Welcome To Mistland
By Julie Morley
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Welcome back, would you like to play a game? The menu screen beckoned me once again, resting on my monitor. The colors were mesmerizing. I felt myself falling back into the same trance as before. It feels abnormal and other-worldly.
Knite & the Ghost Lights had done something that changed me last time. I was teleported into the game directly, experiencing the life of the main character. But who exactly is Knite?
Several times I have considered giving this game another try just to see if I could visit that world once more but it just never felt like a good idea. Not until now, where the menu feels as if it’s moving out of my computer monitor, hanging over me.
Click.
I cannot feel my body nor determine my whereabouts, simply immersed in darkness.
Why is my vision absent?
That’s when I heard it.
“Knite,” a feminine voice called, echoing around me. She sounded urgent, almost desperate to communicate with me. It was familiar, could it must be one of the witch sisters.
Wait, I’m Knite again, aren’t I?
“For thousands of years, the ghost pipers have been very important to Mistland. The loved ones around you in Knitemire, their ancestors just as yours carried this ultimate responsibility of the marsh.”
Images flashed before my eyes, as if they were playing off a film reel. Forest imps playing their pipers and talking to the mystical figures of the forest. Beautiful lights are floating around the forest, elegantly moving out of the ground, and seeping out of the trees.
They were playing that melody; the sacred one.
“Your grandfather was one of the many Ghost Pipers, Knite.”
Cloaked in darkness again.
“And as a Ghost Piper, there is something very important you must do on the Night of the Moondance.” Her tone adjusted, sounding sterner.
“You mustn’t spend all your time exploring and letting your curiosity get the best of you. Afterall, you’re the Shepherd of Lost Souls for a reason. Don’t take that for granted.”
More images appeared before me. A small imp playing with a horn of some sort. An elderly couple are playing with him, entertaining the young one.
“Before you came along, Mistland did not know of Ghost Pipers for two hundred years,” she claimed. “You are the only Guardian of the Forgotten.”
The most delightful oddity of a tune greeted my ears: the ghost song. It increased volume in waves, making me eager to follow it.
I felt that familiar pull, dragging me away from this world; nothing but shadows again. The song was quieting, fading away.
“On the Night of the Moondance, the hopeless and tormented souls break free from the cycle of despair and follow that ghost melody. You heal them. Previous lives of suffering are left behind and they can be redeemed because of you.”
But I’m not ready to go. Don’t take me away from Mistland yet!
Her voice was weak and raspy, “And only the song remains, my friend.”
Click.
[divider]Knite & The Ghost Lights is a stop motion adventure game from Mobot Studios that is currently in production. No word on a release date yet.
You can check out other editions of Julies’ “Another View” column right here.
[…] Posted by: Julie Morley in Another View, Columns March 24, 2014 0 […]