For all it has accomplished to make our lives more comfortable, the internet’s done a pretty weird thing to human communication. Email, forums, chat rooms, AIM, livejournal, different stripes of social media — these services facilitate inherently disconnected dialogues for which there were few equivalent peers. The action of virtually befriending a person and then finding synergy in that relationship is a relatively new phenomenon. Inevitably, strangers in a strange land are able to find common ground.
Cibele explores an interpersonal relationship hinged-to and dependent-on an MMO RPG. While its complete development was shared between the team at Star Maid Games, Cibele also functions as an interactive autobiography of a very specific and intensely personal part of its designer’s life. Nina Freeman is Cibele’s titular character, Nina. She appears as the actress in the game’s full-motion video sequences, voices her character throughout the game, and weaves (what appears to be) years’ worth of her personal photos inside Cibele’s narrative. This is her story, and it is one of the most intimate, revealing, and affecting experiences I have had in front of a computer.
Valtameri, Cibele’s game-within-a-game, is an analog for your favorite mid-aughts MMO. No matter what particular brand of cooperative monster slayer you enjoyed, certain constants were always present. Groups would form, a leader would emerge, and acolytes would either organize for massive events or break off into smaller groups and go on routine raids. Valtameri’s authenticity is founded in how well it operates its own periphery; dialogue sounds like it was recorded straight from Ventrilo, in-game text messages raging with interpersonal gossip are not infrequent, and Valtameri’s gameplay is expectedly mundane. Games played online for excessive amounts of time are often referred to as interactive chat rooms, and it’s this distinction that Cibele embraces with Valtameri.
Interstitial FMV sequences play a role in defining Nina’s present character, but her background can be uncovered by exploring the files on her desktop. Similar to last June’s Her Story, you “play” as Nina when she’s using her PC. Taking place over the course of several months, some of the files change and reveal more about her character. Sometimes this information comes in the form of abandoned website html, and other times it’s through older pictures of Nina or archived blog entries, some from nearly ten years ago (and there was something intensely relatable about 13-year-old Nina being over the moon for Final Fantasy X-2).
Cibele is Nina’s avatar in Valtameri, and the heart of Cibele beats inside of the relationship between Cibele and Ichi. The apparent leader of her group, Ichi is initially confident and outspoken about his enthusiasm for coordinating people and planning events inside Valtameri. As the game opens, Ichi start to raid exclusively with Cibele. On the player’s end, this is manifested by clicking an avatar around a series of colorful maps while Nina and Ichi speak with each other. It’s interesting that every mission inside Valtameri tasks the players with working together to summon the dungeon boss, but, either by intent or by virtue of his avatar being AI-controlled, Ichi’s is always leading Nina along.
Watching the dynamic between Nina and Ichi grow and change is emotional core of Cibele. Innocent flirting progresses into serious discussions of love and the pursuit of a more traditional relationship. Pictures are exchanged, insecurities are revealed, and blocks are stacked so high you wish these characters weren’t going to make them fall down. We see most of Nina’s side of the story, along with advice from her friends and authentically curious (and jealous) blurbs from her pals inside Valtameri.
The voice of a singular author allows Cibele to speak from a place of imposing authenticity. So much that I could start to hear my voice in the things Ichi was saying to Nina. The way his confident exterior crumbles under the slightest bit of introspection was identical to the way I handled myself in my early 20’s. I was great at talking to people online, but socially uncomfortable when I applied myself to similar situations in real life. In social situations I didn’t have the time to seriously think about what I wanted to say, and compliments that I expressed (and meant) as genuine melted in the light of the real world. Like Ichi, my confidence exclusively existed inside an environment I could control. I had never thought about this until I played Cibele.
Cibele was charming until it came to an end. The characters decide to meet and then it smash cuts to an ending I first considered unearned and abrupt. It was shocking, but not completely unexpected. Sometimes one side doesn’t get to decide when an intimate relationship is over. Closure isn’t mutually defined. This is terrible for the characters you’ve invested in and may not make for the greatest story, but this same action propels Cibele to a different plane. I wasn’t consuming a story, I was witnessing someone’s life.
The words that follow Cibele’s conclusion reinforce this thesis. They are honest, speak of acceptance and forgiveness, and define the entire project as an unanticipated thank-you to a specific person. This almost moved me to tears.
Three times in my early-to-mid 20’s I met up with women I had befriended in an internet community. All of them proceeded to be romantic, and two of them ended reasonably. The dissolution of the third traumatically affected my personal life. What started as a simple trip to visit a friend in Japan ended with an unexpected romance. We planned an impossible future and it buckled under the weight of reality. Cibele made me think about what I said to her afterward, the bridges that I burned, and whether or not I should still find her responsible seven years after it happened. I’ve moved on, but should I still hold her actions against her? Does she still hold my words against me?
These are not the kinds of questions I usually ask (myself or anyone else) after finishing a game! Even emotionally resonant games like Journey or Papo & Yo favor speculation instead of self-reflection. Maybe this was intended with Cibele or maybe I just connected with it more, but the message from its author comes from a place of pure and brutal honesty. One of Freeman’s past games, how do you Do It, related the curiosity of sex from the perspective of a younger age. Ladylike, another of her works, toiled under verbal abuse from a mother figure. Even Freshman Year, which used an excellent combination of abstract visuals and pounding music to punctuate its monstrous climax, felt highly autobiographical. This is her skill and she is extremely good at it.
Freeman’s games are a manifestation of her experiences and functions as an artistic liberation. Emotionally connecting with her art obviously makes it more powerful, but there’s a universally interesting organization of ideas and narrative at work inside Cibele. So many games either waste or misunderstand their medium as a storytelling device while Cibele thrives inside of its own technology. By no coincidence, it’s one of the most human and relatable games, too.
