Epic Mickey U.

What if you’d had all the fun you were allotted in life? Had the major relationships you’d come to have, nurtured those you were assigned to nurture, accomplished whatever was your function, but then just had time left? You didn’t need to work, there were no doors or windows opening provocatively before you...you just had a couple or so decades, potentially, of blank slate left, but no directive?

Uh oh...I just reminded myself of Epic Mickey 2! A game which ends perfunctorily, leaving you with no further goals, no further mandated quests. The world of Wasteland remains open, and you’re free to wrap up any little fetch chores you may have left undone in the course of the main campaign...but you’re not really sure why you’d want to. The campaign is done, there is just nothing driving you.

That is among the very weirdest things I’ve ever heard of--that Epic Mickey 2 has suddenly, and most strikingly, presented itself as an allegory for life as I currently know it. I swear I didn’t do that on purpose, but there it is, and such a good fit.

I guess it’s pretty damn lame not to be able to design your own levels. I figure that’s what most people would do. I’m stuck. I can’t think of a good level idea.

I thought, actually, that back when I was still completing the “Caregiver” level (worth about a million experience points, and 3 strength upgrades,) that I’d laid the groundwork for another chapter, but it sorta fizzled. That is a flat can o’soda.

Well, I did put in a couple wish requests (see last entry.) But they are not important, they are wishes. More to the point is finding something useful to engage in which includes interacting with humans. At which point those wishes would become recognizably wants not needs.

There is a “task” on the Epic Mickey 2 pause screen--the spot that usually tells you, briefly, whatever it is your next goal is. At the end of Epic Mickey 2, after you’ve had your epic cut-screen finale, and you’ve run around for a bit saying “huh?...am I done?” it says this: EPILOGUE: Work together to use the turnstile and open the way forward. “Together,” in this context, refers to the fact that Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, whether controlled by a second player or by AI, is your constant companion throughout the game. But where is “forward?” So far, no one seems to know, and we assume that Epic Mickey 2 is a truncated game, meant to prime you to shell out for Epic Mickey 3. In my real life, there is no epilogue stamped at the bottom of anything I normally turn to for advice, so I’m left to wing it without even that teaser hint that something might be on the horizon.

A couple friends said that if I’m experiencing winter solstice seasonal affective disorder, I should sit in the dark and stare at the lights of the Christmas tree, with a warm cup of something nice. (in my case, it’s a decaf with a shot each of french vanilla soy and whiskey.) So I did that, and it feels good.