The Drifter - Pulp mystery and the curse of white flashes
Drifting mysteriously on a 90s Adventure
I began drifting enthusiastically, frantically, my eager hands prepared on the mouse and keyboard.
You can die In The Drifter, but you'll be back to life moments before, in the same dangerous situation. Infused with pulpy purple prose, the titulary drifter comments on what happened, and sometimes offers hints to progress. It's a nifty mechanic to avoid death and supply diegetic (in-world) hints for progression.
Wholesome level: low to good. The Drifter can be rough thematically, and some death scenes are explicit. But the writing and story build relationships which linger after the end.
The mechanic is also an op for the game to assault your eyes with white flashes - Mick Carter, the drifter, goes from death to resurrection, and tries to understand how to avoid this ultimate peril. Of death and white flashes. (careful if you're prone to eyesight issues, headaches or seizures.)
The white flashes may be justified while the game loads up before imminent danger. But we also get fades between scenes where Mick prepares items for a puzzle or performs needed actions.
The fades work to heighten the tension of Mick's adventure, hiding his anxiety behind poetic effusions.
But sometimes they're only used to avoid the need for extra animations. Which is a shame, because the game's pacing and physicality rely on excellent pixelated animation which should have been extended to all of Mick's efforts.
This is what you'd call telling instead of showing in gaming form. I don't enjoy the trick much - I'd prefer the descriptions be replaced or accompanied by animation, awesome as it is - but the prose augments the unease you get at approaching danger or certain death.
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Mick is pretty good with pulp, but he also over dose it. Sometimes he muses a bit longer with abundant adverbs and purple prose which can diminish the impact of the scene.
For pulp, less tends to be more, at least when finding the right words. To be fair, pulp requires a good measure of purple prose, but it works with brevity and punchiness at the same time.
Max Payne 1, a pulp classic, is better with its evocations because it knows when to stop. Its brevity is more restrained and precise. The Drifter delights in its effusions, exaggerating when Mick eminently describes his dying moments - not exactly worse, a bit of dark humor fitting the moment.
Pulp is a form of writing using punchy, evocative words to get to the point immediately. I'd say pulp is the real form of short and sweet. You find it often in Noir movies, or in some Tarantinos like Inglorious Basterds.
Even so, The Drifter would have benefited by reining in some of Mick's outbursts. There are only so many ways you can describe someone grabbing an object or doing some pedestrian action. Even when Mick describes his toils or the last moment in an adrenaline-fueled frenzy, it's all dark fun and humor, a self-awareness of style and death-defying story.
Regarding this back-before-dying business, a trigger warning fits because some death scenes are gruesome. Play this only if explicit pixelated death doesn't scar you. This could've been fixed with an accessibility option to avoid gruesome scenes, but maybe next time.
Thankfully, this type of lateral design is an effective means to mitigate the need for a reload, while providing help to solve the problem. Trying to 'fix' death and reload in games is not new, it's been done with time travel before.
But it comes off as a most natural mechanic - rewind instead of reload. It's a trick which makes you wonder what else we're missing to make game design less frustrating and more interesting.
The game also uses its time-travel-by-death mechanic through the story, and to eventually solve an essential conundrum. It may be painful to watch Mick seek certain death, but it's a testimonial to the game's ingenuity and commitment to thrills.
Pulp fiction
I mused poetically, drifting to understand the mystery.
Aside from its accessibility quirks, The Drifter is an underground classic. It has retro charm, clever language, and plot shenanigans which you've likely never seen before - like Mick becoming friends with his torturer and bringing him home, as you do.
Being a drifter is a good reason to investigate the premises: homeless people are disappearing, apparently taken by special ops forces or monstrous creatures which may be a result of hallucinations. It's all sudden from the beginning, but an intriguing setup for fans of weird fiction, horror, The Outer Limits, Twilight Zone, Stephen King.
The story delights in playing hardball with its mystery and horror. It throws kidnappings, regret, love, mental issues, immortality, secret ops and horror creatures at a fast pace from the start and drifts along. To enjoy it from the onset, you have to accept its silliness hoping it can resolve its weird horror, or be indulgent with its pastiche of style and mystery.
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The Drifter is wise to link its time travel plot and mechanics with an emotional roller-coaster about loss, inability to face it, and regret. Beyond the cool application of time travel to bypass death, it's the prose, mystery and emotional relationships which keep momentum. Games may or may not be art depending on personal preference and the line between authorial intent and interactivity - but they sure get close when they care so much for their characters.
It's a bit of a depressive adventure, lacking the quirky joyfulness of something like The Broken Sword, but no less intriguing and playing with the same joy of mystery and conspiracy. It's also a perfectly fine "old-school" adventure, the kind which may be frustrating when you get stuck and there's no internet to offer the easy way out. Its weirdly-horror, pixely-looking, pulpy-chatting, synth soundtrack, mystery story are charming, addictive and create enough nostalgia to ask for more by the end.
As pulpy as the mystery gets, it drags a bit in the second half where you go through rapid-fire conversations. They serve as lore - sometimes clever, and investigations. But they're packed tight for a game which flows when you have to uncover the mystery actively, exploring and solving puzzles instead of slogging through information contraptions.
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The last chapters are both strong and stumbly. Mick gets a bit stuck in one major location which occupies most of his time, navigating a labyrinth of intrigue and more difficult puzzles.
The pacing can be crawly compared to the previous events, but drifts with the same pulpy plot building on suspicion and time travel. It's quality puzzle-solving, but by the end you're grateful to not feel like a mouse in a trap anymore - too bad the drifting ends here.
But it's not just the nightmarish mystery which compels progression - it's the care and skill of its writing which makes you... well, care about characters because of their convoluted relationships, how they're dealing with loss, regret, trying to begin anew.
The Drifter is a game of contrasts. White flashes versus black fades, pulp brevity vs. excessive prose, the novelty of its death mechanic vs. trial and error. Its horror is not for everyone, but Adventure fans will enjoy the mash-up of pixelated visuals and retro charm.
In the end, The Drifter drifts away on a wave of nostalgia. For its atmosphere, its mysteries, its mood-sake music, and the strength with which it builds relationships. In terms of emotion and immersion, a sequel can't do much more save the obvious - an equally intriguing story and a better understanding of accessibility.