SPIRITFARER

On the 19th of April 2024 my wife of 17+ years was on her deathbed at only 37 years old. She was dying of cancer and there was nothing to be done about it.

She told me to play this game when I would be ready, because it would help me. She was gone less than 12 hours later.

More than 2 years later, I finally play the game and the first spirit I take to the everdoor has me bawling my eyes out.

Last night I finally find out what the game is about and I feel like I have to process it before I can continue further, almost finished.

This is why she wanted me to play it, she knew

Miss her every day still <3

Heartbreaking game, in a good way. I haven't been in a good spot over the past few years and lately my life has been crambling into small pieces, one thing after another. I sort of lost any hope lately and see no purpose in going forward anymore. I've been finding comfort in the characters this game provides, and it has been helping me to go through things I thought I was not capable of dealing with. It hits a lot of spots, bad ones, good ones. But it's a truly great experience to go through.

I don't think I've ever played a game that understood grief this gently.

Over the years I've lost my dad and my brother, and today I'm also a caregiver for my mom. I wasn't expecting a cozy management game to affect me the way this one did, but it absolutely wrecked me... in the best possible way.

Spiritfarer doesn't tell you to "move on." Instead, it quietly teaches acceptance, gratitude, and how love can remain even after saying goodbye.

And the soundtrack... it's simply beautiful. Even months later, hearing certain songs brings me right back to the moments I shared with these unforgettable characters.

This isn't just one of my favorite games.

It's one of the most meaningful experiences I've ever had.

Thank you, Thunder Lotus.

this game was so fun and so hard to play, not due to difficulty, but because it's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ devastating. i had to quit several times because i had to cry every time i have to let someone go. it tackles death, acceptance and moving on really well. i couldn't bear to finish the game but i pushed through because the core message IS letting go. i'll never forget this game anytime soon and i really don't think i can replay this at all.

I went into this game initially with the wrong mindset... I was not prepared for what came next. I bought it because it was cheap and I was like heck, a building game for a ship? That's kind of cool.
At the start I played it like any other building games and minmaxed the farm and made a bunch of moneys to upgrade, thinking that is how I do well in the game. When eveyone started joining me, the desire to keep making money and building better upgrades for them felt like a challenge. Then everything happened when I took Gwen to the Everdoor for the first time... Then several followed... Atul disappearing broke me, I found Atul quite loud and didn't like him initially, but when he started looking out for everyone and the just vanishing...
I found myself stop tending the farm and I just started chatting to them and helping them process it. Each trip to the Everdoor felt like a heartbreak. But to see them find peace on the last leg felt warm.
Now I know these characters aren't real, but this game has captured essence that made it relatable. And in a way, it has help me process the way I perceived death. I really didn't expect a small singleplayer game I bought during Steam sale to resonate with me that hard. To this day, I still listen to the Last Voyage soundtrack and it makes me think about life and how everything eventually ends, but instead of fear and sadness, I feel warmth.
Thank you for this game

Spiritfarer is a game about processing and understanding your feelings around death. Anyone's death, everyone's death really - a friend's, family member's, acquaintance's, even your own. It addresses mortality in a way that few other pieces of media ever have by offering an examination of it and the complex emotions that arise surrounding it.
I have significant difficulty allowing myself to experience feelings of grief, tending to slip into numbness instead. When I first played this some three or so years ago, I'd already lost all of my grandparents, left behind my hometown and the friends I'd made there, and grown estranged from my family.
Spiritfarer allowed me to actually touch on what that meant to me.
It let me be something other than the bland and beige 'okay' that normally covers up more complex emotions and pushed me to find a personal sense of closure on those chapters of my life that were cut short. I cried for the first time in what felt like years until my eyes ran dry and then actually started looking at my daily life, started making steps towards improving how I lived and practicing a mindful appreciation of the small things.
Of course all of that is to say that the writing, art direction, and music are excellent and evoke powerful emotions from me personally.
I have seen and heard others criticize the pacing and minutiae of the gameplay, and on some level I can understand that - they certainly won't be to everyone's tastes, but I found the repetition and simple goal oriented tasks to be engrossing in a way that encouraged deeper thought as I went through the motions - they parallel the way in which, how after a loss, you still need to get up and make yourself something to eat and have a bath and otherwise move through the motions of living.
This game takes you by the hand and very gently reminds you that death - past, present, or future, is no reason not to go on with life, and in fact is a reason to do so. It tells you that everything ends, and while that is tragic, it also means you should go see and experience it while it's here - while you're here.
I recommend this game highly with the caveat that you should be ready to dredge up a lot of deeply uncomfortable feelings and face them head on. It may do so about as gently as you could possibly hope for, but this game will make you think about death in depth and you should be ready for that when you play it.
I recommend playing it in bursts over an extended period, taking time between sessions to meditate and process before going back for more. It can be overwhelming otherwise.

I... I don't really know what to say here. I'm in tears after finishing the game. In most games, your friends (and yourself) don't really get a choice on when they die. It just happens, and you restart or move on. Here, you have to CHOOSE to let them go. To let yourself go. And god, I've never done anything tougher. How do you leave a world you've spent forty, fifty hours in go? How do you say, "Well, I guess this is it?" This game asks that question. It forces you to let your friends leave, after truly learning about them and loving them, because it's what they want. It's what's best.

I think, going forward, my life is forever changed. I get attached to characters so easily, and for a while, I refused to finish my final task. How could I? But, well. I did. And I think that now, maybe it'll become a little easier to let others go. Because I've had to do it, and I've come out alright.

If there's one thing I could say to anyone thinking about playing this game... DO IT. Sink hours into it. Complete every quest, every shenanigan, every achievement. Let yourself love the characters, and grapple with letting them go. I think the morals and lessons from this game is one everyone needs to hear.

To Thunder Lotus, thank you for making this game, and allowing us all a safe space to learn to process grief.