How to Say Goodbye lets you guide lost souls in the afterlife and beyond, out now on iOS and Android
In case you missed it, ARTE France, Florian Veltman and Baptiste Portefaix have announced the official launch of How to Say Goodbye, an evocative adventure about what it means to move on in the afterlife. Out now on iOS, Android, Steam and the Nintendo Switch, the game takes inspiration from Tomi Ungerer, Tove Jansson, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and Maurice Sendak to present players with a memorable experience about life, loss and acceptance.
In How to Say Goodbye, players can expect to guide lost souls on grid-based levels, solving puzzles and helping spirits to the exit. "Puzzle games allow interesting parallels with the question of mourning. A puzzle is something you have to complete by yourself, and the time it takes to complete depends only on your own pace, just like grieving. There is no clear finality, no winner, no loser, just a learning process on how to deal with the loss of a loved one and how to live a better life afterwards," says Florian Veltman.
“We were inspired by children's books, which deal with serious subjects in a very direct way, while maintaining a great gentleness [...] In our scenario, the missing persons take the form of disoriented ghosts, seeking to leave the limbo in which they are trapped. They must discover, through the player, how to grieve in order to accept their own disappearance and move on,” says Baptiste Portefaix.
If you're keen on diving into the game, you can now download How to Say Goodbye on the iOS App Store and on the Google Play Store. It's a premium title that costs $3.99 a pop or your local equivalent. You can also visit the official website for more info, join the community of followers on Twitter to stay updated on all the latest developments, or take a little sneak peek at the embedded clip above to get a feel of the game's vibes, visuals and mechanics.
Are you on the hunt for more similar titles that will put your skills to the test on your mobile device? Why not take a gander at our list of the best puzzle games on Android?
