Haven

Haven is a game that celebrates love with a wholesome vibe and simple mechanics. Its narrative excels at developing the central relationship between the main characters, but the lack of conflict and some boring parts eventually hampers what could have been a great and memorable experience.

Haven is about two runaway lovers. Yu and Kay have successfully managed to escape together in Yu’s small spaceship to a faraway planet called Source, which is divided into small floating islets connected by “flow bridges”. After an earthquake, however, their ship is badly damaged, leading them to search the planet for parts that could help Yu repair it.

The narrative handles exposition very well, drip-feeding us information about their lives before Source with dialogues that briefly mention what they are running from and how their homeworld operated. The writing has a great “show, don’t tell” approach when it comes to the personality of its central characters: we can already guess that Kay is a biologist – or something of the sort – long before his past profession is mentioned, for example, just by observing the enthusiastic way by which he comments about the fauna and flora of Source.

Yu and Kay are basically the only characters in the game and their relationship is at the heart of the story. They’re young people in love who have successfully managed to run away together, which means that their dynamic is full of energy, spirited banter, erotic tension, and romantic declarations: “I’d rather endure a thousand earthquakes than risk being away from you,” one of them says after they are hit by the earthquake.

Each one of them means the whole world for the other; being together is the only thing that matters for them, which is reflected in the way their conversations usually go: “I have good news,” Kay tells Yu at the beginning, when asked about the planet’s characteristics, “I love you.” The writing perfectly captures the passionate energy of youthful love, making Yu and Kay seem perpetually locked in a honeymoon phase, when even the action of talking about mundane stuff, like doing push-ups, becomes the perfect opportunity to flirt playfully with each other.

Yu and Kay, of course, don’t lose a single opportunity to have sex: when they are role-playing to pass the time, for example, pretending to be leading a revolution back on their home planet, the role-play quickly gains erotic connotations that, in turn, quickly evolve to physical interaction. When they talk about food, they find a way to flirt; when they are talking about Source, they flirt; when they are talking about a magazine they found, they flirt; when they are talking about the strange creatures they came across, they flirt: it’s repetitive, yes, but the repetition is kind of the point. The same way a person can’t stop saying “I love you” to their partner when they are together, Yu and Kay can’t seem to stop flirting with each other.

Haven is filled with interactions between the two of them. Sleeping, eating, cooking, exploring, almost every action makes them talk to each other about all sorts of things. Yu may complain that Kay made her side of the bed “too sticky”, or Kay may become annoyed because he can’t find an important ring and fears that he has lost it in one of the islets. They also talk about their past lives – which are a puzzle that we’re to put together – commenting about their decision to run away and if they have any regrets about it.

They have their moments of insecurity – passing through the common “I don’t deserve you” stage of a relationship – but often display a great deal of optimism regarding their situation – no matter how dire it is – that can be touching in its desperateness: they have to remain optimistic because they’re alone in an alien planet together. There’s no one forbidding their love, but also no one to turn to for help but themselves. They decided to be together, and so now have to face the consequences of that decision.

But this optimism also leads to the problematic part of the narrative. It lacks obstacles that push the central characters to their limits. After their ship is damaged in the earthquake, they simply go explore the islets for parts, but nothing interesting happens: there are almost no events that test their love or trust in one another. They’re always understanding and empathic, taking great care of each other. It’s indeed great to watch a healthy relationship unfold, for once, but the narrative doesn’t offer anything to cover for the lack of drama. There’s always the promise that whatever they are running from will suddenly appear and tear them apart, but this part of the story comes too late, robbing most of the game from emotional charge.

It’s almost at the end of Haven that Yu and Kay have their first fight, which leads to a great moment reminiscent of Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, when the game systems make the player feel the absence of one of the characters: the game ties the possible actions of each character to a part of the controller, so when one of those characters is gone, the player loses that part of the controller. It’s great and heartbreaking when it happens, and the game could have used more moments like that.

The gameplay of Haven is not its strongest suit, but it’s far from bad. Technically, it’s a turn-based RPG, since when you find creatures in Source you are transported to a battle screen when the characters and monsters take turns attacking each other. You control Kay with the left part of the controller, Yu with the right, and you have four options available: use a melee attack, a ranged one, defend, and “pacify” fallen enemies, lest they come back to fight again.

In Haven you don’t kill the creatures you find, but “pacify” them by removing the red crust that is turning them aggressive. This is fundamental to the “wholesome” vibe of the game, as gratuitous violence is not encouraged, celebrated, or rewarded in any way: Yu and Kay fight only to save the very creatures they are battling against.

Enemy design is great in the way it pushes the player to think about which action to use – and against which monster. There are enemies that are only weak to ranged attacks and enemies only weak to melee attacks; there are enemies that change forms, switching their weaknesses; and enemies that become vulnerable only after they land a blow on you – which makes the “defend” action actually useful; a very rare thing in RPGs.

Yu and Kay defend not only themselves, however, – this wouldn’t make sense thematically, after all – but also each other, so it’s a common strategy to make one use a shield while the other prepares to attack the soon-to-be-vulnerable monster, with the player choosing the character with more health to defend. And, if they both use the same attack at the same time, they unleash a more powerful version of it, encouraging the player to make Yu and Kay work together. But the game could have gone a step further and made the main characters have different stats and proficiencies – one being better at melee than the other, for example – to shake things up and make the decision process more complex. The issue with Haven’s combat is that it’s not developed the way it should, which can make battles feel a bit repetitive after a while, as they tend to unfold similarly.

The other side of the game is exploration, which could have also been improved on. Yu and Kay’s goal is to explore the planet to find parts to restore their ship – luckily for them, there was once an attempt to colonize Source, so there are abandoned buildings and installations scattered around the islets.

One of the problems is that the islets all have the same look, with some slopes, blue grass, and one or two tall mountains, which makes them blur together after a while. A few more landmarks would have gone a long way in helping to make the environments stand out.

The map function in the game, then, is not useful but necessary to navigate Source effectively, as it’s easy to get lost if you’re only using the environment to guide yourself. One thing that aggravates this problem is that you can’t see which islet connects with the one you are in without the map: there’s a flow bridge (a bridge made of blue energy) that leads you out of the islet, but there’s no visual indication of where you’re going to end up in. This makes Source feel a bit disjointed and confusing, which is a shame.

Finally, you have the flow threads – blue lines in the air that extend as you hover above them, following them to an unknown destination. They’re a great idea, but Haven doesn’t know what to do with them. The first mistake is making them recharge your “batteries”. The islets in Source are tainted with rust – the same red crust that makes animals go feral – that can be removed by just going over them with Yu and Kay, which consumes their “flow”. To recharge it, you must ride some flowlines. The problem is that it’s a boring process: you can find any thread and just go back and forth over it to recharge. These flow threads would be great if they were rare and guided you to unexpected places; in other words, if they were intrinsically tied to exploration and always led to somewhere interesting. But, alas, they’re everywhere and serve basically no purpose at all.

Exploration would also have benefited from a more interesting setting. Source has few secrets up its sleeve story-wise – its backstory is kind of irrelevant in the end – and there are too few secret areas to find as well. It’s a wonderful moment when you discover a beach in a certain islet, which leads to great scenes between Yu and Kay: Haven should have had more of these scenes and less of floating over random blue threads that lead you nowhere.

There are some nice touches in the game that help build its wholesome vibe. When exploring, you can either control Yu or Kay, alternating between them with the press of a button, but while you’re flying with one of them the other can join up and then they fly together holding hands. If you stand still for a while, they will embrace or kiss, which recovers their health. Their ship, meanwhile, is called “the Nest”, making it sound like the warm, sex-filled place that it is, and they curse with the word “Bloot”, which is just cute.

Haven is an unusual RPG that ditches the usual “end-of-the-world stakes”  so typical of its genre to focus on a love story, with a great pair of main characters and some interesting ideas. It has its share of problems, of course, but its heart makes up for it.

January 22, 2021.