say nothing (to say it all)
I wonder how many ellipses are in 1000XRESIST.
There's a real economy of words in the story writ-large. It sometimes feels like each character is weighing the value of each syllable in gold when they speak, in blinding contrast to the impossible amount of wasted language we file through today.
But there's also a lot of silence.
A lot of...
it's a breath
Back when I was in grad school studying French new wave, I remember talking to my professor about the ways these directors broke all standard conventions of filmmaking to do what "felt" right above all else. He then told me a story about how when he was in film school, there was one he saw where, after an extreme act of drama, the screen just went blue.
No sound. No other color.
For several minutes.
And he told me he and his classmates actually laughed at it. It was such a foreign concept not just to them, but to film in general, that they had no idea how else to react to it. The professor, on the other hand, was incensed by the laughter, berating the entire class not only for laughing at this moment, but for speaking at all. I unfortunately couldn't find what this was supposed to be called, but it certainly is some form of ellipses. Rather, it exists so that the audience has no other stimulation and can let the moment prior sink in for as long as the author believes it necessary.
Despite film having multiple ways to write it in scripts, or authors blanking out pages of books to make the reader pause, video games seem to struggle with this idea of blank space. Yet in 1000XRESIST, not only uses the ellipses multiple times, it does so much that it becomes a core aspect of the language within the game's narrative. And what's more, this uses the medium of video games' interactivity to its advantage, because the player may wait as long or little as they want on each of these non-spoken words. Sometimes I would pause for just a beat, sometimes I had to let it sit for almost a minute while I tried to stop crying.
And I think that's entirely intentional.
it's a loss (of) words
The other way 1000XRESIST loves to use its blank spaces comes into focus during its most intense moments.
She reveals part of her true self.
She asks a question that requires someone else to do the same.
And to give an answer to that would hurt more than letting the words dangle in the air, hoping they fall down between the cracks of the floorboards.
Most media we enjoy these days, possibly because its saddled with appealing to the constantly stimulated brain, fails to let us enjoy a silent moment.
Maybe its because the silence scares us. I know it does me. A moment of silence is a moment to dwell on past mistakes and future choices. 1000XRESIST though, is brave enough to let the player take their time, understanding that in doing so, we'll find the words spoken so much more important.