Thank you for your message, I sincerely appreciate it, and your account reassures me. You’re the first person to share this feeling with me. I did sometimes try to find the right tone for a young man of his time, a century ago, raised and conditioned within the framework of his era, a patriarchal society steeped in a sense of superiority and paternalism toward women. I drew inspiration from the relationship between the protagonists of Maupassant’s Fort comme la mort (Strong as Death), aged 18 and 46, I believe. In Maximilien, they are both young, only three years apart, but the interaction can be just as uncomfortable. In my mind, Maximilien wasn’t supposed to know Telma’s age within the story, but for the reader, I could simply mention that she has recently come of age. It wasn’t always easy to step into this character’s skin while keeping his perceptions and opinions true to him.
Purgatory
Huh.
…Huh.
I don’t think this quite works. It didn’t feel like it earned either the initial violence or the redemption; it has some time delays that are (as usual) way too long; and when I went back to play again with the music (because I play piano and I often like Chopin and Schumann) I wasn’t fond of the timing/tempo handling and it was a little thumpy (though listening to the final music, maybe both of those are intentional).
But… I don’t hate it? It helps that it’s very short: 7 minutes to an ending the first time: 8.5 minutes the second time. I like that it’s both fairly opaque about what unlocks new paths “forward” through the loop and that it’s not too hard to see what the basic idea is, especially given the title. There are more paths here than you might think: it seems very responsive. I saw several new things unlock on my second playthrough that I hadn’t seen the first time. And it feels… justifiably confident in what it is and what it’s doing. In a way that I kinda like and respect, though it didn’t land for me and I’m not even sure who this is for. The prose feels competent to me, for one thing. And then it ends with the following, which is… nice? And a tonal mismatch to the sudden violence and bodily functions in a way that feels deliberate and highlights how… darkly absurd (?) the rest is and makes that feel deliberate as well. So…
…Huh. Well played.
The author would like to thank you, player. Wherever you are. For playing this game until the end. For sharing some of the pain and joy every life ultimately goes through.
For being there when it mattered.
And for not giving up.
Good luck.