I was thinking back on an article I wrote a few years back about noticeably older playable characters in games and a thought occurred to me, “Would I be able to name any child playable characters in games?”
A few examples came to mind quickly such as Link in The Legend of Zelda, Max in Life is Strange and the two siblings in Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons.
An odd one from a few years ago also popped up, 2019’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, which had an entire level where players are in the shoes of a child during an invasion. And a short while ago I wrote about the great time I spent with Rockstar’s Bully.
But recently during a game sale I picked up a title that does a great job of recreating childhood, of giving that sense of wonder and exploration that children have.
The game is called Alba: A Wildlife Adventure, and is one of the most charming and adorable games I’ve had the pleasure of playing recently, so I wanted to talk about it today to pass on this gem of a title.
State of Play: Alba and the Wonders of Childhood Holidays
Alba follows the titular character of Alba as she visits her grandparents for summer holiday on a Spanish island of Pinar del Mar they have retired to.
Alba’s holiday starts standard enough; eating ice cream and paella, spending time at the beach, and playing with her island friend Ines.
But when it turns out the island mayor is ready to tear down the nearby nature reserve for a luxury hotel baron, Alba and Ines decide to create a nature club and rebuild the reserve, gathering signatures for a petition to stop it.
Many other games have child or teen characters in stressful or strange environments, but for Alba it is an environment to learn from, to learn about through exploring, and in general a refreshingly calm and stress-free place, where standing up for your beliefs and challenging authority is a main bedrock of the title.
The main loop of Alba is creating a database of the animals that inhabit the island. Alba is given a nature guide and a phone app by her grandparents to try and catalogue all the animals that live on Pinar del Mar.
Alba is an open world game, so the main section of playtime is spent researching the animals in the database, learning about their unique markings, habitat, and call, before tip-toeing through the biome and taking a picture of them.
Alba originally standard as an iOS game and I could definitely see the same style working here, popping in for a few minutes every day, wandering around the incredibly detailed world and taking a few picture before heading off again.
It’s a charming little loop that I ended up spending many hours in, just learning about different animals and feverishly trying to fill out the entire book, staying out way beyond the time when Alba’s grandparents texted her to come home just to get that one last animal in a certain biome.
Some of the animals for the book are only spotted in the sky, meaning you have to find the perfect spot to zoom in and out with your camera and get a good chance of catching it as it flies by.
The island of Pilar del Mar is split into eight different biomes; the beach, town, terraces, farmland, forest, marshlands, and the mountain. You would think with such widely diverse locations that Pinar del Mar might feel disjointed but each location flows seamlessly into one another.
Alba has a map that can aid in traversal, but the game’s world is easily navigated just through sight.
Need to go to the mountain? Just look upwards pretty much anywhere in the game. Want to go bird-watching by the beach? Head down the hill and you’ll get there. Buying supplies in the town? You can just see a chimney across the way, maybe the town will be somewhere close by.
It’s always lovely to play an open-world game that can give players a clear HUD, especially after years of experiencing POI to POI marker.
For a moment during the opening chapters I thought there might be a speed upgrade, something like Alba getting a bicycle to help make the trek across the island (another hallmark of holidays, bike trips). But nothing like the sort came, and I can see two reasons why.
One, the bird-watching loop. Many a time I would be trekking through the world and see an animal I hadn’t catalogued. It’s a little hard to do that if you’re speeding through the island.
The second reason is such a small one but I was charmed every single time it happened; Alba’s animations. Alba walks and runs normally, but every now and again she’ll change it up. Sometimes she skips, sometimes she runs with her arms out like a plane. These little animations give such detail to Alba and her childhood play, I wish other games would do something similar.
Throughout the game players will journey all across the island and none of it is locked by progression through the game. While some animals will only appear later in the story, the player can easily wander anywhere on the island, cataloguing animals they can see, or interacting with Pinar del Mar and its population.
Talking of the islanders, part of Alba and Ines’ mission is to get fifty signatures from the townsfolk to petition the mayor to stop the hotel build. While some of the signatures come from rebuilding the wildlife reserve the rest need to be collected from the townsfolk, each with their own little stories or dilemmas.
Clara the head of the Wildlife Association, Simón the local vet, María the carpenter, each have tasks like cleaning up the trash left by people, clearing away pesticide spillages, or fixing bird boxes across the island.
There are are other characters who are just there by add a little extra charm to the island. Jaineba the ice cream merchant (who gets Alba to test new flavours), Laura the strict and stern police officer, or the two nameless older women who spend their time near the church and talk of their weekly bungee jumping classes.
Every character can be interacted with and will have a few lines of dialogue about them or the day and it gives and extra incentive to explore every nook and cranny of Pinar del Mar. It got to the point where I would interact with my favourite characters each day, despite it never being more than one or two lines, it was a joy to pass by so many recognisable faces.
I also appreciate the diversity of the cast. There are a wide range of skin tones across Pinar del Mar, different languages spoken, some same-sex relationships, and a few visible signs of faith (such as the character Alia, who wears a hijab).
Alba also fits into this diverse cast, with her last name Singh and flying to Spain from the UK, it could be referenced that she is of British, Indian, and Spanish descent. And the game doesn’t highlight any of these points, but just quietly and confidently places the characters into the world.
One of the reasons I was initially drawn to Alba was the apparently short run time. I really like quick and condensed games and according to How Long To Beat the 100% runtime for Alba is around 4 hours. Yet I know I spent far longer in the game.
The satisfying loop of bird-watching, trekking across a beautiful island populated with a fun cast of characters, I whiled away Alba’s days, scouring every biome, sneaking to the perfect picture spot and even returned after the game was done to soak in the atmosphere again.
It’s a charming little game with a strong message about care and conservation, standing up against authority, and that with teamwork anything is possible. If you’re looking for a new game that is a change of pace, for something both calming and enjoyable, and can be enjoyed by all ages, I recommend it wholeheartedly.
Banner Photo Source: store.epicgames.com
TOM CLEMENT | GAME PRODUCER | NARRATIVE DESIGNER 