itch.io

You gave me 20,000 words to read, it only felt fair to give a few in return. I'm glad you took it as praise, I was worried that describing it as making me uneasy could come across as an insult, when it's certainly not. I had no expectations going in, and I got a whole lot more than I could've ever anticipated. Your writing style really suits this kind of setting and tone.

To anyone looking to get a feel for this experience, take the content warnings seriously, this game is not fucking around about them.

The experience was similar to watching a rabid animal slowly starving to death, a certainty about what's about to happen, disempowered to do anything about it.

I don't know if I've ever read something with such a visceral and focused use of language. It made me uncomfortable and uneasy with a control that felt cohesive, precise, and unyielding. They way narration changed to reflect how the POV character thinks is not something I've ever seen done with such complete encapsulation. You learn almost as much about the characters from the way that they think as you do the things they think. You learn that these characters are broken, this world is bleak, and it will point to a hollowness inside of us, by way of its characters, and will leave you to sit with that emptiness.

The pacing is flawless. It marches forward in a way that makes you wish it would both slow down so you could recover and process it and hurry up so you can get it over with. You will be denied both. Scenes are given as much room as is needed for what the author wants from it. I was particularly enamored with the title cards between scenes, they break up the action in engaging ways that both expand upon the setting and world while contributing to the overall tone and aesthetic sensibility of the piece as a whole.

This is an experience where every facet of it's being is honed in and pointed in one direction. It is a blade that dares you to stab yourself, to face a darkness that lies beneath the surface of humanity, and stare unblinkingly.

I'm not sure if I liked the experience, but in a way, I loved it? It churned something unhappy and unpleasant from deep within me, and yet I was hooked onto it from the intro. From the moment it started I stared undistracted at the story woven before me for 2-3ish hours, only to reach the end, like I had awoken from a stupor, no sense of the passage of time or my existence outside of the experience.

I'm thankful that stuff like this exists, that it can exist. It's not just fun, joy, and wish fulfillment that games get to deliver on. Futility, grimacing, anguish, these are all very real human experiences, experiences games like this can deliver on. I get a feeling this is going to eat away at my mind for a little while.

It's phenomenal, and yet I have no idea if you should experience it or not. But I suppose that's not a huge surprise,

It's art.