not to knock against anyone who enjoyed this game, but this game was mid to me.
THE GOOD
foreshadowing through the prophetic excerpts were cool
the snippets of lore were cool
utilizing game mechanics such as impossible skill checks, 'objectifying combat' was cool
gore was nicely written. and brevity is the wit of the soul indeed
THE BAD
only really dipped its toes into it's philosophical themes
while everything snapped into place at the end, the twists made all of these themes just collapse on themselves
didn't give the player character any agency whatsoever
"haha you actually got the bad ending you were supposed to--" the ideas were never given a chance to be explored or developed just flashed at the end before giving you shitty options
you were given binary choices at the very end with the illusion of choice
you dont get to actually form your own thoughts.
i jumped in with the expectation to be stimulated with ideas--the gameplay really isnt gameplay, and it didn't need to be good. it just needed to make you think as a story.
THE PLOT: (SPOILERS AHEAD)
tl;dr basic misanthropic expansion into the stars. humanity looks out into the abyss and nothing looks back, so we sic our superweapons on each other and murder each other. 1 supercomputer survives and coalesces with lesser computers to become basically god
writes a whole religion
indoctrinates new humans into it
the new humans are evanescant--instead of "growing old and happy", they die "young and pretty". they are indoctrinated to vy to become the strongest, most beautiful, etc
basically turn everything into a starship troopers parody where the sole purpose of humanity is to keep killing the aliens the god-ai spawns
uh
yeah just keep fighting aliens (actually just modified humans) instead of each other as he 'collects more data' to solve the question of preserving the sole intelligent life in the universe. most people never realize the true nature of the experiment (not an experiment rlly tho) (edited)
you get a bad ending if u replace the former hero whose supposed to play along and encourage more fighting the aliens... until he becomes jaded at the total lack of progress and goes rogue
you get a bad ending if you try and fight your former friend turned mindless consumption chimera horror who 'doesn't waste food' by eating all your dead buddies, those ancient superweapons, etc etc. he enjoys it so 'savour the meal' (missed opportunity to get into idk the nature of eating meat or really any other life). he was a former pacifist who was broke and had no food when he was a kid. also a core lore mechanic is that the new humans can absorb the anger and hatred of the dead to become stronger (thus harvest more data for the god ai). the new humans are evanescant--instead of "growing old and happy", they die "young and pretty". they are indoctrinated to vy to become the strongest, most beautiful, etc.thus he becomes the strongest, embodying the shallow goal of the new humans despite formerly being against it (as he was a weak pacifist)
his solution to killing all the aliens and preserving the sole intelligent race is to consume everything. humanity, the god ai, the former hero, etc
you dont actually get to form any thoughts about this. you just get bad endings and the 'good' ending is just you leaving the destroyed guy and super ai. you dont actually return antinatalist thought or your feelings about the nature of life--not just our lives, but the cruelty of consumptive-destructive existence and the raw and utter strength of biology against all reason itself. the irony of us, the human being, and the alien (who is also human) both being one in the same--slaves to biology, enthralled in its irrational will to live. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_to_live)
MY FINAL THOUGHTS
maybe that's why im ranting so heavily abt this.
i feel cheated. the point of interactive fiction is to interact, but i've basically been teased with lore the entire time to only be railroaded into a single, neutral option
the themes are never addressed
they are grazed and then never mature
opportunities are missed
it's good writing, but poor storytelling--it doesnt allow the reader to think
you dont get to actually form your own thoughts. all of it is superficial
waste of time
i got baited by the 90s anime style from gundam
oh and i didnt do any of the romance routes, besides adrien because i wanted to empathize and understand the monsters
too busy clicking to raise my will
not really a game at all
didn't expect it to be one, i expected it to deliver provocation of thought
also do recognize this is a game jam made in a hurry