The Fog Knows Your Name
As a junior in high school, you had a pretty good life. Your father left the family years ago, but your mother had made a good life for you in the coastal town of Arbor Isle, Maine. You’d never be mistaken for part of the popular crowd, but you had a tight-knit group of friends you’d known forever. Then one night you went to a party, and your world would never be the same again. Rex Keller had been a member of your friend group once, until he left you all in the dust a few years ago when his athletic prowess earned him a spot a few rungs up the social ladder. Although his betrayal still rankled, you never wanted to see him dead - but everyone at the party heard him confront you over some perceived slight, then saw you leave the party together the night the fog rolled in and he never came home. (Bad things have always happened in Arbor Isle when the fog rolls in, or so the legend goes, but that’s just superstition … right?) There was surveillance-camera footage that showed you going your separate ways, and there’s no way you could have gone back that night to where Rex’s body was found - but even if you were officially no longer a suspect, that just meant to some of your neighbors that you’d gotten away with murder. When the whispers and stares got to be too much, you left town to stay with relatives for a few months.
As The Fog Knows Your Name, Yeonsoo Julian Kim’s first game for CoG, opens, you’re coming back to Arbor Isle a few weeks before the start of your senior year. You’re at least a little nervous about how you’ll be received in town, but excited to reconnect with the friends who’ve stood by you. Your first evening back, however, Rex’s grief-stricken sister tries to force a confession from you - and threatens to lure you into the fog to share Rex’s fate. Even more alarming is the night you look out the window and see Rex (at least, it sure looks like Rex) staring back at you. Then the phone calls start - and there’s a hint of fog in the air. The more you and your friends learn about Arbor Isle, the more certain it becomes that Rex is far from the first resident to die or go missing in the fog … and, perhaps, far from the last.
I don’t remember playing this game.
I mean, yes, of course I do, I just started playing it on Thursday and finished it earlier today and I wrote that plot summary from memory. I was sitting in my usual spot on the living room couch. I was drinking water out of my pink water bottle between choices. I know this. But when I think back on this game, what I remember is how it felt: the fun of camaraderie, the indignation of injustice, the grip of mingled fear and fascination. Aside from noticing a few typos, I was immersed in a way that’s precious and rare.
I could wax eloquent about the likable characters (and how they felt like individuals in their own right rather than existing to orbit the PC), the perfect pacing, the impeccable simmer of suspense, the surprising touch of comic relief, the delicious layers of mystery and lore, and the way the ending felt like a punch in the gut and yet I can’t deny it was right. I could, but I’d rather just urge you to play it and see for yourself.
The Fog Knows Your Name may not be the greatest story ever written about teenagers in Maine coming of age by way of eldritch horror (that would be Stephen King’s It, not that you probably needed me to tell you), nor the most chilling ChoiceScript game about friendship and growing up (Natalia Theodoridou’s Restore, Reflect, Retry), but it’s fully worthy to be mentioned in the same breath as either, while offering a far more streamlined experience than It and a more grounded one than RRR.
I don’t know when I’ll get around to playing The Fog Knows Your Name again, but I already know it’s going to be living rent-free in my head. Kim has a second game in development right now, and after such a thrilling and elegant debut, I’m excited to see what’s next.