To Persist/Exist/Endure, Press 1
I felt like this game had a slightly clever/slightly annoying interface: you would click and drag a verb, and one or more nouns in the text would light up that you could drag it to, so, for example, you could drag ‘break’ onto either ‘down’ or ‘phone’, to break down or break the phone. Cute, but on my high-res monitor, the actual dragging was a little obnoxious, and the sensitivity was a little high, meaning I sometimes had to get the word exactly positioned before it would take.
However, I probably would have easily forgiven and appreciated the interface if the game itself had something I could enjoy. The plot, such as it is, is that you’re navigating an existentially-terrible phone tree, and you yourself are a ball of angst. There’s no indication whether the world itself is existentially terrible, or if your own angst makes it seem that way. There’s no indication why you are a ball of angst. There’s no indication whether the company you’re calling actually exists, or why. There’s no indication why you’re calling them.
In general, I felt like it didn’t have anything to say about our protagonist’s situation, merely that it existed. And ‘some people are pretty angsty’ is something I’ve known for quite some time. Having grown out of my own angsty phase several decades back, it’s no longer something that resonates with me by default, which I felt like the game was relying on: if you want to pull people into an experience, you have to hook them and draw them in to the perspective you want to share.
So, technically competent, reasonably expressive, but ultimately lifeless, for me. I feel like I’m probably not the best audience for it, however.
Did the author have something to say? : Not really.
Did I have something to do? : Again, not really. I kind of liked the Polish joke, though.