Stop guessing. There’s nothing behind the chair.
Preface: Allow me to set aside, for the moment, matters outside the game and offer some informal thoughts on the game itself—not quite a serious review, and without spoilers that would mar the experience. I hope to persuade readers who do not yet know it to give it a try, and offer those who have played it a few bits of trivia or interpretations from my own perspective.
Ready? Back undercover—
Your name is Xiao Tu. Two years ago, you were still an impassioned, patriotic student in Shanghai, taking to the streets to cry out, “Resist Japan! Save the nation!” But your youthful hotheadedness landed you in prison. After your release, your teacher arranged for you to study in Japan. Two years on, people have long forgotten the patriotic student you once were, and your teacher and the organization decide to send you into the enemy’s ranks. How will you use your wits to play the role of a “Mission: Impossible” spy? Faced with one difficult choice after another, will you put the larger cause first, or let a tender heart stay your hand? —Official synopsis
Chapter One: Past and Present
In the summer of 2015, I finished the earlier game on the Chengguang interactive-fiction platform that became the basis for The Invisible Guardian. It left me shaken in ways I could scarcely describe. I immediately wrote a short review urging people to play it, and for years afterward, whenever anyone asked about good Chinese text-based games—or visual novels—I almost always named this one. Time and again, in anguished frustration, I wanted to shout to friends who doubted the potential of Chinese text-based games, or dismissed the earlier game as worthless because its production was so rough: China, too, has fertile ground for creating text-based games! We have works as compelling as anyone else’s—even works that can shake a player with nothing more than that rough combination of choices + story.
Yet the rough production really did make it harder for more people to discover what was so good about the game. Gradually, it seemed that many would simply be fated to miss this outstanding work…
Then, early this year, news of a remake reached me almost as if in a dream. And not just any remake: reportedly, this would be an interactive movie game, made over several years with an investment of ten million yuan. I was astonished, delighted, and worried all at once.
What astonished me, of course, was that someone had recognized this neglected gem and committed so much time and money to remaking it. After all, following the recent glut of ludicrous, badly made dramas about the war of resistance against Japan, people would frown at the mere mention of “anti-Japanese espionage” and refuse to look any further unless a trusted source strongly recommended it. Whatever happened next, I could only admire the producers’ courage (interviews reveal the enormous risks and pressures under which they completed the work). What delighted me was that this polished remake would let more friends—guardians of ideals, I cannot help calling them—feel the ardent sincerity at the heart of the work. What worried me was whether the adaptation might, as so often happens, destroy the original’s rough yet unadorned beauty, the quality of uncut jade.
There are things to regret, but overall, with the original creator’s wholehearted involvement, the remake has lived up to my expectations! So, if you have yet to play it, set out on your undercover journey with confidence!
Chapter Two: Interpreting a Few Features of the Game
Dionysian art, too, seeks to make us believe in the eternal joy of existence, … we are compelled to face the terrors of individual existence—but need not, after all, be paralyzed by fear: a metaphysical consolation lets us escape for a moment from the turmoil of the changing world. —Nietzsche1
The first thing we encounter, of course, is the nature of the story’s central concerns in The Invisible Guardian. If we look back to the kind of game its predecessor was and survey the field broadly—not treating these works as strictly identical in type, but as overlapping, with a family resemblance—we find something striking. Espionage during the resistance against Japan already has a vast body of work in film, television, fiction, and other forms. In text-based games and visual novels, however, it stands conspicuously apart from the many school romances whose principal characters are high-school students, even when those romances incorporate varying amounts of science fiction or fantasy. Indeed, we can hardly help thinking that these are two utterly different kinds of work.
Of course, I am not saying that text-based games, whether Chinese or foreign, contain nothing beyond school romances. Still less am I saying that there are no excellent school romances. Even so, I want to insist that The Invisible Guardian is out of the ordinary. At least to my mind, it points to a possibility for Chinese text-based games: perhaps we, players and creators alike, should broaden our sense of the subjects these games can encompass, break out of certain habits of thought, and create and experience compelling stories across a wider range! The excellence and success of The Invisible Guardian suggest just such a possibility. Who knew Chinese text-based games could win acclaim this way!
Returning to The Invisible Guardian itself, its story confronts a series of vital grand themes: the rise and fall of a nation, war, life and death, conviction. Through the turbulent, treacherous, deeply moving life of a heroic underground operative, it places before readers the characters’ (the author’s) reflections and choices on these questions. Whether or not players agree with the particular views expressed, the experience does a great deal to cultivate their sensibilities—I cannot help using that perhaps faintly ridiculous expression. To borrow Aristotle’s old, familiar account, we confront the protagonists’ tragic actions and circumstances amid mortal dangers. Though we cannot experience these firsthand (and indeed, precisely because we keep our distance, knowing we will not become the characters), contemplating their painful ordeals awakens fear and pity in us while purifying our spirits—catharsis. Few works of this kind can evoke that sense of purification as The Invisible Guardian does. Another excellent, broadly similar work that tackles grand themes naturally comes to mind: Detroit: Become Human, though its story concerns the differences between humans and machines, minds and programs.
Next, I want to discuss one of this game’s main gameplay features (haha): choices. Through choices, we reach different routes and endings; through choices, we earn different affection scores with different characters (though there is someone whose score drops whatever you choose, hahaha); through choices, we make decisions—sometimes in a split second—that mean life or death, victory or defeat.
Such simple choices conceal so many intricacies, giving players a palpable sense of being there, of the knife-edge tension of undercover work. Clearly, this is a mechanic that cannot possibly be removed. Without the choices, it is genuinely hard to imagine what this work would become. Here we can say that it is indeed more than a novel: its choices make it a game in a subtle, hard-to-define way. Faced with these “one wrong choice and you’re dead” options—unfathomable, coming from every direction, never letting up (I cannot resist all three modifiers)—I cannot help recalling a similar predicament when I played the original Fate/stay night. So many choices, pick wrong and it’s bye-bye, there’s the familiar Taiga again, tears streaming down my face… For text-based games or interactive movie games (according to an interview, the producers chose the original precisely because the two forms were such a “best match”), putting the choice mechanic to good use is sure to add a great deal of luster to the whole, as it does here.
Third, this is the place to explain why the game uses live-action imagery, rather than flat, drawn character sprites or 3D animation—and why it is neither entirely PowerPoint nor entirely video. The simplest answer to the first question is that the earlier game also used photographs of real people for its character portraits. Its players—and probably the producers too—said that although these looked odd at first, the longer they played, the more they found themselves thinking, “actually-this-is-pretty-good.jpg.” It was therefore only natural for the remake to use live-action imagery too. I would also venture a reading that may be going too far (haha): both the expectations formed by existing screen dramas and a certain seriousness in the espionage story itself make live-action imagery feel fitting for The Invisible Guardian. (I cannot help thinking that a certain technological quality in 3D CG animation—← perhaps an irresponsible guess on my part—also suits the futuristic setting of Detroit: Become Human.)
As for why it is neither all PowerPoint nor all video, the producers offer an explicit explanation. An entirely video-based or cinematic presentation would keep visual information coming at a sustained intensity, potentially causing players to overlook some of it. Making parts of it more like PowerPoint—fine, the label is neither accurate nor entirely neutral; allow me the joke—helps players take in more of what the work presents, such as clues and the actors’ performances. Of course, somewhere in the back of our minds, we may still suspect it was more a matter of not having the budget (haha).
One more point is worth adding. Although the story is told mainly from Xiao Tu’s point of view, it makes considerable use of flashbacks (those devastating memory scenes?), passages that fill in earlier gaps (bringing symbolic details back into play, unraveling mysteries), and separate narrative strands (elements of an ensemble drama). There are also stories devoted to individual characters outside the main storyline. All this keeps the overall structure from becoming monotonous and helps players enjoy a rhythm of “one wave overtaking another, a new way opening where all seemed blocked.”
The music, the composition of individual shots, and, of course, the many-layered characters and the wonderful performances of the actors behind them all deserve praise! Given both the limits of my knowledge and my purpose here—to recommend the game without spoilers and offer a partial interpretation—please forgive me for setting aside discussion of these important aspects of the work and leaving them to other critics! Instead, let me reveal one harmless Easter egg:
Near the end, Zhuang Xiaoman tells Xiao Tu, “I like working undercover.” This naturally calls to mind the excellent espionage television drama Lurk (潜伏). There too, near the end, Yu Zecheng is bound for the same destination to continue his undercover work when he says, with an air of mystery, “I like working undercover. It’s exciting.” The homage to Lurk was, of course, something the author deliberately had in mind; even the earlier game’s character portraits drew on it.
Chapter Three: Outside the Game
In this third chapter, I will break the restriction I set myself in the preface and discuss a few interesting things outside The Invisible Guardian itself. First, those who have followed the game throughout will have noticed that, as I said earlier, neither its espionage subject matter nor its form—an interactive movie game with a text-based game at its core—made it easy to attract an audience. Yet after release, its popularity steadily grew. From what I have observed, this had a great deal to do with streamers across different communities playing it. Playthroughs by popular streamers made the work much better known, while the aroma of its “fine wine” wafted through online communities, winning further praise and coverage from games media on various platforms.
I also noticed that the whole game was not released in a single hit-and-run launch, but in several batches of chapters. This allowed new viewers, independent media creators, and streamers to join the fresh discussion and enjoyment of the game even “after the initial rush.” Awareness of the work and its reputation spread through communities like waves, each larger than the last. This may also have helped boost its popularity, suggesting possibilities for releasing a demo separately from the full game.
This pattern of circulation is not unique—there are many examples, really, but I will give just one. Detroit: Become Human was also much loved by streamers on various platforms, whose playthroughs helped make it far better known. (The two cases are different, of course, and we cannot infer causation, only a strong correlation.) Perhaps future games, especially those worried that “even a fine wine may go unnoticed down a deep alley,” could take a cue from this pattern and find a way for both sides to benefit.
To extend the point, streamers, as a form of independently run media, are themselves members of the audience, sharing their experience of playing with their viewers. Cases such as the rapid rise in awareness of The Invisible Guardian suggest to creators and promoters that simply burning money to force-feed audiences publicity from above may be neither efficient nor suitable for Chinese game studios on limited budgets. In recent years, I have increasingly seen audience communities spontaneously gaining power to judge and choose in the cultural market. On an optimistic reading, this will force creators to win consumers’ votes through the quality of their work rather than enormous publicity budgets. I shall wait and see.
Finally, a few words about stories of espionage and undercover work. We have excellent television dramas such as Lurk, Plot Against (暗算), and The Brink (悬崖). Now we also have The Invisible Guardian, which offers an innovative experience—players, too, can get a taste of life undercover. This tells us that classic or popular subject matter does not go out of fashion—or rather, is not inherently boring. It is shoddily made stories that are boring. What we need is for creators—first and foremost dramatists, or screenwriters and scriptwriters—to take their stories seriously and put their hearts into them. What determines whether a work is compelling is not its subject matter but the quality of the story itself. Just look at classic, hot-blooded shōnen manga: as long as the story is told well, readers will never turn down a tale of friendship, effort, and victory. I hope Chinese games, including text-based games and interactive movie games, will take this to heart and give more attention from now on to telling a story well, and telling a good story!
My abilities are limited, so I will put down my pen here. I hope this piece will encourage those unfamiliar with the game to learn a little more, and help those who have played it focus more on appreciating the work itself, learn something new, and be understanding about a flaw or two in The Invisible Guardian. It is certainly not perfect, but it is a compelling work. Please give it more support and a little more latitude. Ah, one last thing: please do not post spoilers in the comments that ruin the experience!!!—Someone will remember your answer.
Editor’s Note
Let me make a little joke to lighten this serious atmosphere, haha.
But… if you’ve played the game, you know. Thank you to all its creators, including the actors!