I had a lot of the same thoughts as Asya growing up, and I came up with a lot of the rationalizations she had to deal with those thoughts. So as she got more and more unhinged in her thinking, it felt like watching myself spiraling.
As a result, though, the ending made me cry so, so hard.
It's painful, but to me it was a good kind of pain. The writing, the themes, and the ultimate message it seems to have... It made me feel seen and spoken to.
I got it on a whim over on Steam and I've been thoroughly enjoying it. It hits a feeling that just doesn't come up much in games. True, honest to God melancholy. I'm excited to see the rest of the game.
Oh, you're also absolutely INCREDIBLE for lifting Triple Triad and putting it into the game!! If I'd known that sooner I'd have hopped onto it faster. I just wanna know how to activate the special rules.
This was a concise, truly stellar story that left me desperate for more. Literally. The end of the fourth chapter had me so uneasy, so unsure of where it would go from there, and yet it just... ended. Which isn't an issue at all, it fit the pacing of the game and the story up to that point, but that unease was just left to dissipate with no resolution to it as strong as I hoped for.
I only write that out to ask whether there are plans for an expanded version of the story or a sequel? I'd understand if not, or not for a long time, but I want to support your works in the future and would love to keep track of its release!
I've wanted to say something about it for ages but just never knew where would be best. This series has been wonderfully executed. It's doing something you can't really do for mainstream art, being very brutally honest with the reader with her experiences. Down to her not even having a name. It's really affected me and I want to thank Ponporio, the guest artists for these and previous nightmares, and Carpenter for all they've done to bring it to life.
The game itself does a great job of executing the PT like repetition, using everything it can to characterize her and give insight into her situation. Even keeping her demons away becomes routine through the execution, locking the beast away before it bites but always being dangerous if you forget about it just once. The final phone call in particular is beautiful, and sequestering it as something you can only hear in a replay is an incredible way to show that despite the kindness in it, the thoughts of it are buried deep inside her.
I look forward to the rest of the chapters, and I'll keep an eye out for more games by Carpenter Blue for sure.
I saw just a snippet of the game's opening on Youtube and sought this out from that. This is genuinely stellar work. The artstyle, the atmosphere, the creeping dread as things get worse...
I want to see more of this setting. I want to learn what happened with the other residents, how things progressed after the Catastrophe beyond the snippets of info in that pdf. I'm genuinely fascinated with this world and I hope you'll make more.
