Sunset

When I loaded up Sunset for the first time, I wasn't really sure what to expect. I backed it on Kickstarter some time ago, and promptly forgot about it until I got an email that it had been released. I knew the concept - set in a South American country in 1972, play as the cleaner of a powerful man (Gabriel Ortega) and influence your relationship with him through how you approach your tasks, all in the days and months following a military coup. Having not finished the game yet, I wanted to note down some thoughts from my first play session while they're still fresh in my mind. I don't intend to go into much detail regarding the story or anything here - most of it would be spoilers anyway, given that your experiences, choices, and reactions to the events that happen is what the game is all about.

Further details of your character - Angela Burnes - are quickly established in the first few days. As a Black woman raised in Baltimore, who emigrated to the fictional country of Anchuria to become an engineer, Angela is educated, culturally aware and possessed of strong opinions. As you walk around the apartment and observe things, you see what she's thinking. Most of the interactions that you have with the environment, particularly relating to your given tasks for the day, can be accomplished either 'warmly' or 'coolly', which as the game explains generally lean towards building a more romantic connection with your boss Ortega or a more neutral one - though the details of these choices are often more nuanced than that warm/cool breakdown would suggest. In my current playthrough I've been following the game's advice and sort of role-playing Angela, leading to a mix of warm and cool choices. I'm curious about how the game will end, and I'll be very interested to replay the game and see how going very strongly in one direction might change how things play out.

The apartment begins almost entirely unfurnished and devoid of any sense of life, but that quickly changes. Your decisions will affect how it comes together, and it didn't take long for me to feel a connection with the place. Each day gives you an hour to do your job before sunset arrives and you have to leave, which lasts 30 minutes in real time. Performing certain tasks will use up some of this time, and while sitting down anywhere time will pass faster (this mainly comes into play when sat in Ortega's easy chair, which inspires Angela to write in her diary). I found this provided a perfect mix of 'lazy days' where you could finish your tasks quickly and explore the house a bit, and busier ones where you had to limit your visits to your favourite places to see if anything changed.

You can't always explore every part of the house - different parts are blocked by security doors on different days. It's a little gamey perhaps, but it keeps things manageable on that 30 minute time limit. It also stops you feeling like you have to tramp around the whole apartment every day to make sure you didn't miss something. Normally I fall into a bit of a completionist mindset in games, but here I didn't mind that I knew I missed some things, running out of time to act on them. There's a real sense of place if you're willing to lose yourself, and put aside the action trigger highlights and other game interface necessities. Take a moment to sit down somewhere, maybe that easy chair, and consider Angela's thoughts.

As more days have passed in Anchuria, I've increasingly grown a sense of the country, the people, the capital city where you live, and the important characters influencing it all, guided by Angela and the details of the apartment together. Even if the ending proves disappointing or replays aren't as enthralling, it'll have been worth buying the game just for what I've played so far. For me, the moments after putting a record on, the music booming from Ortega's huge sound system, and reading as Angela writes in her diary, or just walking the house looking at book titles - I've not felt anything quite so strongly in a game before. I could complain about sometimes clunky controls or a few minor irritants, but the important parts of the game - the meaningful parts - have just captured me totally, in a way I didn't expect based on the first couple of days. A beautiful game.