Virtue: A Satire on Indulgence by Oliver Revolta (anyone know if he’s got a handle here?)
This wasn’t a game; it was an interactive short story. There were a few choices to make, and maybe some of them changed the outcome, but they didn’t feel important or as if I had any agency. Since I almost never replay anything, I’ll only know if there are consequential choices by reading another review.
How did I feel? Conflicted. This story has good bones: a xenophobic protagonist with an impostor complex that she covers up with loud, entitled self-importance, failing to see what’s going on in her own life while she seeks status through virtue signaling that turns into zealotry. Timely. Yet the structure feels off-kilter, slow at some times while rushing through other bits, and it ends very abruptly. It didn’t feel particularly like a satire, either; more like a character sketch of a profoundly self-absorbed person. I did enjoy reading through it, though.
Tom had no trouble with this one. Kate Bush has it covered with Mother Stands for Comfort.
I tried a few parser games that I quit because they didn’t list available exits. Please list available exits, people! I don’t want to try every compass point to discover I can go east, only to find the same lack of exits in the next room. No matter how much I like the story or the writing, I’m not going to continue with a game that doesn’t tell me where I can go, unless there’s a good mechanic-driven or story-driven reason for that.
Next review: In The Details by MA Shannon (I’d appreciate it if someone who knows their handle here would tag them).
This was very short and fun. I picked it for the badass cover art and solid blurb, but I don’t know anything about the author.
Although it was short, and although I did not replay because I don’t do that, I felt as if my choices might be consequential and that there were possibly other endings I didn’t see, and even if that’s not true, it’s nice in a choice-based game to feel like it’s true and that I’m not just clicking through a predetermined story.
How did I feel? Gleefully contemptuous of the protagonist, who is just an awful person. I was absolutely sure of what was going to happen in the end, and normally that’s an iffy thing in a game, but here I was happy to let it play out as I knew it would, and I’m sure the author intended that the player would anticipate the ending.
There were so many song options for this, but Tom finally settled on Nine Inch Nails with Starfuckers, Inc. Warning! This song contains rough language and crude content.
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.
Hah! Fun fun fun. Next year we should totally make a song thread for each game and people should all post their songs there. Or people could just do it here this year. Music chaos! I encourage it.
After several fails at games in my wheelhouse which I didn’t finish for one reason or another, I thought I might be ready for something very different, and remembered @VictorGijsbers and his tears at my saying I didn’t usually like romances. So I played Xanthippe’s Last Night with Socrates.
There’s a lot going on here: a bawdy romance, a tragic goodbye, a socratic conversation about love and sex, and a lot of zippy banter. Very enjoyable, indeed.
How did I feel? Engaged! I loved the tension of a woman lustily wooing her husband on the night before his execution. I won’t blur that, because if you don’t already know the basics of the story, then that’s like the time my stepfather (who held a PhD in literature) didn’t know who Mayzie Bird was and I was horrified at his illiteracy. But anyway, I like tension in my stories, which is why I often go for horror/thriller-type stuff and usually eschew romance. But this game had it in spades.
I finished the game and committed the cardinal sin of having a song pop immediately into my head, when it’s Tom’s job to pick songs. But he listened to it and agreed it was absolutely the correct song for the game, so here are Mickey & Sylvia with Love Is Strange (and I should absolutely get bonus points for a song from Dirty Dancing).
But I’m glad for it, because that’s a lovely review. I had a suspicion you might like the game, and I’m happy to see the suspicion was correct.
(Also, I had no idea who Mayzie Bird was! Having looked it up, I think it only counts as illiteracy for people who grew up in the US. Otherwise, of course, all of you non-Dutch people would be illiterate for not knowing who Pluk van de Petteflet is.)
Like the song! Since you are encouraging music chaos, let me add this to the Xanthippe playlist:
You mean the whole world hasn’t been Seussified? I kind of assumed Seuss was like McDonalds and had swallowed up all of human culture. It’s the closest thing we have to American Shakespeare, which I think makes it required reading.
I hope not. I had a specific favorite set of Dr. Seuss books when I was a kid, and so I remember those extra. There are a lot. My favorites of his were I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew and On Beyond Zebra.
This is so unsurprising. Look what happens to a Seuss-obsessed kid: he grows up to write silly rhyming word games. I was obsessed with the Grimms, and look how that panned out.
Thank you for reviewing Dysfluent, Amanda (and to Tom for his very apropos song choice – I was stoked to receive one)!
I’m normally happy to hear that my game inspired deep thoughts and emotions, but I’m very sorry that it was tied to such painful experiences in your case. My thoughts go out to you and your family for having to contend with such an unfair and difficult situation.
I went and played your game after reading your review, and found it to be as deeply beautiful as it is heart-wrenching. Thank you for sharing such an important story – it’s clear to me that your mother’s eloquence and passion for language lives on through you, helping to fill the world with meaningful art and having a positive impact on many people’s lives!
No, it was good. It always helps to remember that I’m part of a big club of people who deal with this kind of awful, unfair stuff. I really enjoyed the game; I’m going to point to this one in the future as an example of appropriate usage for timed text.
I had a rough day, and wanted a comedy and a parser, and I liked the cover art and short, sweet blurb of this game. I don’t know anything about the author.
And I was delighted by the game. I didn’t finish it in 2 hours, but it had all the things I was missing in recent comp parser games. It’s well-implemented, with exits clearly listed, and has clearly been edited and tested. And it’s funny and fun. I loved the central mechanism of talking to people and helping them save their shows. In fact, you can ASK someone about nearly anything appropriate and get information, or you can simply TALK to someone and be given a helpful menu of topics. It’s really well-designed and runs very smoothly.
How did I feel? After my hard day, I felt a lot of joy in playing such a well-made, funny puzzle game with such well-realized characters.
Tom went straight to Mr. Bungle for this one, and the song-- Carousel– is pretty perfect, even though it’s nearly impossible to understand the lyrics, so I’m including them.
Lyrics
A carnival for the human race
Cotton candy, happy face
A child talking with his mouth full
Girlfriend gets stuffed animal
A festive mood is all around
Another world is what we’ve found
Step right up, let’s make a deal
Let’s ride on the ferris wheel
You know there’s something lurking underneath the shape
With a mask over it’s head and makeup on his face
Into the house of mirrors goes a clown and his elf
Take a look in the mirror and see the clown in yourself
If you want to know what’s behind the show
You ride my carousel and enter life’s jail cell
Love and blood begin to meld, you’ve lost the self that you once held
Merry go round your head - awake, asleep, alive, or dead.
The clown that painted a smile on you
Is now the one unmasking you
Animated scenes unwind
Dormant figures come to life
Entangled in your own web
A twisted tunnel overhead
A glimpse of light, a drop of dew
You slide into the swimming pool
A roller coaster ride into the rivers of your mind
The currents merge, your feelings surge, your life’s a pantomime
Beauty is the spiral going round & round the beast
Without the vampire effect the carnival is deceased
Fun.
Roly Poly
Topsy turvy
Hang upside down
Fall to the ground
I think I’m going to be sick
Cheers for such a kind review! I’m glad it made your day a little better. Very pleased by that song choice too - some very appropriate lyrics in there. Thanks to you and Tom!
