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As Long As You’re Here is technically a video game, but I need to let you know that it’s actually something much more. A first-person story from the perspective of a grandmother dealing with the progression of Alzheimer’s Disease is obviously not going to be the fun, thrilling experience that many come to the medium for to escape the troubles of the real world.
If you are familiar with That Dragon, Cancer, the harrowing title about a father coming to grips with his child’s terminal pediatric cancer diagnosis, you’ll understand the similar headspace that As Long As You’re Here will put you in by the end. This is not a game for escapism, but rather, one that is guaranteed to be highly emotional, sometimes devastating, yet hopefully for some, cathartic as well.
I have a strong personal connection with the subject matter here, so I volunteered myself to embark on this journey when the chance to review came up. It’s been just about two years since I lost my maternal grandmother to dementia, and I’ve seen just how scary, difficult, and challenging the process can be. Though I lived several hours apart from her during the worst of her struggles, my parents were her direct caretakers for as long as they could physically manage themselves, before being faced with the impossibly hard decision to finally turn to a nursing home.
It was here where I wound up finding myself staying with her one calm November night as she’d taken a turn for the worse, and we were unsure of how much longer she’d hold on, while understanding the end was near. I was at her bedside until morning, unable to fall asleep, trying to cling on to whatever precious time she had left on Earth. Quite literally minutes after my father came to relieve me of my duties, and I’d left the nursing home to get some sleep, she was gone.
I don’t say this to brag about being a good grandson. In truth, I should’ve been around to help more in the later years. I’m just sharing to say that I’ve been there, just like the developers of As Long As You’re Here have been too. If you’ve never experienced anything like this, first of all, I’m truly happy for you, and I hope you and your loved ones never have to experience a similar situation.
But for those of us that have, As Long As You’re Here is one of the most powerful video games you’ll ever «play» in your life. If you want to learn more and figure out if you’re ready to experience this story as well, stick around.
A Challenging Perspective
I’ve never played something quite like As Long As You’re Here. It’s a very short experience that the devs recommend you play in one sitting, and I’d echo this sentiment wholeheartedly. It’s only an hour long, and you’d be doing both the game and yourself a disservice if you don’t finish it all in one go. This is because it does such an amazing job of putting you in the shoes of main character Annie as her Alzheimer’s-related challenges grow more and more prevalent.
If you happened to see the best picture-nominated movie from 2020 called The Father starring Anthony Hopkins, it has a similar premise. Both The Father and As Long As You’re Here are the best examples I’ve yet to experience where you’re placed either directly alongside, or in this game’s case, in the mind of someone struggling with life after a dementia diagnosis.
As Annie, you’ll first find yourself sitting at a bus stop on a rainy day, unable to escape powerful but fleeting memories of your brother who passed away many years ago. You’ll view a dialogue back-and-forth from your last face-to-face conversation with him as certain lines of text vanish suddenly and sporadically from the screen to simulate your fading and inconsistent memory.
From here, you phone your daughter after the realization that you have no idea where you currently are, before being taken back to your apartment where the remainder of the experience takes place. You’ve just moved into a new unit in your daughter Elisabeth’s building, so she’s just a few staircases away whenever you need her.
The game becomes a day-by-day progression as you’re trying to focus on little tasks to keep your mind busy and operating. It’s simple things, like making coffee in the morning, watering plants, and remembering to take your medication. Of course, these are basic objectives for most, but you’ll soon find that these things are no longer as easy for you as they used to be.
Things start slowly, but the game portrays them extremely affectively. Your coffee mug won’t be where you thought you left it, or you’ll find that Elisabeth has started to leave sticky notes around your unit as basic reminders to complete your chores. You’ll notice it looks like you skipped a day or your medication. Your family is over for a meal, and you had no idea they were even there when you came into the dining room. The game does such a wonderful, yet haunting job of showing you that things are starting to slip.
The Unfortunate Downward Spiral
Since the game is so short, things do progress quickly. Still, you’ll feel the weight of each passing moment as life continues to mysteriously pass on. There are smartly used skips in time when October is suddenly December, and you’re unsure of everything in between.
I don’t want to spoil everything the game does to clue you into the progression of the disease, but it gets the point across incredibly well. Suddenly, your pill box is replaced with a single dose of medicine your daughter is seemingly setting out for you every day, with the assumption that you’ve lost the ability entirely to keep track of your proper prescription yourself. The sticky note reminders are now everywhere.
The game will also start to play tricks on you, where suddenly, the rooms of the house look different, out of time and place entirely. As the player, you’ll begin to feel just as disoriented as Annie would herself. It’s all hard to experience, but aptly executed from start to finish.
The main «goal» of the game is to finish a scrapbook family tree you’re making, with the hopes that it allows you to continue remembering your loved ones as you fight to retain your memories of them. Each little segment of the game correlates with a new family member you’ll put onto the tree, which once again, is lovely game design.
Narratively, trying to rediscover the plight of your brother, who once left home to travel across Europe in your early adulthood, is another through line. This story is doled out in tiny, but powerful snippets as you discover things like a postcard he sent you decades ago as you’re unpacking boxes in your current day apartment.
К концу игры, I genuinely feel like the perspective of someone dealing with the progression of dementia is handled phenomenally. From a technical, «Yes, I’m still reviewing a video game» point of view, there are limitations. I’m someone that plays everything with my Y-Axis inverted, and it’s not an option here. Visuals are minimalistic and a little basic, but still are more than effective and descriptive enough.
The music in the game is somber, ambient, and serves the overall tone of the game tremendously. As Long As You’re Here originally started as a student project, and you will notice it in some ways if you’re looking for critiques. But I really can’t stress enough that in the grand scheme of this type of title, everything is as spot on as it needs to be.
Волновые эффекты
While you’re playing as Annie herself, you’ll of course be able to clue into how this process is weighing on the family as well. There’s some tension between Annie’s children who might, at times, question if everyone is pulling their weight to care for her. There’s the discussion of bank statements and the ever-looming question of whether or not staying at home is the best option anymore, or if the end of everyone’s collective rope is being reached.
These are personal issues to the characters in the game, but ones that I’d imagine are essentially universal to any family going through a similar thing. If you have the experience, or have spoken to people who have, it will feel all too familiar. What developers Autoscopia Interactive have managed to present to us here is a genuine slice of life, inside look at the process of dealing with dementia on all fronts.
I will say that I do wish some things were driven home a little harder. Since the game is so short, you don’t spend too much time on any of these bigger questions and struggles that the family at large is facing. This makes sense in a way, since we’re playing as Annie herself, but the surrounding narratives of the game are still more touchstones than full-blown examinations of these extra parts of the process.
That said, there are still moments with the supporting cast of characters that land extremely powerfully. For me, these were the interactions with Annie’s grandson, Noah. He’s younger here than I personally was when my own grandmother was struggling with her diagnosis, but that did not stop me from finding myself in his character every time he was on the screen.
I’d wager that a lot of us have memories of those little, quiet moments with an older, special relative that stick with us to this day. My grandparents (likely to my parents’ chagrin) got me started on coffee when I was five years old. There’s a moment in As Long As You’re Here where Noah, with his shaggy bowl cut and glasses (just like me as a kid), is sitting around drinking coffee with Annie.
There’s the awkward question in your mind of whether Annie really even knows her grandson anymore. But it doesn’t matter. This is still a moment the two characters will have forever, dementia-altered or not. This was the part of the game that hit me the absolute hardest on a personal level, more so than any other video game has in my life. It might not be the exact same section of the game for you, but I think you’ll find yourself relating ly with someone in this game at a certain point, and it’s going to hit hard.
A Deeply Personal Story, But Only If You’re Ready
The very first screen of As Long As You’re Here is a sort of warning that, for certain people, this is going to be a difficult journey to relive. The game will ask that you only continue on with it if you feel like you’re ready to experience some of these moments again, and to consider skipping the game and taking care of yourself for now if not.
It’s this sentiment that carries throughout the rest of the game. Yes, As Long As You’re Here is going to be heavy, but it’s handled with so much care for both the players and the subject matter alike. While it’s hard to bring back up lots of these memories, it’s also a highly cathartic journey to go on if you’ve lived this already.
There’s something both validating and comforting about coming to understand that so many of life’s struggles are shared experiences with others. As humans, it’s easy to feel lonely and isolated, like you’re the only person that’s struggled with something. The truth is, we relate to one another much more ly than we tend to realize, so As Long As You’re Here is a great exercise in this reality.
The dev team included real pictures of their own loved ones in the game, so I wanted to leave off by doing the same with my own grandmother, Betty. I saw her in this entire video game, which is an absolutely insane testament to what As Long As You’re Here has created.
If she were still here, she’d want me to tell you that her faith and her family got her through all of the hard times. She’d also make you a cup of coffee and sit with you to talk for as long as you’d like; complete stranger or direct family member, it wouldn’t matter. If you take the journey, As Long As You’re Here will make you just as sentimental for someone you love.
As much as I enjoy video games, we don’t get many that I think are truly as important as this one. It will be highly personal whether or not the game elicits the same reactions out of you, but I know I won’t be alone in considering this a powerful, meaningful must-play if you’re someone that relates to the subject.
Заключительные комментарии:
As Long As You’re Here is an emotional journey to take if a loved one has ever experienced dementia. Navigating life as someone with Alzheimer’s is a difficult thing, but also something that results in what can only be described as an important, poignant video game. While I might wish some ripple effects on the main character’s family were dug into a bit more, and some extremely small dev team limitations are present in minor ways, this is a wonderful, and unfortunately all too relatable title. The subject matter is presented in creative, respectful, and effective ways, resulting in an ultimately cathartic experience, as challenging as it sometimes may be on a personal level.
Плюсы и минусы
- Incredibly emotional story, especially if you relate to the subject
- Creative and thoughtful game design
- Makes excellent use of its short runtime
- A video game that truly feels important and cathartic
- Could’ve spent more time on a couple story beats
- Missing some specific QoL options, like inverted camera controls
