Dysfluent by @Ally
Oh, man, do I have feels about this game. I picked it solely for its name. Last year I wrote a game about a different type of dysfluency-- my mother’s Primary Progressive Aphasia-- and so I was obviously going to play this one, as this is a topic close to my heart. The inability to communicate fluidly is gut-wrenching, as I well know, and so I took a deep breath and played this one.
And was promptly confronted with a mechanism I normally hate-- timed text. It still bugged me, but in a more purposeful way. Clearly the author designed it to mimic the stutter at the center of the game, serving an important and painful purpose in the game, dragging out each bit of communication and reminding you constantly of the protagonist’s struggles.
How did I feel? Sad. It made me reflect on my mother’s illness, and all the people who, for whatever reason, can’t communicate as they would like, which includes all of us at times. When confronted with such a barrier in others, we should remember all the times we (even if we can speak fluently) can’t say what we mean and how frustrating that is.
Tom agonized a little over this one, but decided on XTC-- No Language In Our Lungs. This song could be interpreted as being about a stutter, but we’re reading it more broadly as a hymn to all those times we don’t have the words.
