SIRE

Unique work of art. Resonates with grieve I have experienced.

Saw this at the Amaze this year, and just bought it because I thought it looked neat. SIRE is a card-based auto-biographical narrative around the protagonist travelling to Cambodia after his father's death and about him confronting this passing and his relationship to his father. Mechanically you play through various scenes and memories by dragging cards on top of each other to interact with the environment, e.g. dragging the "hand" card onto the "bag" card to search through your bag, and so on. I found that this mechanic was used in really varied ways, and each scene felt distinct, and like it had its own pace, stakes, and tensions, and not like the same kind of scene 15 times in a row. Additionally, I felt like the developer found a lot of ways to structure scenes, without the mechanic starting to overstay it's welcome. If this had been a 5 hour game, this form of interaction probably would have gotten tedious. I found the story itself really touching and personal. It's hard to give "critique" for an autobiographical story, so what I mostly want to say is that I found it really powerful to immortalise one's father and parts of his artwork in a game in this way, as a person who one both loved and resented. Though as a woman, there were one or two lines in the game I found a bit icky. One thing I found a bit odd about the game was the choice to be so stylistically close to Cultist Simulator. Not just in the mechanic of placing cards on the table, but the colours, atmosphere, and the character art style are clearly taken from the Weather Factory games, which felt a bit... derivative and like an odd choice to me, given how personal the actual contents of the game were. The developer could have even taken the style of his father's artworks, or do anything like that. Additionally, while this was a good and impactful story, it just didn't resonate with me as strongly as other games have done over the years, which is a completely subjective opinion, probably because our lived realities are just very different. There is nothing really "revolutionary" going on in this game, but that's also not what a game as personal as this has to do.

Here's the review of this game I did as a member of the 2026 A MAZE selection comitee --- I really liked the mechanic of putting cards of entities i own (head, eyes, body) onto objects in my surrounding (table, passengers, doors). It really made me feel sluggish and fragmented, as if only part of my body had the energy to do some action, and that said action was not a unanimously good idea for the rest of the entities I owned. There was great ludonarrative consistency there because the written narration was completely aligned in how the gameplay made us feel. That is rare to see well-executed and I salute that. The artistic direction was really on point. There was some attention to detail, and most importantly it was intentional, the visuals and sound designed was supporting the tone of the narration. It was not just pretty because Lefferts knew how to, but because seemed to give a precisely vintage and Disco Elysium-esque tone to the story. Lefferts also knows how to do one thing well, and it's writing beautifully. The game is obviously not perfect: it gets repetitive after a while, and the storyline gets a bit muddy, and it's also not as non-linear as it appears to be, but overall it's not only a good game, it's a daring and uncommon game.

Quite the narrative experience this one is. I loved the playful way of interacting with all the different elements to unravel the story and oneliners as well as the bus driver that definitely didn't wan't my hug. Playful and introspective at the same time. To me the entwined memories with reallife footage and letters hit close to home and compelled me to search for them. They offer a profound peek into the storyteller's life, such as the letter from the father. It is a very intimate piece of history shared with me that makes me feel very connected and a very strange voyeur being given the admission into this life's story. Experience it!

Sire is a short yet deep game. When you finish it, you get the same feeling as finding a childhood object you had forgotten in a dusty box. The writing is excellent and the card-based gameplay is intuitive and dynamic. I had only seen this kind of design in Cult Simulator, and I admit it had never really won me over. In this game, though, it’s used incredibly well. It’s engaging and gives you the sensation of actively moving through the experience. Highly recommended!

Despite my father being the polar opposite and my journey to the funeral being accompanied with differnt emotions did this game help me with my griefing process. The vulnerability through the real-life footage, interspersed with poetry written about the relationship of father and child, has a way of reflecting back onto me behind the screen. Also, the mechanics of moving cards to interact and explore the "world" is rather enjoable,

Great game - thumbs up 👍

Amazing combination of personal story telling and pace with the mechanic that allows you to unfold the story in your own way. Can only recommend, its a gem.

i read this whole thing with Lenval Brown's voice in my head

Absolutely intimate, thoughtful and profoundly beautiful experience. A tender story about trauma, loss and becoming oneself.