Afterlove EP Review

Grief isn’t a universal experience. That is, it’s something that most folks will deal with at least once in their lifetimes, but that experience can be very different for a number of reasons. Things like culture, age, relationships, even status can dramatically change how we approach, process, display and heal from grief, which is what makes stories like Afterlove EP so valuable.

This slice-of-life narrative game, created by the late Mohammad Fahmi and the team at Pikselnesia, casts players as Rama, a young Jakartan navigating life after the death of his girlfriend, Cinta.. More than a year since the tragic event, Rama’s faced with the thinning patience of his bandmates and dire financial situation as he struggles to hold his friendships, and rising indie band, together. But complicating things even more is that he continues to hear Cinta’s voice talking to him, almost constantly, and it’s a voice so vivid and convincing that he can’t be certain it’s all in his head.

Telling my grandkids this is Scott Pilgrim

I wasn’t sure what I was going to make of this story, given that I went through the loss of my Mum less than a year ago and it’s something I’ve still got uneasy feelings about. Rama can have these vivid interactions with Cinta in his mind and know exactly what she’d do or say in a given situation because of the recency and intimacy of their bond. My most recent memories of my Mum are a decade old. At her funeral I looked at the huge memorial portrait at the front of the church and it was so removed from my mental image of her that it might as well have been a photo of a stranger.

But while my history with grief might be very different from Rama’s, I was glad to discover that there’s so much more to this story and so much room for personal exploration. Taking place over the course of a month leading up to the band’s first show since the incident, there’s a choice-driven daily cycle in place not dissimilar to the social aspects of a Persona, and through this there’s a heap of scope to explore parts of Rama’s journey that aren’t about his dead girlfriend. Loss, different to grief but just as fraught, is another big factor, as is community, and love–complete with romantic routes that include queer options.

Screenshot, or Kodok Moment?

Being set in Jakarta, even in the modern day, that last point is especially potent. I felt unexpectedly and pleasantly seen by the bisexual awakening that Rama went through as part of the romantic route that I pursued. Stories of a once-straight person falling for a charming and spontaneous new friend are common enough, but rarely are these afforded the chance to explore the distinct guilt of naivety and privilege that comes with it. That’s even more true when drawn from a political and social culture that isn’t exactly supportive of queer folks, and Afterlove EP does not hold back on illustrating this. In fact, I would strongly recommend going in with some idea of the content to come, if you’re hoping to explore the queer stories within.

I can’t stress enough how refreshing and invigorating it is that one of Afterlove EP’s frequent activity options is to take Rama to therapy, and that the therapy segments are actually convincing reflections on the events leading up to them—it’s easy to sympathise and side with Rama as our lead and player avatar, but his therapist, Dr. Santi does a great job of challenging his actions and feelings. These bits genuinely helped me to better discern and interpret what I was seeing and playing, and in a strange way felt like a hint system for comprehending the text. (Are therapists just a hint system for life?? Oh no.)

Satria is a precious angel who has never done anything wrong

The player-driven nature of the story here does betray it somewhat, though. The framework here just isn’t strong enough to support the many possible threads and keep the core of Rama’s healing journey and musical aspirations. While I was enamoured with my path toward queer romance with the hot record store manager, I ended up somewhat blindsided by a hard turn back to the story proper right at the tail end. I can’t say how much of that comes down to how I played or whether it’s true of other routes, but the end result was an ending that felt unearned and at odds with what I was trying to get from it. There are multiple, really great stories here, they’re just not woven together as deftly as I’d have liked them to be.

The thing is, the more I played, and the more I came to understand what this game is about, the harder it became to think about it critically—which isn’t the way it usually goes. Spending time with Rama and his bandmates in particular, with him baring his soul in new and very personal compositions but failing to strike a chord with the rest of Sigmond Feud, gave me pause. When a piece of art comes from a place so obviously personal, and means this much to the artist, does that shift the bounds of critique? When drawing a conclusion on what art is “good” or “bad” is already so difficult, how do we decide how much space to give to the latter?

“Sorry I just woke up” will be written on my grave

These are questions I wasn’t expecting to ask myself while playing a game that’s, at least on the surface, about love and loss, but then I can’t think of two bigger sources of artistic inspiration. It had me introspecting far more than most games do. I thought about my relationships with people, with grief, with art and my consumption and critique of it, with culture and honestly just with myself. And, as straightforward and flawed a game as this is, all of that is what makes this a fantastic piece of art. 

Afterlove EP is also the last to release in a distinct trio of sort-of similar indie titles over the past couple of years, at least ones that have caught my attention, following We Are OFK and Goodbye Volcano High. Like those, the narrative stuff here is complemented by occasional musical performances turned into rhythm game sections, though unfortunately this is probably the weakest of the bunch in that area. The songs are great—a collection of original indie/emo/post-rock joints written by Indonesian band, L’Alphalpha, for this game—but the very basic and forgiving button-matching play makes them feel like too much of a chore. You can set them to auto-play though, which was honestly my preference.

Not quite what I had in mind when they said “playing the triangle”

The indie/city pop vibe of the general soundtrack as you traipse around Jakarta is also a great complement to the overall aesthetic. It’s not just music that developer Pikselnesia has tapped some fantastic local Indonesian talent for, with manga artist, Soyatu, responsible for the game’s hand-drawn 2D presentation. I’m especially impressed with how well Afterlove EP pulls together different visual layers, switching between fully-realised backdrops, simple text boxes, comic panel sequences, full animation and musical moments in a way that’s consistently cohesive and easy to parse. Cinta’s dialogue being separated visually and being the only voiced speech in the game is also a masterful move.

Final Thoughts

I’m going to be honest with you, dear reader. I’ve gotten this far and I still don’t think I’ve fully reckoned with my feelings on Afterlove EP. But that’s… okay? A game like this will always be different things to different people, and although my experience of it showed that the ambition and the execution are a little at odds, there’s an admirable intent here toward that outcome. This might be a piece of art about grief, from a creator that the world sadly lost before its completion, but it’s got so much to say and to offer beyond that.

Reviewed on PS5. Review code supplied by publisher.

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