WILL IT JUST KEEP GOING ON FOREVER???
Lol sitting here now typing this and it's still just... going LOL which I'm assuming is just what will happen until I quit now. Gosh, I'm so unnerved by it though. The slowed-down byte-esque music and the running chat box is incredibly unsettling. When the music suddenly dropped to this version it really hit me in the gut GOD.
This was such an interesting game????? When I first started it up, I got a little overwhelmed because it felt like so many things were happening at once and the messages just started arriving. Despite my frantic-ness at understanding everything, it was such a good way to really drop us right into the middle of things. The confusion and sense that things are just happening around us and we can't stop them?? Very good. Particuarly since even if we try, no matter how HARD we try, we literally just... can't respond. Nothing we type goes through. So it feels like this inevitable descent into The Worst that we're powerless to stop and can only watch play out. It instills this really deep sense of helplessness??
I'm not sure exactly what's going on -- for instance if this is some kind of fantasy or science fiction world (well I do assume this to be the case LOL). And if that world is real or if this is some kind of simulation of sorts. I enjoyed just,,, the growing urgency of the whole thing. And learning bits and pieces about what had happened and trying to fit them together to get a bigger picture. BECAUSE CLEARLY SOME MAJOR SHIT WENT DOWN. And it made me feel very sorry -- both for us, because something deeply affected us enough that we've gone off on our own -- and also for Lucy, who is now completely alone but trying what she can and trying to reach out and make things right but yet it's still not enough. It's never enough. Her efforts aren't enough in either endeavor -- though perhaps partly due to the fact that something is physically keeping us from being able to respond.
I really enjoyed how you set up the UI. The pixel theme and the old-fashioned DOS-esque chatbox and look of everything combined with the byte-y music gave me such a vibe of old-school chat-based games. And I had fun clicking the music on and off and trying to type things into the chatbox, even though they always resulted in the message not sent error. OH AND THE MOMENTS WHEN SUDDENLY A BAJILLION ERROR MESSAGES JUST POPPED UP AND IT GOT ALL WARPED. Those were quite good. The first time I was like still actively playing around with stuff so I thought I had done something to screw it up and freaked out a little LOL it was a nice touch to make it feel even more immersive.
At any rate, a really interesting and unique experience that's gonna sit with me for a while, just thinking about... everything... and the gurgling vibes left over in my stomach from that ending... Really fantastic job and I enjoyed it greatly!