Few famous quotes drive me as mad as “Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans.” It’s not that the line (which originated from a 1957 issue of Reader’s Digest, but was popularized by John Lennon decades later) is an eye-rolling cliché that’s since been slapped onto a billion novelty mugs. It's more that it’s so regrettably true that it’s impossible to dispute a genuine bit of wisdom that has since been reduced to fodder for my aunt’s Facebook posts.

No one knows that better than Alfred, the star of Forever Ago, a new narrative adventure game published by Annapurna Interactive. The aging grouch at the center of developer Third Shift’s long-delayed debut has already lived a long life full of foiled plans by the time we join him on a grief-stricken road trip. Flashbacks between pit stops paint a picture of a man who has experienced both extremes of the fate spectrum, in a long life rerouted by unexpected rainstorms and engine failures alike.

Third Shift embraces every twist and turn in a sincere narrative adventure that fits a little too snugly into Annapurna’s growing catalog of interactive tear-jerkers. With its Hallmark nostalgia and underexplored gameplay, Forever Ago does little to elevate a run-of-the-mill story of loss and memory that telegraphs exactly where it’s headed too early. But like an enduring cliché, Alfred’s story doles out enough earnest wisdom to earn a bit of sentimentality.

Forever Ago begins through the lens of a camera.

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