In Sarah Kipling’s exploration of the amazing locations in the adventure genre, she takes us to some of the most breathtaking places. During the Covid lockdowns of last year, Sarah took the opportunity to explore these intriguing settings and what makes them stand out. This (two-part) article series was originally posted on Sarah’s website.
I might be unable to venture much further than the sheep-dotted Teesdale hills near my small hometown due to the nationwide lockdown, but one can still dream of broader horizons. One of my favorite ways of traveling vicariously is through adventure games. These often emphasize immersion in another place or time, whether real or imagined, and the best examples achieve this through a combination of carefully constructed characters, mood-making music, and fully realized settings.
Rather than focus on the characters, who act as the natural faces of the games, I’d like to direct the spotlight to lesser-recognized characters – the locations themselves. From sleepy small towns in the Japanese countryside to the far-flung Wyoming wilderness, these game locations have inspired my travel bucket list and creative writing and eased my anxiety during times of high stress and uncertainty (like now).
The Longest Journey, Venice, Newport (New York’s East Village), US
‘I also believe we’re on the border between two more abstract worlds. Between art and spirit on the one hand and science and technology on the other.’ – Fiona
April moves to the big city of Venice, a fictitious residential neighborhood in Newport in 2109, to study at VAVA, the Venice Academy of the Visual Arts. Heavily inspired by New York’s East Village ‘both from an architectural… and a social and humanistic point of view’, Venice is a cultural melting pot of its industrial past and bohemian present. Its diverse student and artist population