Virginia

Virginia is a game described as a thriller and played over the course of six days, from Monday to Saturday, and then further divided into many different scenes. It is set in the early nineties and the protagonist is FBI agent Anne Tarver. There are many different story threads, but the main one is that she investigates the disappearance of the boy Lucas Fairfax in the town of Kingdom, in Burgess County, Virginia, with her partner Maria Halperin. The story is not told in a chronological order, but consists of many different vignettes that reveal more about the characters, their intentions and the events. The game has no dialogue, voice-over or other type of text and TV series such as Twin Peaks, Fargo and True Detective are cited as direct inspirations, as well as the game Thirty Flights of Loving. The investigation has some fantasy and supernatural themes and many motifs, symbols and characters that return in different situations often with dreamlike sequences presented quickly one after the other. The story is largely left open to the player to interpret.

The game is entirely linear with limited player interaction. Some scenes provide free movement with exploration in any direction. A single cursor shown as a white dot is used to interact with the environment. When a certain part is interactive, the dot turns into a circle and then in a diamond when close enough. Interactions are then performed automatically as there are no choices, so the player mainly performs these small actions to further the story. As such, there are also no real puzzle-solving elements to the game. In other situations short cinematic sequences are shown with no free movement and only a small amount of looking around and interaction until the next event is triggered. Some scenes offer interactivity, but then move on after a certain time regardless of the actions. Some interactive elements are optional, used to unlock achievements.