Parallels: A Formalist and Sociological Analysis of Until Then

By: Azriel Omalza

Introduction

Until Then is a video game released in June 2024 by Polychroma Games, an indie game studio based in the Philippines. The setting of the game is inside the Philippines, particularly in Metro Manila. The game allows the player to walk in a 2D environment while being able to interact with it such as talking to people or commenting on certain physical details. 

This game gives the opportunity for a detailed analysis of the visual elements designed by the developers. Through the formalist and sociological lens, the visuals will be analyzed to reveal the developers' interpretation, perspective, observations, motivations, and approach in accurately depicting the Philippines' culture and environment, in how it captures both its beauty and its challenges.

Body

In the opening scene of the game, the main character, named “Mark” wakes up and gets ready for school, the game shows his daily routine of commuting from his home to his school. The sidewalk in this scene is a replica of 977 Aurora Blvd, Project 3, Quezon City, as seen below in Figures 2 and 3.

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Figure 2                                                                                                          Figure 3 Replica of the real life location. (Polychroma Games, 2024b)                       Google Street View of Aurora Blvd (Google, 2024)

The entire sequence starts from Figure 2 until Mark boards a train at Katipunan Station. Throughout this part of the opening scene, the game already indicates two major problems in the Philippines: environmental degradation and urban waste accumulation.

Firstly, as seen in Figure 2, tucked behind the terminal is a single foam food container and a water bottle. As the player progresses further, the amount of food-related urban waste only increases, ranging from soda cans to dropped ice cream. Secondly, there are clear problems in waste management. For instance, trash bags are stacked on top of each other beside a pole, and some are already full, causing litter to spill over. Additionally, train receipts are scattered on the floor, and a dead rat is visible.

Later in the story, Mark goes to a hospital to join a friend on a visit. Later in the sequence, Mark is shown walking through a hallway of the hospital, as depicted in Figures 4 and 5.

 

Figure 4                                                                                              Figure 5

Mark walks in the hospital hallway (Polychroma Games, 2024c)      Mark stands in the hospital hallway (Polychroma Games, 2024d)       

Observing Figures 4 and 5 indicates that there is a lack of facilities and a number of patients that is more than what the hospital can handle. Figures 4 and 5 both show consultations between patients and hospital staff in the hallway, a process normally done inside a room. Figure 5 also includes a man sleeping on a bed outside of a room along with other patients in this sequence who are in beds outside of a room, one of whom is a pregnant woman. 

Critical Analysis

Through a sociological lens, the Philippines' rapid urbanization has led to poor waste management, causing its accumulation. Issues like these pose a threat to public safety, blocks drainage systems, pollutes water sources, and harms tourism (Portillo, 2024). Moreover, Portillo mentioned that the main cause of this poor management of waste accumulation is the lack of accessibility to treatment facilities or efficient collection systems, along with a lack of environmental awareness. The game highlights this problem by emphasizing the citizens' lack of initiative. In addition, the abundance of plastic trash bags in this sequence indicates that there's a lack of alternative resources and awareness of their contributions to air, soil, and water pollution (Li et al., 2022).

Utilizing the formalist lens, variety was lacking in design and choice of objects for the trash, leading to repetitive visuals and the oversimplification of the issue, boiling down to “a few trash bags and water bottles.” Moreover, efforts were made by Quezon City to limit the accumulation of waste, such as main road collection, bulky waste collection, special waste collection, cleanup operations, and street sweepers (Quezon City Government, n.d.). None of these were acknowledged in this sequence.

Moving onto the hospital scene, from a sociological standpoint, the problem it presents is already apparent in the Philippines. An important detail is that Polychroma Games began developing Until Then in 2020, the year of COVID-19’s first peak. 2020 saw a 54% decline in disease admissions compared to 2019, indicating 2020 strained the Philippines’ healthcare system (Uy et al., 2021). The strain in this case is portrayed by the sleeping patients on hospital beds outside the confines of a room, the copious number of people cluttered in the hallways, and consultations happening without privacy. The scen’s depiction effectively shows the overarching issue that plagues hospitals to this day.

Analysis with the formalist approach showcased the effort made to portray the feeling of claustrophobia and clutteredness to emphasize the issue it's trying to highlight. In the hallway sequence, every frame had hospital staff or patients. Hospital staff walking past, along with the small spacing between each character, effectively imitates the feeling of urgency. However, this immersion is weakened by the poor sound design. The only heard ambience throughout this sequence is the air conditioning, with occasional coughing. The realism and chaos were not portrayed well through the sound design. Overall, it undermines the severity and direness of the real-life situation.

Conclusion

Until Then’s portrayal of the prevalent issues that the Philippines is experiencing is effective and observable. The game properly depicts the waste issue and imitates the real-life environment. However, it failed to address or show any display of resistance by the government even though efforts have already been made. In addition, the overused visuals undermined the issue at hand.

The way they visually conveyed the disorganized setting caused by overcrowded hospitals is clear and accurate. On the other hand, the audio design did not measure up to the immersion that the visuals presented. Overall, the game has successfully emphasized real-life problems faced by citizens of the Philippines, with only minor inaccuracies.

Reference List

Polychroma Games. (2024a). Until Then [Game Cover Art]. Maximum Entertainment.

Polychroma Games. (2024b). Until Then [Screenshot of Protagonist Walking]. Maximum

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Polychroma Games. (2024c). Until Then [Screenshot of Protagonist in the Hospital]. Maximum

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Polychroma Games. (2024d). Until Then [Screenshot of Protagonist in the Hospital]. Maximum

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Google. (2024). Street view of Aurora Blvd, Quezon City, Metro Manila [Google Maps Street

View]. Google Maps. https://goo.gl/maps/example

Portillo, G. (2024). Improper waste disposal in the Philippines: Causes, consequences, and

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https://en.renovablesverdes.com/improper-waste-disposal-in-the-philippines/

Quezon City Government. (n.d.). Department of Sanitation and Cleanup Works of Quezon City.

Quezon City Government.

https://quezoncity.gov.ph/departments/department-of-sanitation-and-cleanup-works-of-quezon-city/

Li, B., Liu, J., Yu, B., & Zheng, X. (2022). The environmental impact of plastic grocery bags and

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https://doi.org/10.1088/1755-1315/1011/1/012050

Uy, J., Van, V. T. S., Ulep, V. G., Bayani, D. B., & Walker, D. (2021). The impact of COVID-19 on

hospital admissions for twelve high-burden diseases and five common procedures in the

Philippines: A national health insurance database study (2019–2020). The Lancet

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https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lanwpc.2021.100197