Playing the Narrative: ‘Psychonauts’
In the middle of the woods, a group of psychic soldiers known as psychonauts run a summer camp to help hone the skills of young minds. One such adolescent runs away from home to participate, hoping to become a psychic soldier himself one day. But beneath this youthful front a nefarious plot unfolds. It’s up to the young runaway to enter the minds of those around him. Through this, he obtains the skills he needs while also learning more about each of the characters he encounters.
The premise of Psychonauts is one that is already an incredible blend of narrative and gameplay. The player, Raz, enters the mind of character. The world around him becomes a manifestation of that character’s psyche, granting insight into that character’s thoughts and personality. This on its own would be a wondrous experience, but Psychonauts takes things a step further by having Raz interact with these minds, learning secrets and potentially changing the character’s cognition of the outside world. This is all wrapped with a neat little bow in the abilities Raz acquires throughout the game, tying the gameplay mechanics to the narrative that is being presented.
Psychonauts takes place within a summer camp, and as such, establishes a colorful cast of campers and staff as well as an open hub area. Throughout the camp are a variety of locations, including a main lodge with a store, cabins for all of the children, and a wooded area with rocks to climb. All typical stuff for a camp setting. There also happens to be a lake with an abandoned insane asylum at the other end of it, an ideal location to find some crazy mental worlds to explore. Each of the characters is unforgettable, such as the air-headed Dogen who wears a tin-foil hat to keep his psychic powers under control or the big-haired bully Bobby. This helps create an enticing setting, encouraging the player to explore and learn more about the quirky characters that inhabit it.
There are a few elements present across all mental worlds. The most common of which is the lowly ‘figment’. Each world has anywhere from around 70 to over 200 of them, all meticulously placed. These figments represent the character’s imagination, filling up a landscape with all manner of designs. Memory Vaults play a slideshow of a particular memory when cracked open, giving some clear insight into an important past event for the mind Raz is currently in. Emotional Baggage comes in pairs of bags and tags that play a cute animation when reunited, and are usually scattered in hard to reach places. There are also mental cobwebs, glowing pink webs that cover places that have been neglected in that mind. At times these objects may seem randomly placed, but serve an important purpose in getting a deeper understanding of each of the interesting characters present in the game.
While in training, psychonauts are given a PSI Cadet Rank, a way to quantify their progress. Collecting objects within the mental worlds helps to improve Raz’s rank. To make use of this rank, deep below the campgrounds lies a psychonaut base run by a man named Ford Cruller. It is here that Raz can turn in physical objects he’s collected for additional ranks, as well as use his rank to learn techniques from Ford such as pyrokinesis. After a certain threshold, further upgrades are obtained automatically as subtle improvements for powers Raz already possesses. It is in this way that Psychonauts can reward the player for exploration without being disconnected from the narrative.
The tutorial takes place within the mind of grizzled war veteran Morceau Oleander in a world he calls ‘Basic Braining’. At first glance, it seems exactly what would be expected – a war-torn obstacle course, complete with trenches, bunkers, and landmines. This type of scenario works perfectly for an introduction into basic platforming mechanics while getting to know the other campers. However, this level has some secrets buried beneath its aggressive front.
Throughout the area are small bunnies and plants made of meat, a subtle leak from his psyche about his trauma. Near the end of the world is a hidden room that Raz stumbles upon as part of the story, but is quickly pulled out of before he discovers anything. Most notably, though, is a mental vault blocked by cobwebs. After returning later with a cobweb duster, it is revealed that Oleander never actually got into the army due to his height. This reveals that these mental worlds can actually be a facade. The cobwebs around the vault are a telling sign that he’s hidden these memories from himself as well.
The next world takes place within Raz’s own psyche using a device called the ‘Brain Tumbler’. This delves into Raz’s backstory and the gypsy caravan that he grew up with. Upon entering it, Raz is faced with a dark path littered with thorny bushes and creatures unfamiliar to him. This is, in actuality, a mixture of his mind and someone else’s within the camp, whose psychic interference is causing the machine to malfunction.
The appearance of a bunny and meat plants give a subtle indication that this is part of Oleander’s mind from the tutorial, hinting at a deeper plot. This world also serves as an excuse to further Raz’s education, as he has to leave temporarily at points to learn how to shoot and to levitate, two abilities he uses throughout the rest of the game. Near the end of the area is a vault containing what at first appears to be a memory of an egg hatching and going to an amusement park. In actuality, this is foreshadowing the main plot of the game and how Oleander plans to take over the world. In this way, Psychonauts brilliantly scattered clues in its early worlds that are easily missable but also excellent world-building.
Beyond the camp in the depths of Lake Oblongata is a hulking lungfish, genetically modified to drag children across the lake to the abandoned insane asylum on the other side. This lungfish happens to have a bustling city inside of its mind. Due to the lungfish’s perceived size of Raz, he appears in the world as a giant version of himself. This alters the gameplay, forcing heavier movements and completely disabling the levitation ability. The lack of levitation isn’t a problem as the world is designed with it in mind, granting Raz a new power in a psychic shield to help with the lack of mobility. There is also a part of the lungfish’s mind that is actively fighting back against the modifications. A mental defense, thus the shield ability is a fitting link of the gameplay to the narrative.
At the asylum’s gate is a paranoid guard by the name of Boyd Cooper. He constantly talks to himself about insane conspiracies, many of them related to the dairy industry. Boyd claims to not have the keys to the asylum and that they are in the hands of the ‘milkman’. Delving inside of Boyd’s mind, Raz immediately learns how to use clairvoyance, an ability that lets him see through the eyes of others. Using it on Boyd reveals that he sees a conspiracy theorist’s diagram all around him. Venturing outside of his mental house, Raz discovers a twisted amalgamation of a normal neighborhood, filled with hidden cameras and poorly disguised government detectives.
As Boyd believes he is constantly being watched, the gameplay of his mental world involves changing the perception of those around Raz. Through the use of clairvoyance and objects scattered around the area, Raz can get past government blockades and discover the secret of the milkman. Clairvoyance has very interesting narrative uses outside of this world as well, as Raz’s model is replaced by a 2D image based on the target’s perception of him. For example, using clairvoyance on the bully Bobby will have Raz appear as a punching bag.
Every world within Psychonauts is filled to the brim with subtle touches that enhance the narrative. Each one is a playable representation of the character, creating an incredibly dynamic link between the levels themselves and the story. Psychonauts goes above and beyond, incorporating unique gameplay mechanics and collectibles that represent each character. Psychonauts stands tall as a shining example of ‘playing the narrative’, incorporating gameplay into the narrative of so many unique characters in a way no other game has done before.
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