Let's Talk About Sumire: Indie Game Storytelling at its Finest

Sumire is an indie adventure game by GameTomo, a developer and publisher who has worked on games such as and . In the game, you control Sumire, a young girl who is struggling with multiple difficulties in her life, issues that reflect what many of us go through in the real world. Suddenly, a floating talking flower comes into her life and encourages her to step out of her house and face her issues head-on.

The premise of Sumire is beautifully simple: you have one day to change the protagonist's life for the better.

This Slogging thread by Limarc Ambalina and Nicolas Ng occurred in slogging's official #gaming channel, and has been edited for readability.Let's Talk About Sumire: Nicolas Ng first thoughts?😮

Very raw, credits ended 5 minutes ago.

It's uh 0ehrfoiuof

Like...it...it's a very...real and sincere look at relationships. And people. I think

It's delicate while never shying away with what it is trying to sayYes I'd say that it is able to cover a wide range of realistic issues many of us will go through in life in some shape or form. And thus you can relate to at least one issue with relationships the protagonist faces throughout the game.Yeah, just about every bit of it is relatable. And it really got me thinking about life, which is not something that happens often when I gameAre we talking spoilers here?Let's try not to.What did you think of the art style?The art style and music sell the game. The game itself isn't any mind-bending story and the mechanics are as simple as they come but despite that, the art perfectly conveys the tone of what is happening with the music making the right atmosphereI agree and when you say the story isn’t mind-bending, I think that is what is special about it. Sumire doesn’t use time travel, fantasy, scifi, or any other major genre elements.Instead, it uses the biggest canvas of all: real life. Instead of metaphors symbolizing things most people go through at some point, it tackles those issues head on and the story is built around real struggles youths, parents, and grandparents go through in real lifeWhich is why it hits so close to home for many of usNicolas Ng what'd you think about the gameplay itself?Indeed, the story's strength is its simplicity and relatability. Everything that Sumire goes through is something that we've experienced in our own lives in one form or another.Gameplay-wise, it's really not exciting and I found the movement quite clunky. It was certainly annoying at some points. I did appreciate the variety in minigames, though. Those really broke up the usual walk here and talk to them sort of gameplayWalking was definitely clunky especially in the beginning. But once you understand the physics of the world and where you can and can't walk it's quite simple. It is an indie game so I understand their limitations but I thought they worked with them well. Being a Japanese dev company, I think they were going for an art style and world that mimicked Japanese pop up paper art like thisOr perhaps even a paper theater ambianceOne thing I did love about the game was the music . You can hear some of it in this trailer