In this episode of the Strange Horizons podcast, editor Anaea Lay presents Rafaela Ferraz's "A Slumbering Storm."
In prior editions of Metagames, I've talked about how games have the artistic potential to put players through entirely different emotional experiences than non-interactive media. This isn't really a review column, but for once, I'd like to break precedent and discuss a single game at length, from multiple angles. This game is proof that the tools all exist already to make layered and powerful narratives native to digital media—artistic works that can scarcely be compared to anything that's come before. That game is Horizon Zero Dawn. This game casts you as Aloy, a young hunter from the matriarchal Nora tribe.
"No," my mother says. Ear pressed to my chest, / she counts in time to the chambers’ moans. / "Fill it with salt water, so that only / those who thrive there may stay."
If she’d asked anyone out in the town, they would have happily told her the town is always empty and the hotel is always full, because those who pay for a night don’t always rise in the morning. But of course, she did not know to ask, she does not know to ask, and there is no one to ask.
