Rating
Bury me, my Love
Bury me, my Love tells the story of Syrian refugee Nour and her husband Majd, as Nour undertakes a perilous journey to safety in Europe. Bury me, my Love is a Text Messaging Adventure game about Nour, a Syrian migrant trying to find her way to Europe. Her husband Majd, who remains behind in Syria, communicates with Nour through a messaging app, ad...
Details
- Released
- October 26, 2017
- Developer
- ARTE France, Figs, The Pixel Hunt
- Publisher
- Plug In Digital, Playdius
Similar Games
Bury me, my Love Reviews
Professional reviews from gaming critics
– Matt S.Editor-in-ChiefFind me on Twitter: @digitallydownldPlease help keep DDNet running: Running an online publication isn’t cheap, and it’s highly time consuming. Please help me keep the site running and providing interviews, reviews, and features like this by supporting me on Patreon. Even $1/ month would be a hugely appreciated vote of confidence in the kind of work we’re doing. Please click here to be taken to my Patreon, and thank you for reading and your support!
You wait impatiently for your wife to answer. It's been an hour, but it feels like forever. Your only connection is through text message, as she journeys through war-torn Syria in an attempt to flee for her life. Just as you're about to text again, a notification pops up.
Bury Me, My Love is both poignant and prescient — a moving account of the trials of migrants, and a gentle reminder that the constant politicisation of their plight makes it all too easy to forget our own humanity.
Using only text messages, Bury me, my Love develops two relatable main characters and tells the engaging story of a Syrian woman’s search for refuge in Europe after her sister is killed in a bombing. The game rewards multiple playthroughs with its compelling writing and interesting storylines, though replaying the same passages can be tedious.
The former omission likely stems from the game’s second significant issue: Bury Me, My Love began life as a mobile game and it seems that relatively little has been done to enhance it. The Nintendo Switch version of the game has a feature whereby you can play the game in portrait mode, but the touch controls are rather unwieldy. So you’re left playing it with a joypad, which makes it harder to ease yourself into the game’s text-messaging world.
I applaud Bury me, my Love for shedding light on the horrific and traumatic situation faced by refugees as they leave their lives behind in search of safety and salvation. As a narrative experience, it tells a meaningful and powerful tale, but the form and delivery on Switch simply don’t lend themselves to being player-friendly or engaging. On mobile, It follows in the footsteps of excellent alternate-reality titles like Lifeline, and such games are perfectly suited to that platform. In making the jump to Switch, what gives Bury me, my Love its charm is lost, and the process of revisiting th…
These are minor things, but slightly destabilising things. Not to the point that this is not a journey worth making. The intensity of the decisions, the mounting fear when things go wrong or days pass without hearing from your partner, the relief when a message comes, the joy of silliness in uncertain times, the dogged sense of hope even after a string of disasters. Bury Me, My Love isn't, first and foremost, a treaty about refugee-ism: it's a compelling and effective game about deciding what the hell to do next.