragged into this heist because -- well, the money's good. But each of you has their own motivations as well. Time and campfire dialogue will tell.

(The "lesbian road trip" genre is so strong that I had to count protagonists to verify there weren't any. The cast list is variously queer, black, trans, Latino, robot, Asian, disabled, and Muslim; but no lesbians per se.) (As main characters, I mean. No disrespect to Pax's moms in chapter 2.)

Oh, I didn't even mention "comic book". The presentation is comic book, with an expressive spare line-art style and lovely coloring.

Dustborn turns out to be from Red Thread Games. Looks like I never wrote up Draugen but I thought it was a nice bit of Norwegian farm-noir. But Dustborn is much more ambitious. It's published by way of Quantic Dreams' "Spotlight" label, and it fits there well: big meaty interactive cinema with lots of dialogue choices, quicktime reactions, and -- yes -- Rock-Band-style musical numbers. Also fight scenes (electric bat plus superpowers!) but you can skip those. Or set them to easy mode, which I found tolerably easy.

It's really a narrative designer's narrative design. Gameplay is commentary. Dustborn leans into its this-is-a-choice, Theo-will-remember-that mechanics -- precisely because words are spells and dialogue is divine power. That's the whole thematic gimmick! (Someone's been reading Julian Jaynes.) Pax has a tendency to treat dialogue transactionally -- like you do, playing a narrative game. Happily for the narrative progression, her friends are willing to call her on it.

Consequences are all. The dialogue is stuffed with callbacks to previous choices. And each of your road companions has a narrative state which shifts as you talk to them. Over the course of the game, this leads each character to one of three personal outcomes. (Someone's been meditating on Emily Short's triangles.) Not just at the end: based on their current state, each character can react one of three ways in pretty much every story beat. And of course you, as Pax, have your own ending to consider. When you get to the final chapter, the game isn't shy about announcing "Here are the consequences of your accumulated choices" in 24-point Lampshade Bold.

But I'm not writing about Dustborn because of the narrative structure. (Intensively worked-through but not particularly innovative.) I'm writing about it because, look, lesbian queer road trip! Found family! Besties having arguments and making up! Estranged sisters having arguments and making up! More besties being adopted every chapter and adding their quirky talents to the tour bus! Taking as much time as you want to talk out problems with your exasperating but good-hearted friends!

It's a comedy of emotional intelligence, is what I want to call it. All enthusiastically voice-acted in what must have a dumptruck-sized screenplay of line variations. Top notch stuff. (Ziggy's actor, in particular, knocks it out of the park.)

If there's a flaw, it's that the background worldbuilding doesn't quite hook up to the story. I said the Broadcast "freaked out" the world, which is vague because... I wasn't entirely sure what it did. Beyond the superpowers thing. "Echoes of misinformation" are a story point, which ought to be a commentary on real-world politics and the Internet; but the game doesn't go there. Fascist cops are bad, that's pretty much it. Nor is the world supposed to be a result of the Broadcast and the Echoes. The game world is an alternate history going back to the 1960s. Fascism is the fault of... Marilyn Monroe? I'm not sure what I'm supposed to take from that.

But I'm not writing about Dustborn because of the worldbuilding either. It's a tight story -- all about the characters and their road trip together. It's a ridiculously feel-good experience. You may think the highway singalong is corny the first time (it is), but by the farewell reprise, you will sing along out loud in your computer chair. As you push the quicktime buttons.

I'm not saying you have to sing. But if you're not willing to entertain the possibility, well, you'll probably think Dustborn is corny. That's okay. But don't complain to me about it. Commit to the bit or go home, and Dustborn absolutely commits.