Extremely personal and sad games is the original topic.
I didn’t want to take over the general ideas discussed there, so I started this one.
What are examples of sad games that really worked for you or showed you the way, or might show you the way, in case you wanted to write one?
Abigail Corfman’s The Absence of Miriam Lane, which placed 2nd in IFComp,worked very well for me. I included a how-and-why of my own which is (I think) the sort of thing I’d look for in other works that 1) is unlikely/unintended to drain the reader and 2) gets across a good example quickly.
There was a scene where you find a photograph of Miriam smiling at work with other coworkers, IIRC at a company party. And you are trying to show her happy memories, to get herself back. But if you show it to her, the status bar shows her shrinking back into herself. You’ve done something to hurt her.
Why? Because it seems like a happy memory for her, but it is not. It is her husband’s job, and she was secretary there, and she never got to explore the needs she wanted.
It worked for me because I remember how my parents would buy me Pepperidge Farm chess cookies because I liked chess and I liked cookies, right? So, combine the two! Synergy! But they might not be happy if I, say, checked a chess book out from the library, even if they didn’t actively discourage it. School being less frivolous.
There parallel with Miriam Lane is that she enjoys writing poetry or bird watching or botany, which her husband finds impractical.
I remember liking the cookies until I didn’t. I don’t have a violent reaction to them but I remember passing them by in the grocery store and having that thought.
