Trevor Hills has an ordinary life that no one cares about. He goes to work. He feeds his turtle. He pays his taxes (even though they are too high). And no one cares.

No one cares, until one day, Trevor Hills starts running. Then, for a brief moment, everyone cares about Trevor Hills, at least until the moment passes, and no one cares again.

And watching Trevor Hills run was somehow exactly what I needed, and the furthest thing from it all at once.

Her words, not mine.

American Arcadia is a combination puzzle-platformer and narrative game. While it advertises itself as a puzzle-platformer, the fact that I played it should be a clue that it is not, or at least, not really. While it does have platforming elements, these are not the point, nor are they particularly challenging as platforming elements. Similarly, while the game has some puzzles, these are also not the point, serving instead as brief interspersions in the overall narrative. Instead, American Arcadia is fundamentally a narrative game with its gameplay serving to augment the story rather than vice versa.

American Arcadia follows the story of Trevor Hills, an ordinary citizen of Arcadia living out an ordinary life, at least until entities unknown break it to him that he does, in fact, live in a television show, and because his life is so ordinary, he is about to be cut from it. What follows is Trevor’s madcap escape from Arcadia, complete with all the twists and turns this story would entail.

The writing, voice acting, and overall storytelling within American Arcadia are excellent. The world design does its premise’ work for it, crafting a beautiful and surreal world that is as much fun to take in as it is to escape. The game has a sense of humour about its material, but also a good sense of comedic timing and a desire to pull the player in on the joke.

That the game is a joke is necessary. If it weren’t a joke, it would need to be horror, with the reality of Trevor’s situation being fundamentally horrific.

Of our reality. Trevor, though the protagonist of the game, is not alone here. As I played American Arcadia, it wasn’t just Trevor I saw. I watched myself, struggling with reality and screaming against the void.

Hello, yes, it is still me, Existential Dreadbot 3000, playing these games.

Janneke de Beer has an ordinary life that no one cares about. She writes her novels. She writes her game reviews. She writes her thesis and academic articles. And no one cares.

Janneke de Beer is aware that no one cares, that hours upon hours of her life disappear into these words which then, in turn, vanish into the vast abyss of semi-consciousness, of those places where work goes not to die but to never have lived at all. That she makes these things matters to no one but her, and increasingly, not even that.

Today, Janneke de Beer went for a run. She disappeared for six hours or so. Neither of her partners noticed, further cementing the idea that this is her ordinary life that no one cares about. She could vanish from it entirely, and all that would be left would be the dimple in the couch, as she is not even present enough for a dimple to become a divot or a groove.

She, like everything else, has and will be subsumed into the world of others, and it wouldn’t be until she started running - actually running, running like it meant something - that anyone would notice or care at all.

I have run in the past, though. I did, and for a brief time, people did notice. That attention turned, though, as attention always does, to the next runner, the next moment, the next fad, and my steps faded into nothing. I have tried to convince myself to be content with a quiet life that no one cares about. There comes a point, though, where you need someone to care, someone to notice you exist.

If I started running, how long would it take my partners to notice? How long would it take you?

Would anyone notice?

American Arcadia is an excellent game in its own right. It has a delicious sense of humour, writing that carries it, and a narrative coupled with enough gameplay to make it feel engaging and delightful.

None of this is why it resonated with me. No, I resonated with the idea that, until we do something to dramatically attract the attention of others, we are nothing. We are nobody. We do not matter, and no one will notice us. It is only in the dramatic, in the foolhardy, and in the machinations of others that anything we ever do means anything.

Perhaps if I run, all of it will have meant something.

Or maybe I’ll run, and you’ll continue to see nothing at all.

Developer: Out of the Blue Games
Genre: Indie
Year: 2023
Country: Spain
Language: English, Spanish
Time to Complete: 6-7 hours
Playthrough: https://youtu.be/Hx9A3I7hgKs