Only a few minutes into this and I could already see all the hard work you put into scripting and presentation that you were telling me about before, the different windows and pop-up notifications for different dialogues and narration boxes (which I could move around, super cool), the sprites as little square icons, everything including the sound design fucks very hard, it’s all gives such a vivid image of like… grunginess that I’m already acclimated to with your work, but you keep polishing it with every game, it’s really cool to see.
And of course the art is exceptional as usual, not just the purposefully simple and claustrophobic icons for each character, which show just enough for their personalities to come across, with some really nice backgrounds that had me guessing for a while; part of me thought they were different angles on a clock on each of those backgrounds lol. But still, both those and the CGs were gorgeous and really added to the feel of the VN.
Regarding the cast, they all immediately jump out at you, their personalities are loud and imposing, and with so many of them initially it feels a little hard to tell them apart aside from their portraits, but as I played the game I like that I began to differentiate their very specific brands of mind-rotedness and various neuroses (Haley’s burning anger which at first was hard to differentiate from the rest of the cast but now feels all the more present and tragic in retrospect, Nessa’s seemingly chill but also kind of jealous and vindictive attitude, Audrey’s weird maturity and desire to help despite not giving a shit about her body, etc.) and it’s your writing that really makes that work. Because as a story I definitely feel like you’re initially asking us to hang on a bit, to get to know these fuck-ups before passing quick judgment, kind of like Argo when it first meets them all in pretty much the same way the reader does. I thought that was a really neat way to portray that.
Also a quick aside to point out just how fucking funny this VN is. Like, there were so many out of left field lines and parts worthy of a screenshot, these fucking idiots are so entertaining when they’re not being horribly sad, sometimes both at the same time. “One of my friends shot herself in the dick” nearly made me choke.
And that kinda goes hand in hand with another thing I noticed that feels very real even if normally you’d think it seems unrealistic in writing, that being how when Argo and Nessa (or other combinations of characters) start talking for a while, that outer layer of internet irony and general disregard for everything slowly gives way to more genuine conversations and emotional dialogue, much like how sometimes it works when meeting new people. It’s arresting when it first comes up, to the point it felt a little sudden at first, but I’ve definitely had those types of shifts in conversation too.
I can definitely see the Dennis Cooper inspirations in this. I unfortunately haven’t had the chance to find copies of the George Miles cycle yet, even secondhand, and have only read The Sluts, but this strikes a very similar chord while still being very much your own game, sharply so. It was also really neat to see you tackle a more down to earth story (or as down to earth as all this shit can be) as opposed to your two previous Yuri Jam entries. The fascism and the awfulness of the world is still there of course, but in this one it’s more something the characters have to weather as they try to also weather themselves and each other, than anything they have a chance to strike against. And while the opposite is what I really praised ‘She was Swallowed by the Sun’ for, you really made sure to up the ante on the transgressive queer shit on this one, so I really have nothing to complain about, this was genuinely incredible and sickening in equal measures.
A lot of parts were very difficult to get through, and you can definitely take that as a compliment. Yet they weren’t the more graphic scenes, like all the cutting (which I did have to speed through a little) but the ones with just characters talking, which shows how strong the characterization and writing was for this one. Special shout-out to the absolutely horrible/funny/tragic part where Audrey is just trying to chill and ends up acting as a therapist for her entire friend group and inadvertently speaks to Haley for the last time. Without a doubt my favorite scene in the entire VN, my heart rate was a mess by the end.
Also on the topic of Audrey, I really love her. How is it that this idiot who shot her dick off is the one everybody comes to for advice? And it’s clearly not a new thing, it took me a while to recognize it but Audrey does have a certain… maturity? Emotional common sense? That makes her stand out amongst her friends because she’s the one everyone knows, and she’s the one kind of in the middle of all the drama without really partaking in it, and you can see how exhausting it is, I love it. I was kind of working on a similar character to her, so she quickly became one of my favorites. That, and that out of the entire cast she’s the most like the characters from your previous VNs.
“Nessa can’t remember when she last wanted to see Argo” Ouch. Just a very impactful and to the point line, really loved it.
Speaking of Nessa, I feel like she’s the only one from the group I didn’t get a very good understanding of by the end of the game. Maybe it’s because of her avoidant personality, but as the game progressed I felt kind of like Audrey, wanting her to step away from Argo a little so I could get a scene with her and her inner thoughts, her life and all that. Obviously there’s a bunch of characters already and it’s impossible to give all of them a lot of screentime, but I do wish we’d gotten a little more of Nessa, especially with how in-depth we got to know Argo.
One thing I wanna mention is that a lot of this game gave me the specific kind of ‘magical realism’ vibe where it’s not actually clear at any point if that’s what the setting is or where the story is going, as opposed to being blatant, which I love a lot, especially with The Hole and all of that. There was definitely a level of detachment at some points simply because of cultural differences in how queer groups are and act like, I think, but that never really got in the way because the characters were so entertaining.
A lot of this game is gonna stay with me for a while, as with your previous works. I feel like I still have to process what happened to these characters… If nothing else, your VNs never fail to inspire me to write and get better in that way, I always feel a bunch of ideas blooming in my head while I read your stuff.
Anyway uhhh this has been pretty rambly and long so far, so a few quick-fire thoughts before I go. For a second I thought Harsh Noise’s glyphs had something to do with SwSBTS? Roaches… I really don’t know how I feel about Roaches, I’ll be pondering on that, I did feel like Audrey toward her in some parts. Love Noni a lot. Fuck Leah. I loved how complex of a character Maya was. Yeah.
Cuppy dog city was not what it was advertised at in those tumblr posts, but I loved it nonetheless.