Votv Is Really Clever In How It Makes You Care About Dr. Kel As A Protagonist Despite That He Barely

votv is really clever in how it makes you care about dr. kel as a protagonist despite that he barely has a tangible presence in the game

for the first few days, aside from a name in an email, you don't have much to go on. there are what appear to be fun/nerdy stickers on his suitcase and he brought emergency toilet paper and a plushy with him to his solitary job in the middle of nowhere. so he's maybe a bit practical, a little quirky, but those are just crumbs of information, and these sort of first person games tend to lean a little more on the self-insert side anyway. without much else to go on, the next handful of quiet days proceed with you easily slipping into his shoes, forgetting he exists as the protagonist. you're doing the job, you're cleaning your base, you're getting creeped out by every random noise. you live here now. the game is clever about making you care about the base too, but that's a post for another day

time passes, and little by little, you notice small details that add up. the strange and specific nightmares about work and drowning and mannequins. the roaches you can eat with no ill effects that give you a food boost to boot. the clumsy tendency to trip and fall over pretty much anything, the pickiness over food

you save up enough to get a kerfur, have the bright idea to check their camera while they're in the room with you, and there you see it in the camera; not you, but him. maybe he looks the way you imaged, maybe he looks completely different, but suddenly you're very aware that dr. kel exists

then you start to get a glimpse of how other people perceive him--croissants snuck on the drone for him by a friend who brags about her cooking, sushi snuck to you by another friend who calls him an asshole and says she misses him, both of whom are presumably his colleagues and both of whom seem worried for him. the smiling plushie of him the arirals gift if he gets on their good side, their note calling him cute attached to it along with an ominius offer of help in bad times. kerfur calling him a dumbass if he makes them do the reports twice, but also leaning down to his eye level to happily get pets

he's endearing in an odd sort of way, and people in-universe care about him. you start to care about him, which makes it all the more troubling when he makes pained sounds when he falls from too high, or starts coughing out of the blue. makes you wince when he falls off the radio tower or gets launched from the atv. makes it downright horrifying when he's caught by a wisp and torn apart limb by limb while you as the player can do nothing but watch

you find yourself wanting him to succeed, to be safe, to get out of the situation he's found himself in. or at least, i do. there isn't a ton to go on aside from some environmental storytelling and a breadcrumb trail of personality tidbits, but I personally find that trail to lead to an interesting and compelling character with enough wiggle room for further interpretation. i'm very excited to see what else we learn in future updates