Looking at rubrics feels so nostalgic. I am taken back to a night in 9th grade to my Humanities unit on cities for which we had to make an essay and an annotated map. I finished the essay at 4am, planning to wake up in 2 hours to do the map, only to walk into advisory and be asked by my classmate Ali if I had done the assignment, at which point I woke up from the dream having not yet done the map and with only few minutes before I had to go to school. The pig sitting at the desk also reminds me of Aggretsuko’s aggressive, misogynistic, power-abusing boss, further twisting the knife of academic and professional anxiety that this game stabbed into my chest.
Why must there be points? Why must there be winning? Why must I concern myself with whether my grammar is correct or not? This game almost seems to present itself as a metacommentary on game review culture, but very little of it actually guides the player towards truly understanding what this metacommentary is even about. I might point to the almost satirical language in the rubrics, reminiscent of university professors who say things like “To get an A you have to blow my mind”, but by relying on such subversive tactics, the game becomes inaccessible to the general public, its commentary being accessible only to those who have had their metaphorical eyes metaphorically opened already.
While movements of resistance and criticism towards the status quo often need to exist in the shadows for the sake of the safety of those involved, I believe this game can take a much bolder approach and explode its message wide open, while still leaving enough room for player creativity. I think a good way for this game to commit to its mission is to migrate it to a platform that has enough critical mass to ignite an explosion of a discussion, like reddit or YouTube. Within the safe confines of itch, I do not feel comfortable giving the game more than a pig’s tongue - an appetizer at best.