【Watch Aunt's Temptation (2018)】

What Remains of Edith Finchis the exact type of game that gets derided as a “walking simulator.”

That's silly. For one thing,Watch Aunt's Temptation (2018) the label carries negative connotations, implying that a video game in which all you do is walk around and experience something is inherently bad. That flawed line of thinking does nothing but limit the kinds of games we get to play.

SEE ALSO: The film production company behind 'Her' is getting into video games

Besides, in Edith Finchyou also leap nimbly from tree branch to tree branch, swim swiftly through the sea, soar across the sky, and slither on your slimy belly stalking human prey. All of that is part of the single chapter that developer Giant Sparrow showed off at PlayStation Experience 2016.

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The game follows a woman named Edith Finch, who is the sole remaining member of the expansive Finch clan. The game follows her as she explores a sprawling family home in rural Washington state.

The Finch family has an odd tradition: every time a family member died, the survivors sealed up the deceased's room as a sort of cluttered effigy. Edith, using a key bequeathed to her by her late mother, explores these rooms. In each one, she lives through her relative’s final moments.

“It started out as a game that was inspired by short stories, like [H.P.] Lovecraft and [Jorge Luis] Borges and Twilight Zone, and then over time it ended up morphing into a game that's about architecture in a lot of ways,” creative director Ian Dallas told Mashable.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

"The people in the game end end up being kind of architects or builders or people where -- you know, you look at their house and you get a sense of what kind of people they are."

The house itself seems to defy logic, physics, and any sense of architectural integrity. It towers above the driveway, with each new addition thrusting farther into the heavens.

Ramshackle stairways wrap around the towering central spire like barbed wire. It appears simultaneously as a whimsical fairy tale cottage and a horror movie soundstage, the scene of a hundred sad deaths.

“Every floor in the house is a different generation,” Dallas said. “As you go up, each generation gets a little bit stranger in its own way.”

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The chapter shown at PSX portrayed the final night of a young girl who died of starvation while locked in her room. Desperate for food, she fantasized about transforming into a cat, an owl, a shark, and a slimy monster, at every turn stalking various animals and noisily feasting on them.

To keep playing you need to catch your prey, but as the player all you want is for the little girl to be safe in her room again.

“This story has an interesting push-pull,” Dallas said. “I think all of these stories actually -- and this is the first story we made -- but all of the stories have that kind of tension.”

What Remains of Edith Finchis one of the first games from publisher Annapurna Interactive, a new division of Annapurna Pictures, the company behind films like Zero Dark Thirty, Her, American Hustle, and Sausage Party.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

The gaming team is headed by former members of Sony Santa Monica, which was to be the original Edith Finchpublisher. Industry veterans Nathan Gary, Deborah Mars, Hector Sanchez, and Jeff Legaspi are all among those building up Annapurna's gaming resume.

“We were working with a lot of the same people when they were at Sony Santa Monica, and then when they left to go to Annapurna [in May] we essentially followed them,” Dallas said.

“It’s almost everyone that we were working with really, like all the people that we were working with day to day, that had been with the project at that point for three years I think, so it seems natural to go with them.”

That shift has changed the game and its development in a variety of ways. Giant Sparrow no longer works out of the Sony offices, and Finchis no longer a PlayStation 4 exclusive. It's also coming to Steam in spring 2017.

And then there's the weird reality of working with the gaming division of a production company that's known for its Hollywood features.

“We were doing a playtest at Annapurna’s offices a couple of weeks ago,” Dallas said. “Seth Rogen walked through. He’s just, like, around.”

The big advantage: Annapurna’s goals and values align with Giant Sparrow’s.

“It’s really encouraging for those of us who make things that aren’t necessarily commercial objects,” Dallas said. “I think that’s their mission statement. I don’t want to speak for them, but they’re not driven mainly by profit. I mean I think I can safely say that.

“Which is good, because we are also not driven by trying to reach the most people,” he added.

“We want to create something a little odd.”

Topics Film Gaming