Cuba is a strange island. In 2017, I found myself gazing across an empty plaza where Fidel Castro gave marathon speeches to hundreds of thousands of people (some lasting more than four hours). Revolution Square was in ruins. “Where is everyone?” I asked myself. Revolution Square is seared into the historical imagination of leftists, anti-imperialists, and would-be revolutionaries who felt there was no savior. Blame everything on this cursed space and its emptiness. I am disillusioned.
When I woke up the next morning, my experience at Revolution Square turned from a dream to a nightmare. I began to think of revolutions as simply a collection of visions of power.
What are we talking about when we talk about power in video games? Power is often shown in the form of visible actions, usually acts of violence.in no savior, The road to “salvation” is filled with the corpses of the dead. no savior is billed as “Cuban's first independent video game in partnership with an international publisher.” This is definitely the first Cuban video game I've played.
no savior is a 2D platformer whose main driving force is storytelling. You can avoid, escape and outwit environmental hazards and abominations, and in return gain insight into the world. I played the game in Spanish (although the game can also be played in English) in hopes of receiving the story as intended. Similar to my experience at Revolution Square, I was shocked to witness the transcendental aspirations in the story turn into a nightmare. no savior A competent first release from Empty Head Games, but with a fatal flaw.
A book by historian Lillian Guerra Vision of power in Cuba: Revolution, Relief, and Resistance, 1959-1971 Published in 2012, this book breaks new ground with its detailed reinterpretation of the first decade of the Cuban Revolution. It challenges the common notion that the revolution was betrayed. In Guerra's words, “The idea of betrayal does not function as a starting point or an end point, because this story is a story of change and empowerment in which citizens abandon their legal protections to support an evolving society.” Because it's about participation in large-scale projects, sometimes the whimsical plans of a handful of leaders to achieve widely supported goals. ”
no savior This is a product of this revolution, and in a sense it can be seen as a betrayal of the revolution. Indeed, betrayal is the central motif of the story. Power in Saviorless is a dead end. Ultimately, power is needed to change the world and survive, but gaining and maintaining that power leads to tragedy. This is told through gameplay and narrative framework, but leaves a lot of room for interpretation. Perhaps the mystery of the story is how the game's developers managed to get past the Cuban sensors.
in no saviorIn, you play as the child Antal, trying to reach Islas Sonrientes (Island of Smiles) and become Salvador (Savior). The game has a sort of Greek chorus by the Narrators, a group of divine storytellers. For much of the game, the narrator “narrates” Antar's quest, but clearly indicates his intention to never allow the protagonist to reach the desired goal. Things don't go as planned as Antar's story violently converges with an unexpected god-like figure.
while playing no saviorreminded me of another work of art made in Cuba, a film by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea. Last Supper (La Ultima Sena). In a key scene in the film, one of the characters narrates the story of the Yoruba god Orofi's creation of the world, truth and lies. This story not only provides important insight into how violence plays a role in creation, but it is also relevant to understanding. no savior In the context of post-revolutionary art, where dissatisfaction and criticism began to prevail.
As the story progresses, truth and lies are personified. They are not just concepts. After being created by Orofi, they become embroiled in a desperate struggle. Eventually, Lee delivers a blow that decapitates him. Truth loses its head and searches for it blindly. In despair, Truth reaches for Rai's head and rips it from his body. Truth takes Lee's head and places it on his shoulders, triumphant. Now, truth roams the earth indistinguishable from lies. When entities become one, chaos reigns.
Gutierrez Alea's dark vision is made even more pronounced by the knowledge that the machete that delivered the decapitation blow was given to Lee by Orofi. It is as if God, in His infinite wisdom and power, has ordained the plagues that will afflict our world. Even more eerily, the story is told by an enslaved man during a re-enactment of the Last Supper, organized by the slave owners as a misguided bout of faux generosity. The slave master may not have been all that different from Orofi when he gave Lee the weapon. We have been betrayed by God Himself from the beginning. This is how the truth becomes corrupted.
no saviorComing to terms with this betrayal is a core part of its world-building and overarching narrative. Its visual style is Guri and Thundered, both 2D platformers with bright colors and vivid animation. This is a game with a deep understanding of gothic imagery and the macabre. It relies on physical horror and fairy tales to captivate players. But his reliance on mythology, the infrastructure of legend, through sacred animals and empty places, is only one of many layers. After all, this world no savior They are tormented by false promises and messianic figures. Do not believe in childhood fairy tales, because they inevitably lead us in the wrong direction. something dark.
here it is no saviorFatal Flaw: It also betrays the player. The game has almost no stress or tension. The gameplay objectives are modest. Move the wooden boxes and solve simple puzzles to advance. Jump from cliff to cliff until you reach a specific destination. This initially creates a space where the story takes center stage and, as mentioned above, makes the world more flavorful. Guri.
Immediately, the difficulty increases, first gradually and then astronomically. What started out as a modestly benign game about an unpleasant subject becomes an exercise in hardcore. The only saving grace is that Saviorless only takes a few hours to complete, and the difficulty segments are well thought out so it doesn't seem impossible. In other words, “Cuba's first independent video game in partnership with an international publisher” is intended to be experienced as a game for gamers. Anyone can admire it from a distance, but only a few people want to complete it. fitting? That may be true, but the experience is still tainted.
So, considering this, Antar's quest for salvation is not an escape. It's about gaining power and destroying everything that stands in your way. no savior Story-wise, this is vague. But in the final chapter, the gameplay increasingly puts you in intense confrontations and time-limited sequences that leave no room for error.
Even Antar is a false prophet and Salvador is just a killing machine. The quickest and most effective kill will save you. The narrators weave a story that negates Antar's salvation by first preventing the protagonist from escaping to and then to the Smiling Islands. However, due to boredom, they decided to break away from the predetermined story by adding in some carnage. This is literally part of the story, an original story that unfortunately also makes Saviorless a vision of power. Therefore, it is a gamer's game.
However, as a fable, no savior Participate in the Guerra Scholarship; Last Supper As a study that subverts the narrative of the Cuban revolution. They revealed that over time, it was not betrayed, but branched out towards the possibility that existed from the beginning. Some, like Antar, pursued personal interests, while others were tired of chasing “traitors” and “counterrevolutionaries.” Expectations clouded our judgment.
no saviorThe main concern is the aesthetics of violence and the corruption that results from it. The creation of stories and myths has its limits in making people believe in the salvation of cursed places. For Antar, this cursed place is the Island of Smiles. The ruins of physical spaces, ideologies, and even biomes remain dilapidated but still stand as testaments to dreams deferred and left in tatters in the dirty puddles of decay.
Empty Head Games has many implications for life in a society that seems to be stuck and with nowhere to go but back to square one. It is a world doomed to repeat the same mistakes over and over again, as if the human story were told by a grand architect.
Cuba's first commercial game, no savior, there's a lot left to think about. It was successful due to the inherent simplicity of its core design. But in a world where he is destined to make the same mistakes as his ancestors, he stumbles like any other protagonist. Who can blame them for that? I can't wait to see what Empty Head Games creates next.
Works Cited
Guerra, Lillian. Vision of power in Cuba: Revolution, Relief, and Resistance, 1959-1971. University of North Carolina Press. year 2012.
Gutierrez Alea, Tomás. Last Supper (La Ultima Senna). 1976.
