Doc Burford has a new game he’d like you to try, called Adios. I have played it, and it’s good, but it’s so unlike anything else I’ve ever played (in 20+ years) that a quick intro of his credentials might be the best way to start.
In 2017, Doc Burford won awards for Paratopic, a nightmarish fever dream with 90's-era Playstation graphics. Short and unsettling, its bold design choices and gritty atmosphere drip feed you with fear, until it unleashes the terror of self-induced panic just before the credits roll. It’s a masterclass in how to generate real emotional response.
Reading through his various articles on writing and game design reveals a deep understanding of the medium, a sense of humor that flits between dark and surreal, and an appreciation of the relationship between players, designers, and the game. All the while, he is growing in his craft by writing and consulting on other games.
I try to keep track of creators like Doc. Folks like him, with an abundance of talent but not publisher support, are usually one self-funded release away from breaking big.
But when I first heard about Adios, I was intrigued, and more than a little concerned. There’s quite a gap between the surreal horror of an urban hellscape and the placid, autumn-draped fields of Kansas. I reached to see if I could learn more, and we ended up talking for a few hours in 2020, just before the US presidential elections.
It’s fair to say I was looking for an excuse to chat about philosophies of narrative design.
But really, I wanted to know why he was making a story game about a pig farmer.
Doc was raised in Kansas, far from the cultural enclaves of Los Angeles and New York. He grew up in a large, conservative family surrounded by lonely roads, open fields, and slow-moving storms that could turn into deadly weather events with little advance notice.
This desolate social and natural environment was compounded by a rare disease that ended a nascent flying career and left him, for a time, literally unable to write. And the success of Paratopic, far from vaulting him to the next level, led to a series of panic attacks and even greater concerns about his health.
In short, Doc was 24 years old and thinking about what it would mean to die. That’s when Adios was born.
Adios is about the last living day of an old pig farmer in Kansas, with a lot of regrets and a business relationship he can’t walk away from. But as a last act of defiance, he does so anyway.
On the other side of the equation is a hitman, who the farmer has helped for decades with his omnivorous pigs. The farmer and the hitman are an odd pair, but their back-and-forth patter reveals a genuine appreciation for one another. With strong writing and and engaging voice acting performances by Rick Zieff and D. C. Douglas, it’s easy to grow a little jealous of two men who’ve managed to build a friendship and a history together. They hold court with camaraderie and candid, pointed responses that are delivered with care.
Yet both men traffic in bodies, in their own way: one butchers pigs for their meat, while the other murders men for money. Their relaxed conversations hide iron hearts, and a willingness to do what they feel needs to be done, excusing their ethical lapses for the sake of practicality and intention. They share a genuine tenderness for one another, but it’s fragile and dangerous, as are all men’s friendships.
Adios explores the depth and breadth of the damage that living a life with an ethical facade can lead to. At one point, the farmer calls his grown son to try and get closure, but the conversation goes horribly awry. The son reminds him — with heartbreaking evidence, delivered with cold fury only family can summon — that the very idea he deserves anything like closure is a self-serving delusion.
Conversations like these, in the game, left me struck dumb at times, virtually holding the phone and breathing in dead air, thinking about conversations with my own father, divorced and alone in a crumbling mansion in some rich Texas suburb, a proud ruin of his own making. I can’t comment on Doc’s upbringing, or talk about fathers that raise up young men in the American midwest and south. I can only say that moving through a day as a dark mirror of my own father gave me a fresh perspective on our relationship. I don’t know if that will be good or bad, in the long run. But something changed. And maybe that’s enough.
At a certain point, you, as the farmer, are left alone on your farm to do as you wish, but with the knowledge that this is probably your last day on earth. How do you squeeze every ounce of enjoyment from the time that’s left?
In John Green’s novel The Fault in Our Stars, he writes, “The problem, of course, is that there’s no way of knowing that your last good day is your Last Good Day. At the time, it is just another good day.”
In Adios, the knowledge that this is probably your Last Good Day comes across as fantasy fulfillment, one that is bigger than being a powerful soldier or an epic magician. If you’ve ever brushed against death in your life, and wanted just one more day with someone, then you know this very well. And I wondered how Doc, who knows this medium as well as anyone, would handle this narrative task.
He deals with it by removing all narrative constraints, stripping away the comfortable video game framework of “Do This Then That” and leaving you alone, with plenty to do and no direction. The transition to absolute solitude lets the brain to process what’s going on, and as a result, the emotional impact of the additional set pieces packs a greater punch. Echoes of conversations play in your head as you wander around the farm, one last time. But now the pleasures of this quaint, midwestern paradise are draped in unforgettable tragedy.
A quiet, desperate attempt to wring one last good day from the world, combined with an inability to make peace with the past?
It’s a different kind of horror. I think I get it now.
You can’t change how Adios ends. There’s no victory condition, and no way to fail. What to do, then, with a game that you can’t win?
In the game, as I — the farmer — talk about my prize-winning pigs, I — the player — pick up a tool and examine it a bit before setting it back down. As the hitman leans into the engine bay of an old car, I hover over his shoulder as the conversation continues. As the hitman and the farmer argue over a philosophical point that might have life-or-death consequences, I turn away and look to the horizon as he delivers a hard truth.
If there had been a “idly kick a pebble to express ontological frustration” button, I would have pressed it.
It triggered memories of other hard conversations with men in my life, ones that happen while fixing things or doing things, activities that naturally spread the conversation out and provide cover for deep thought or a change of topic, all to respect the thick walls we have around our hearts.
The script will never change, and is barely under my control as a player, and yet I am fully engaged. It’s what I imagine stage acting to be like: the words aren’t mine, but they roll out of “my” mouth with a rusty, midwestern drawl. I choose how to move my body, how to shift my gaze, how to use my hands. I choose how to process the fact that all time on this earth is destined to end, and that all I can do is reflect on how I want to live out the rest of the life that I have.
I am my father and I am Doc and I am all midwestern dads and I am myself. This is my Last Good Day, friendo. And then it’s adios.
Adios is available on Steam.
Ted Brown is a former game developer. He lives in Los Angeles.
