I mean, insofar as it's a collection of backgrounds for Troika.
Jared Sinclair
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The thing I'm most interested in here (and there's plenty that I'm interested in) is what huge difference there must be between being a Tool-Subject and a Toy-Subject, and how impossible it would probably be to discern from the outside. What a strange thing! I can't even conjure up a guess as to how those states would feel different, what different textures the experiences would have, but I know they must be wildly divergent.
In many ways, the Toy-Subject is akin to a GM, in the traditional sense--the need to find something to say that is both True and Satisfactory, for the benefit of others. The Tool-Subject is kind of the traditional player, in this sense, I suppose.
Lots to chew on, here. I'm not sure I have the strength or bravery to play it, but thank you so much for making it and sharing it with us!
I got "testing, testing," and it is exactly what I've been denying about my life recently, which is fun and terrifying. So there's that. I attached the Knight of Discs to my head for a while today because it's the card that insists it is me, even though I don't want it to. I couldn't see it, because it was on my head, and that didn't make it easier. So there's that, too, I guess.
I don't have a lot of art-babble to throw at this, I think because it so thoroughly makes its own case, you know? It seems... whole, somehow. Thank you for sharing it with us!
These are amazing! And such a pair, feeding into each other. They so cleanly demonstrate the uneasy generative/destructive dichotomy of becoming a better human: we have to be better, to act in a spirit of generosity to ourselves, but we also have to take to ourselves with the sugeon's knife. The pieces we lose, which we need to lose, may look very like our identity; and that's why the generative portion is so important, and comes first.
On a personal note, there's a moment in the first game that really put me in a vulnerable space, just reading it. There in the last item on the list, tucked innocuously in there, is the sentence "Ask for help." And it came as such a surprise, I had a really genuine few moments of confusion and searching, trying to figure out why that sentence was there, in a place I didn't feel like it belonged. Of course, it does belong there, it's exactly where it belongs. But I don't have strong categories for this: I don't ask for help, not as much as I should, and certainly not from a place of strength and appreciation and safety. And furthermore, I don't acknowledge that about myself to myself nearly often enough.
Anyway, thank you. It's a truly beautiful set of games.
What a lovely exploration of identity and alienation! It's tempting, much of the time I think, to focus on the negative: those times of day, perhaps, where existence comes less easily. But there's value in lingering in the spaces where we can be, the in-between places that leave us room to move around, to be ambiguous. This game is a needed invitation to appreciate those places, to look at them and admire them, and to admire ourselves in all our various forms.
Thank you so much for this game!