Slice of Life
Nothing has connected with me emotionally as much as Blue Wednesday. I have had my fair share of gameplay experience with visual novels. However, what struck me as extraordinary about Blue Wednesday is the simplicity of the narrative Buff Studio created.
The profound and heartening story of Blue Wednesday revolves around a struggling young piano player named Morris. However, the slice of life narrative portrays some familiar experiences you might have gone through yourself. The game explores Morris’ inner dilemma, mental health issues, his monotonous life and his need to succeed in his dream of becoming a full-fledged musician. If that sounds familiar, it’s because those are things that all of us experience in our own lives. The narrative’s ups and downs will stay with you long after you have finished this game.
Walking the Normal Life’s Path
Blue Wednesday doesn’t offer much interactive gameplay, though it does have a few mini-games. A common one is a tile-tapping game to help Morris play the piano. Other mini-games include cooking beef by making a long tap and drag motion, and sliding puzzle pieces to finish a jigsaw puzzles. These help to make the reading experience more interactive, instead of it feeling like we are merely watching events play out.
Most of the gameplay sees Morris exploring the city and talking to various NPCs. The city depicted does give me a New York vibe, and it’s regular in appearance, which is the charm of this game.
What’s So Special in It?
Interestingly, one might enjoy and play the game not for its technical merits, but for the soulful narrative one can relate to. Blue Wednesday is light-hearted in its attempt at storytelling and deep enough to leave a mark. However, it’s more about the story experience and the overall heartening message: the ordinary life. But ‘ordinary’ in the sense of a ‘slice of life’, where the gameplay isn’t about serious quest or gaining troops and allies. Not that anything is wrong with that. No. But Blue Wednesday is exactly about what the name might be suggesting: a normal, mundane Wednesday where you feel ‘a little blue’ randomly. It’s about life. And yet what we usually think is ‘mundane’ is rendered artistic, philosophical and soulful. Now that’s saying something!
Blue Wednesday is not your typical casual adventure visual novel. What it lacks in advanced gameplay, it covers in the beautiful storyline which seems inspired from ordinary lives of human beings. It shows that even the ordinary is interesting and renders a soulful note of melancholy that each of us have experienced.
Is It Hardcore?
Somewhat. To an extent, story wise.
Blue Wednesday leaves with a message: the uneventful is not as humdrum as you think. Life, the ordinary kind, is still interesting enough to be cherished.
