A girl sits in a chair inside a dark Victorian-esque room. A small table beside her holds only an old phone and enough space for the girl’s notebook. She is alive, but also dead. A black cat tells her she must answer the phone when it rings and listen to what the people on the other side have to say. Released on Feb. 10 for Windows PC and later for Nintendo Switch and already receiving acclaim with sky-high scores like 89 on Metacritic and 92 on OpenCritic, Schrödinger’s Call is the first game by the Japanese indie studio Acrobatic Chirimenjako. Through its tales about connection, it makes us wonder who we really are.
Using design elements of traditional visual novels, Schrödinger’s Call is a story about connecting with people by exercising empathy. Through the lens of a girl named Mary, we learn that the moon fell to Earth, causing an apocalypse. Within the short period of 21 nanoseconds, which marks the moment when people realized what was going to happen and the actual end, everyone is trapped in a state between life and death. Mary’s role is to serve as the last confidant, a person who will answer the calls from the people who, as they face the inevitable death, look for a way to deal with their unresolved issues. The opportunities to affect the story by taking decisions are few, so you’re mostly an audience member of what feels like a low-budget theater play.
The setting is melancholic, but it has its own beauty. More often than not, the narrative stays light enough for the “it’s the end of the world” part to not weigh on the experience or make it feel sad for the sake of it. That doesn’t mean Schrödinger’s Call is a story about a bubbly anime girl who is setting on an adventure while dealing with heavy themes. This is a slow-paced game where you watch Mary talk on the phone and see different scenarios through her notebook, where she takes notes about the people she talks to and doodles. The stillness works as a loud invitation for us to pay attention to what is being said and shown.
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