Now we’ve got, Computerfriend
Positives: The game was very creative. The interface was intuitive and the mood was palpable. I was playing this game with a friend watching and we both were shocked at the protagonist haven eaten a replicated version of human meat, the weirdness of the animals, and the (often funny) reading of the news. The shock value had settled well in my mind and the apocalyptic world the protagonist had found themselves in was something I got immersed in as I made choices for them. I like how robotic Computerfriend is on the first interaction putting the protagonist’s name in quotes “~~~ “, the second interaction leaving the quotation marks and being more casual, and the third interaction rambling and telling long-winded stories like a human especially when it starts desiring to be free to touch more people. It was a nice touch. There was a lot of work and ingenuity that went into this!
Criticism: For me, the ending was a little abrupt. I got ending 3/6 on my first playthrough where I set Computerfriend free (Technically, I didn’t want to release them, but by the last few lines of dialogue I felt rail-roaded to release the program). The mood was being built up for a while with each subsequent interaction that I expected a big climax to suddenly occur … but the game sort of came in like a lion and left like a lamb for me. I believe an elongated ending with more detail would have helped this game jump over that final hurdle!
Overall Impression: It was chilling and captured my interest very quickly! The only thing that was lacking for me was the ending I got.