I’ve always loved the idea of video games as interactive art. Growing up, cozy puzzle-solving games like Professor Layton were a welcome interactive escape. Later, in college, I discovered channels like Extra Credits that got me thinking critically about how the interactivity of games sets them apart. And Cozy Grove, with its wholesome story of helping ghosts, got me through a large chunk of 2020. So when I first heard of a video-game themed mystery featuring retirees, I knew I had to check it out.

The World of Pondside by Mary Helen Stefanick follows events at Pondside Manor, a nursing home. When Robert Kallman, a young ALS sufferer, dies suddenly, Pondside is turned upside down. Kallman, a skilled coder, had written a game for his fellow nursing home residents. This virtual world, accessed through a duck icon (“the ducklink”), allows residents to live out their dreams – whether it’s one more baseball game with a loved one or an old-time dance party.

But when Kallman falls into the pond and drowns, the ducklink stops working. And the police, unconvinced that Kallman’s death was an accident or a suicide, continue to poke around Pondside. The residents turn to Robert’s friend (and Pondside kitchen worker) Foster for help. As Foster tries to keep his life together and bring the game back to life, he starts to find there’s more to the game than meets the eye.

The video game as community mirror

From the very first page, I fell in love with the Pondside community. The first scene in the novel shows us how much Foster cares for Robert – which makes us care about both of them. Stefaniak bounces between perspective characters: there’s Laverne, who desperately misses her husband, Bill; Mary, a new resident; Dakota, Mary’s carer and a college student; and Kitty, who runs the place. This structure enables fast, telling introductions, so that each character quickly feels real.

It’s not just the multiple perspectives, though – the video game plays a critical role in enabling this knowledge and intimacy. Kallman created “portals”, customized for each resident, that allow each to live out their ideal dream. Through painstaking design and coding, he brought treasured memories and future fantasies to life. It’s telling that Laverne returns, again and again, to a beloved memory of traveling with her husband. And you can discern a lot from the fact that Kitty’s dream state is a high-ranking fashionista. The video game is the ultimate wish fulfillment, and a personality gauge for each character. (This is absolutely reflective of how real game designers think about their jobs, which is pretty cool.)

Yet there’s a subtlety to this wish fulfillment – while the game makes its players happy, it may also make them complacent. Some characters use the game as a source of pleasure and fun, never really losing their personality. Others use it as a wish fulfillment mechanism, a tool to hide from reality. This nuance – with some characters empowered by the game and others relying on it – reflects the real world, where video games have faced this controversy for years. Stefaniak avoids definitive pronouncements on the value of the game itself, portraying it as a tool to be used or abused by its players.

What “counts” as cozy?

As I read The World of Pondside, my mind kept wanting to classify it as a “cozy mystery”. Video games are certainly a non-traditional subject for a “cozy mystery”. In the modern version of the genre, it’s also a bit weird to have a male protagonist and this many perspective characters. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that this feel squarely in the more traditional cozy mystery genre. It may not have a punny title or a girl gang – but it’s got the right heart.

The World of Pondside features many hallmarks of the cozy mystery genre, namely:

• The death happens offscreen
• Foster and the nursing home residents are all amateur detectives
• Pondside certainly counts as a small, tight-knit community

There are also more superficial elements that feel like they should count for something, namely:

• Lots of cute old people, many of whom take active part in the sleuthing
• Foster, the main character, helps write the video game in his spare time. If you, like me, think of video games as art, this feels like a “crafting element”
• Side-plots and romances to drive community interest and intrigue

Even the mystery’s solution follows modern “cozy mystery” rules, focusing more on the character and plot impact than the puzzle. Without giving too much away, the climax and denouement are not really well-clued from the beginning of the novel. Per mystery-reader parlance, it’s not “fair play”. But that’s not the point with this type of book – success is defined not by a puzzle, well-solved but by characters you care about. And The World of Pondside certainly delivers on that front.

Reader’s notes and rating (⭐⭐⭐✨)

The World of Pondside is a fascinating update to the traditional cozy mystery formula. Stefaniak uses video games as a character exploration device – a conceit that I hope we’ll see more of, as it’s very effective. In keeping with many modern mysteries, it’s not a fair play mystery – more a mystery / adventure novel – with a strong emphasis on community. The story also explores the ramifications of ALS and memory loss. Overall, it’s a compelling package.

That said, the ending was slightly disappointing. It felt a bit rushed – a mad dash to the finish with almost a sense of time distortion. The final few chapters felt jam-packed with information that might have been better parceled out a bit earlier. Some of these elements hit the right emotional / revolutionary note; others fell a bit flat. This brought the final rating from a full four stars to 3.5: I’d happily recommend The World of Pondside to many friends, but not generically as a an example of the cozy mystery (or video game mystery) genre.