Trabia Garden

pauraque made a post about Until Then that tempted me into checking it out. I'm so glad I did; I loved it immediately. I can never resist a story about well-meaning teenagers with memory issues making bad decisions and having terrible mental breakdowns.

Until Then is an adventure game, set (and created) in the Philippines. It's a coming-of-age story about love and grief, letting go and being left behind. It feels a little like a blend of Life Is Strange and Night in the Woods.

Early in Until Then, the protagonist needs to plug a USB drive into a laptop. I tried to plug the drive in, failed, flipped it over, realised I was trying to plug it into the wrong place, moved to the actual USB socket, tried to plug it in again, failed, flipped it over again and finally succeeded.

Forget photorealistic graphics; this is true realism in videogames.

Beneath the cut: full spoilers for Until Then. As a heads-up, I get a little bit personal here.


( Full spoilers for Until Then. )


I recommend Until Then enthusiastically to fans of games like Life Is Strange, Night in the Woods, Oxenfree and possibly Higurashi: When They Cry: anything linear and story-focused with minimal gameplay and maximal Teenagers Having a Bad Time. It's available on PS5 and Steam; the gameplay mainly just consists of walking and talking, with occasional minigames that you can win or lose without affecting story progression.

If you'd like a little preview of how Until Then looks and plays, the animation YouTube channel New Frame Plus features it for a couple of minutes in the video 'The Best Game Animation of 2024', starting around 12m10s. It's a real gem of a game, and I think it should be better known!