Platform: PC
Genre: Adventure game 

What Comes After, the indie game from fahmitsu and Rolling Glory Jam about mortality & the afterlife, reminds me of that Midnight Meat Train movie and short story from Clive Barker. Except less grisly and more thought-provoking. And more cute than horrifying. And a lot more hopeful at the end of the proverbial train tunnel.

The story is about Vivi, a girl who overslept on a train when she wakes up aboard a different kind of public transportation. The kind that ferries the dead to their intended location. While she waits until morning to get back to the land of the living, she ends up talking to the passengers onboard and hearing their plights and last thoughts. I’ll have to stop here because everything else beyond here is spoiler territory and it’s a pretty short game.

However, the stories and philosophical bits What Comes After brings up concerning death and how to cope with it as one of the not-living is well-written and structured in a cohesive manner. This is from the same creator of Coffee Talk, so there’s a lot of insightful narratives thrown in here as you discover each spirit’s bone to pick, or their contentment with their final fates. Some are bitter about it, while others are just powering through with no regrets. You’ll even get some surprises that are even non-human.

And it’s only S$4.20 (RM10), so it’s really cheap. With cute and charming aesthetics as well as a topic that hasn’t been touched upon with this much grace, What Comes After is a steal that will resonate with you beyond its hour-or-so experience. Granted, the game is just you walking left to right talking and interacting for the majority of the time, but you’re missing the forest from the trees if you go into this indie with that mindset.

Hop onto this soul train, and perhaps you’ll feel introspective about cherishing what you have in the present, and mortality in general. Perhaps even your own.