I have bounced off some games/pieces (whichever you prefer) like this very hard, but when I say ‘like this’… from the games people have mentioned in this topic, some of them were not experienced by me ‘like this’ at all. So it’s not even just the combination of personal and sad, but there has been a tradition of Twine authors in particular expressing that combination in a way where I find myself unable to write a review, because to do so simply felt pointless. The piece was an artifact cry of pain, and as I say a few times here, I’m not here to engage with straight artifact, but at least some kind of artifice.
Where or how this artifice manifests could vary hugely, but if the piece either reads like, for instance, a wooden frame placed around a suicidal diary entry, or just is that entry, then my interest may approach zero.
I’ve described my issues with this kind of thing at probably the most articulate I did (way better than this post!) in my review of ‘I’m Fine’ on IFDB, so I’d invite you to read that to see some of the issues I’m talking about from a potential receiver’s end.
-Wade