This game came when I needed it. I'm already in college and already trans, but right now while I'm trying to make it through summer break, the aspect of feeling trapped and desperate in your parents' house hit home for me as hard as it ever could have before.
Thank you for the sanctuary.
I miss in high school when I used to message with my friends. There is something so special about the way we used to talk, how the sterility of text made us *more* open and earnest instead of less, using all these silly emoticons and stuff to create a voice more vulnerable than we knew how to be in person. Somehow I lost the confidence to be open, and loving, and un-self-conscious. I lost the confidence to text my friends at all. But I want to try again. I don't have to feel alone.
I want to write "bad" fanfiction that expresses my feelings. I want to talk to other fans about things that make me happy, whether or not any of it is productive, or insightful, or skillful in any way.
To give a more conventional compliment, I loved the command line programming aspect and how it grew into a more central challenge! It's kinda the only time that kind of meta hacking thing in a game has felt believable to me. :)
The horrid static effect with John was so real.
After the climax, I was upset at first because I didn't understand how John could suddenly be so understanding, or what Alex had really said outside the metaphor of her friends speaking that could have gotten through to him like that.
But later I realized I wanted to have a talk with my own dad. And I did. It was just a start, but it went well!
And I think I feel better about the ending now. John is a monster and a person. And it helps me feel like you can build understanding with someone without it invalidating what you've gone through in the past.
I want to hold onto the way this game made me feel. The sense of security in doing things that make me happy, the feeling that friends don't have to be so far as long as you can speak with each other, the idea that I'm still learning and I don't have to be anything yet because everything that feels like it's missing is already a part of me. And that the feelings that make me feel like the world is splitting apart can be acknowledged and written and captured in a screen, and that everything comforting and good is still there when they pass.
Thank you so much.
P.S. I'm also really happy that, later, Alex and Sam will meet another girl named Clover, move to Beverly Hills, and become the greatest spies ever.