Jusant: between introspection and emotional elegance
In maritime terminology, jusant refers to the ebb tide. The sea level becomes very low as the water recedes from the coast, making it difficult for boats to dock. Caused by the gravitational pull of the Moon and Sun on the oceans, this natural phenomenon is the central theme of the video game of the same name, Jusant.
Developed and published by Don’t Nod Entertainment, Jusant will be released on October 31, 2023, and puts us in the shoes of a character who sets out to conquer the heights of a gigantic tower carved into the mountain. At the foot of this immense structure, a graveyard of boats blends into the arid, desert-like environment. The ocean receded some time ago, the echo of the waves now distant. All that remains is the wind, the drought, and the harsh light of the sun’s rays.
Here, it’s not a question of fighting hordes of enemies populating each floor of the tower, but rather of climbing it using rudimentary equipment.
With a third-person camera view, the game allows us to explore every layer and corner of this mountain, sculpted and developed by inhabitants who have deserted the place. The lore will be revealed as we climb, gradually lifting the mystery surrounding this low tide.
Although water is not very present in the game, its symbolism will be at the very heart of the quest of the character we control. The game’s staging, both sober and subdued, will tirelessly remind us of this reality that seems almost immutable: the fatality of the absence of this element essential to all forms of life.
Personification through the avatar
The opening scenes of the game introduce us to this desert landscape, in the middle of which ships are stranded as far as the eye can see. Heading towards the huge rock tower, a character appears to us from the side, then from the front, walking slowly on the sand. Dressed in a black cape, with short hair tinged with purple hues and strange white glasses that we guess protect them from the sun’s burning rays, their steps are determined. Their face is impassive, revealing no emotion.
Throughout the adventure, our protagonist will not speak, but will allow us to guess their feelings through a few facial expressions. It is as if his quest is enough in itself. A quest for meaning, almost transcendental.
Furthermore, it is impossible to know his sex or gender. Part of the raw beauty of Jusant makes us immediately realize, in a purely philosophical way, that we can all embody this character. The feeling of belonging is exactly the same after a few hours of play. By freeing ourselves from a binary, gendered representation of the avatar, we are given the opportunity, as players, to blend more naturally into the body of our virtual double.
It’s a beautiful way to understand the personification and extension of our virtual double.
Gameplay that becomes one with the player
Back to the story. A wide shot shows our protagonist, now tiny, seemingly crushed by the silhouette of the tower. The letters that make up the word Jusant appear on the screen. After a mini narrative ellipsis that places us directly on one of the first slopes of the mountain, a few meters above sea level, we take control of the character.
Jusant’s gameplay is intuitive and easy to access. In fact, the first climb up a small section of cliff happens naturally, gently teaching us the basics of climbing. By pressing L2 or R2, the character automatically secures himself with a blue rope, which he takes out of a yellow bag attached to his left side and attaches to a hook.
The L2 and R2 buttons are associated with the character’s left and right hands respectively, so they will simultaneously grab the first wall hold that one of their hands can reach.
To start climbing, you’ll need to alternate between pressing the L2 and R2 buttons, holding one button to grab a hold and then releasing the other to let go. To reach the next hold, you’ll need to use the left stick to control the angle of the hand. By alternating between L2, left stick, R2, left stick, L2, and so on, climbing quickly becomes intuitive. To complete our equipment and facilitate our progress on steep paths, the character has three pitons. Serving as intermediate anchor points, simply press the “square” button to plant them in the rock. Once you reach the top of a slope, the “circle” button will allow you to rewind the blue rope and retrieve the three pitons.
In addition to managing our equipment, we will need to make sure that our climber can catch his breath after successive strenuous efforts. An endurance gauge will gradually empty.
An endurance gauge will gradually empty depending on the difficulty of the action to be performed. It’s up to you to place the pitons in the right places to let the character breathe and rest. By holding down the left stick L3, the endurance bar will slowly recharge.
The basics of gameplay are now in place. Simple and effective!
By choosing a rudimentary but logical approach, the gameplay creates a symbiosis between the controller’s controls and our perceptions. Our subconscious will instinctively associate each button on the pad with a movement of a part of our protagonist’s body, but also with a technical climbing move, at least in our imagination. As players, we more easily become one with the avatar, its movements, its breath, its rhythm, reinforcing its personification.
Charlie Chaplin said « Art is an extra emotion added to a skillful technique ».
In Jusant, the controller knows how to make itself forgotten through gameplay designed to be instinctive, natural, and spontaneous. Skillful technique is used to serve an interactive art form that stimulates our empathy (or aversion, but that’s rarer) for the characters we control.
On the other hand, as we will see later, the character’s quest is noble, or at least perceived as such in our collective imagination. We are more likely to believe in our climber, feeling close to them and their motivations.
Varuna and Mitra: Together on an Essential Mission
At the very end of the first chapter of Jusant, the player will meet a pastel blue creature, about the size of a kitten (or puppy). In a close-up shot, we see this little creature poking its head out of a large red shell that the character carries strapped to their back. Half asleep, its small ebony eyes quickly open to the sunlight. With a small, controlled leap, it will perch on our protagonist’s shoulder, who will offer the palm of their hand for it to settle on. Reaching out their arm, our avatar will invite the little companion to look into their eyes. This moment of fleeting complicity will be enough for the little creature to understand its role.
At the end of each chapter, our character will have to blow into a huge horn, while the little creature concentrates on emitting an azure wave. The two actions, performed in concert, will have the effect of restarting gigantic stone structures that will be tinged with luminescent blue symbols, releasing what appears to be water vapor.
Together, we understand that their basic and fundamental mission will be to bring water back and breathe life back into this tower.
To echo this precious element, and in order to refer to them more easily, I will name the avatar and his little companion Varuna and Mitra, respectively. With the role of watching over truth and the course of the world, Varuna and Mitra are the origin of Indo-Iranian deities, also associated with the liquid element when it is found in large quantities (rivers, lakes, oceans, rain, etc.). What could be more logical than associating them with our characters ?
Emotional design: a strong bond with the characters
Far from being just a cute companion, Mitra will support us throughout our adventure. By pressing the up arrow on your controller, he will emit a small wave that releases tiny particles of water. This will cause wall plants to grow, allowing us to climb even higher, call fireflies to carry us up with them, illuminate strange ancestral paintings, or locate the next objective to follow. The left arrow on the pad allows you to interact directly with our little Mitra, making him jump into your hands, petting him, and taking care of him. Even when you’re not trying to communicate with him, he will regularly let out little cries reminiscent of kittens meowing or puppies barking.
By skillfully blending engaging gameplay interactions and fleeting moments of tenderness, a strong bond of attachment will gradually form between the player and this little creature. These moments of complicity will be all the more powerful if you are lucky enough to have a pet by your side.
Without realizing it, you climb with Mitra’s help, in symbiosis with him, exchanging simple, fleeting, knowing glances. Gradually, an emotional transfer can take place, reminiscent of the human-animal relationships we experience in our own lives.
In her book “How Games Move Us,” Katherine Isbister, an American researcher and designer specializing in human-computer interaction and game design, explains how certain gaming experiences manage to stimulate our emotions. Through targeted game design mechanics, the player’s engagement is stimulated, causing predefined emotional peaks. This is known as emotional design.
By infusing these little game design tricks into the narrative, music, and gameplay, it is possible to create immersive experiences filled with strong emotional resonance, which can sometimes differ from one player to another.
In Jusant, emotional design is everywhere. Scattered in small touches, it first invites us to become one with Varuna, then to develop a special bond with Mitra.
In an indescribable way, through simple interactions, echoing our personal experiences.
Varuna and Mitra then become channels of emotional interaction for the player. We feel their sensibilities, intertwined with our own feelings, resulting in degrees of deep emotional assimilation, sometimes disturbing, sometimes stimulating.
The relationship is experienced as symbiotic, in an understanding beyond words.
Symbolism of visuals and sound: in an eternal quest for meaning
In Jusant, visual identity, color symbolism, and the use of music are important, not only for immersing players and engaging them emotionally, but also for helping them understand the issues at stake in the adventure. They help to immerse us in a state of well-being, contemplation, meditation, but also reflection on contemporary issues, such as the preservation of our environment.
From the start of the game, the few objects we find along the way directly reference maritime imagery: small boats washed up on the shore, various anchors, fishing nets, shells, corals, etc. Very quickly, we discover unoccupied houses carved into the mountain rock. The front doors, some of which have portholes, are reminiscent of those found on boats. The materials used, such as wood and stone, reflect a simple and functional architecture. Inside, fishing rods, reels, floats, and hooks reflect a lifestyle centered on the sea. Notes written by the former occupants, scattered here and there in these living spaces, can be read and provide insight into this small, seemingly self-managed society. There is a restaurant, a school, a sawmill, and repair shops where shipwrecks are repaired and dismantled to make ladders, scaffolding, and more. Our ascent of the mountain will be punctuated by short climbing sessions, where we will progress on fishing nets attached to the rock faces and scaffolding made of wooden planks.
An indescribable blend of calm and melancholy, the music of Jusant, composed by Guillaume Ferran (a Parisian pianist, composer, and producer), punctuates carefully chosen moments, sometimes inspiring introspection, sometimes sadness in the player. The discovery of the first house we come across on our journey is a perfect illustration of this. As soon as we enter, subtle piano notes can be heard. Captivating, they instantly envelop us in an elegant softness. Climbing a small wooden staircase, we find ourselves on the balcony of the house. Beneath our feet, a feeling of vertigo overwhelms us. On the horizon and below, a milky landscape stretches as far as the eye can see, dotted with clusters of rocks like clouds in the sky. Looking up, the immensity of the mountain seems to crush us, and we struggle to make out even the slightest hint of a summit. We are only at the beginning of this climb, and it is already time to leave.
These little moments, suspended in time, will regularly punctuate your adventure.
Much like these shells, pure elements of sound design, which Varuna finds in every place that characterizes an important living space. Held to her ear, these shells emit sounds that capture the atmosphere of these spaces. Children’s laughter, cries of joy sketching a soundscape reminiscent of a school, the hammering or creaking of wooden planks suggesting a boat repair shop… This environmental musicality will spark our imagination, immersing us more deeply in the unique atmosphere of Jusant and helping us to piece together the lore of the game and the history of its inhabitants.
Unconsciously, a connection is established between the player and the environment being explored. Through a multitude of details focused on the visual and auditory universe of the sea and the lifestyles that stem from it, Jusant prepares us for a stronger personal involvement. An indescribable and progressive feeling of melancholy, provided we are even slightly receptive to maritime visual and auditory aesthetics.
For Carl Gustav Jung, thinker and founder of analytical psychology, the sea is an allegory for the collective unconscious. Through it, through contemplating it, through our desire to dive into it, a feeling of harmony is created between the “self” and the collective unconscious.
The symbolism of the sea, of the ocean, is also that of water, of the unknown, of the depths. It is about confronting ourselves, our fears and our hopes, in a quest for primordial meaning.
A quest for meaning for Varuna and Mitra, but one that also becomes ours as we embark on an adventure alongside them.
If we now turn our attention to its artistic direction, Jusant will lull us with shades that lean mainly toward blue and yellow. Blue can be found on the bodies of our protagonists. Varuna, whose tattoos turn luminescent blue when he blows into a horn to revive a monument. Mitra, who seems to be composed solely of the element of water, and who emits small particles of it when he concentrates. Blue is omnipresent on the doors of houses, on decorative elements, on the coral that litters the ground…
Blue also envelops elements of game design, such as the glyphs that light up in blue when a monument has been revived, signifying the end of a chapter, and the rope we use to climb any surface… Incidentally, Varuna stores his blue rope in a yellow bag.
The final scene, which I won’t reveal here, has a unique color scheme, bathed entirely in a blue that oscillates between turquoise and cerulean as the adventure draws to a close. This inevitably evokes the seabed, the abyss, its immensity, and the deep melancholy that can emanate from it.
The color yellow, meanwhile, can be found in the sunlight reflecting off the rocky walls we walk along, in the light from the lamps that illuminate our path, on the wooden planks we tread on…
Sheltered by caves carved into the mountain, the colors change as we progress. Coral and mushrooms of various shapes, ranging from blue to sparkling yellow, light up the passage of Varuna and Mitra. The same is true of the murals we interact with, which change from yellow to blue.
In the 20th century, Pablo Picasso used the color blue to infuse deep and melancholic emotions, such as sadness or loneliness. For Yves Klein, a French artist of the same period, blue represents infinity, immensity, and the expression of the human soul.
In psychology, blue is soothing, reducing stress and calming the mind. It can invoke serenity and confidence, depending on the shades used. It encourages introspection.
The color yellow, meanwhile, embodies an intense duality that has been expressed particularly strongly in Western art. It symbolizes divine light in the work of Italian painter Fra Angelico, but also madness in that of Francisco de Goya and Vincent Van Gogh. It has a powerful dual meaning, evoking both nobility and decadence.
In Jusant, blue and yellow are the dominant colors, reinforcing this constant ambivalence. Blue tends to immerse the player in a state of well-being and serenity, encouraging us to climb ever higher, confidently alongside little Mitra. It is an introspective ascent, inviting us to resonate with the characters we control.
Yellow reminds us of sunlight, but also of the drought caused by the disappearance of water in the game. Too much yellow can therefore generate anxiety or counterbalance the calming effect of blue. It echoes our unconscious reaction to the climate change affecting our real world.
Through its artistic direction and visual identity, Jusant places the player in a fluctuating emotional state, inherent to our own human perceptions.
While the gameplay encourages us to become one with the character we control, the symbolism of its visuals draws us into a whirlwind of emotions that touch on the intimate, on our values as conscious beings. It strikes a subtle balance between basic concepts and the power of their evocation.
We enjoy embodying Varuna, both in her relationship with little Mitra and in her fundamental quest to restore a degraded ecosystem.
Beyond emotions: towards a form of intimacy
As we have just seen, Jusant invites us to experience the characters and their stories through the prism of its themes, gameplay, artistic direction, music, and game design. For a few hours, we embody much more than a simple avatar, but an allegorical projection of the intentions of the characters we control.
Through their raison d’être in the game’s lore, we embody humanity, some of its ideals, but also ourselves. Our reason, our heart, our feelings, our emotions, resonating with our subjectivity, our history, our journey. A kind of projection of the avatar’s image through the extension of the self.
Whatever type of player you are, you will experience and feel Jusant differently, depending on various factors that surround you, that you experience, and that define you in the moment.
If a gaming experience offers its own definition and grammar inherent to the genre to which it belongs, the same is true for our emotions. They belong to us, and thanks to them, we are constantly and unconsciously shaping the contours of our emotional DNA. This is what I call the embodiment of feelings, of our feelings, intrinsic to what we experience. We are what we feel at a given moment in our lives.
Thanks to the additional interactive engagement it offers in relation to other art forms, video games can sometimes touch on something deeply personal. That’s what happened to me when I played Jusant, for two completely different reasons.
The first was my perception of climbing a tower or a mountain, which I liken to a powerful, ever-evolving personal journey. What moved me while playing Jusant was being able to embody a projection of my personal thoughts, in correlation with my desires at that moment.
Climbing this tower, with its simple but intuitive gameplay and understated but engaging game design, gradually immersed me in a contemplative and meditative state. In my personal life, I always try to question my surroundings, to rise above the pre-established patterns imposed on us from birth, to find nuance in every situation. For me, playing Jusant symbolized, for a few hours, a space for reflection on my personal and professional journey. It was a tiny part of the process of reclaiming my true self, but isn’t it the sum of these moments that defines us?
Frederic Nietzsche wrote « I am that which is compelled to overcome itself infinitely ».
This is a truth that I strive to attain, but which naturally leads me to constantly question meaning.
Spoiler alert for this last part, as I will be discussing the end of the game.
The second reason is closely linked to the game design mechanics used to bring Mitra to life, which helped to forge an emotional bond, albeit a fictional one, with this little blue creature. This bond strongly reminded me of the one I feel in my daily life with my little cat Willow.
When a relationship of mutual trust develops with an animal, the connection can sometimes be very strong. Beyond words, beyond the intelligible, in small gestures and glances. We take care of this being, just as it can take care of us, through its presence and its unconditional, unwavering love.
At the end of Tide, we learn that Mitra is none other than a baby ballast, a celestial, stellar creature whose primary purpose is to preserve the natural balance through the element that makes up its own body: water.
We understand that Mitra’s short life has come to an end, and that the animal must die so that torrents of water can fall on this arid land and bring hope back to life.
A necessary sacrifice, but one that I experienced as a player in a direct and painful way. My sobs directly echoed those shed when Arrietty, a cat who had been part of my life for a while, left me a few years ago.
When a beloved animal passes away, a part of our soul withers away, but will eventually grow stronger with time. A small being that will be part of us, part of our history, until our last breath. An indelible mark, both powerful and peaceful.
In this regard, I dedicate these few words to you, my Arrietty, my favorite little thief. Rest in peace.
And you, what emotions did you feel while playing Tide? Feel free to share them with me in the comments, I would be happy to discuss them with you.
Sources
Katherine Isbister, How games move us, Emotion by design, Playful Thinking, 2017
Le symbolisme de la mer et de l’océan :
https://www.jepense.org/symbolisme-de-la-mer/
Le bleu dans l’art :
https://lespritbleu.com/lhistoire-du-bleu-de-la-couleur-au-symbole/
Histoire et symbolique du Bleu :
https://www.nathaliebore-design.com/post/histoire-et-symbolique-du-bleu
La Couleur Jaune : Signification et Symbolisme :
https://www.artinsolite.com/post/la-couleur-jaune-signification-et-symbolisme
Animal d’accordage, y es-tu ? :
https://shs.cairn.info/revue-spirale-2016-1-page-75?lang=fr
Patrimoine Spirituel de l’Humanité : Les citations de Frederic Nietzsche :
https://www.onelittleangel.com/sagesse/citations/saint.asp?mc=88