Pyre

A journey through purgatory would seem like the ideal time to get off the wagon. In Pyre, however, getting back on it is part of what makes a supposedly hellish trek so pleasurable. It may seem cramped, but we have a variety of trinkets marking our achievements and commemorating the places we’ve stopped along the way.

There’s a strange floating object we can bat around, a lute which doubles as a jukebox for Darren Korb’s nimble score, and a large bell – though we haven’t rung that for a while, for reasons we shan’t reveal. It’s a place to take a load off, to chat with our fellow exiles, or to catch up on some light reading. We’re supposed to want to leave this place, but over 15 hours, this ramshackle transport has come to feel like home.

The views aren’t bad either. Jen Zee’s richly evocative art is saturated in vibrant colour, conjuring clearly inhospitable but often strikingly beautiful environments. Jagged icebergs jut from frigid waters, wisps of toxic gas rising from bubbling pools of lurid green as swirling tempests rage and steam hisses from boiling fissures. This is the Downside, a world into which you’ve been cast for crimes committed in the Commonwealth. Three others, similarly cast out, find you and bring you on board, before inviting you to translate the text of a mystical tome that leads you towards a ritual which may yet prove to be your way out.