Continuing reviewing games that have not yet been reviewed, here is
Your Very Last Words
I did not know about the Ten Tragic Days, a sad episode in Mexican history when a democratically elected president was forced out of power and then killed by power hungry generals with the help of – you’ll never guess this – the United States ambassador. In Your Very Last Words you are one of the soldiers who fought for the president, and now your enemies are about to execute you. You get ten minutes to think about your last words. Now open your eyes.
When you open your eyes, you see the firing squad, and you can’t think. Best close them again.
With you eyes closed, you can think. Think about the failed attempt to rescue democracy. Think about yourself. Think about your wife and child. Think about your parents. Think about what your life has meant. Think about your fellow soldiers. Think about the enemy. And especially, perhaps, think about what your very last words will be. It’s all a matter of choosing one of three options in a choice menu, where you can in addition choose to remember some of those options as potential last words.
After ten minutes – ten real time minutes, I believe – the sergeant comes back, and you get to say your last words. They change nothing. You are shot and your body is fed to the dogs.
This was an interesting experience. The idea of death looming gives much more significance to your thoughts. The idea that some of these thoughts might be your very last words, and that you have to choose wisely, gives gravitas to every phrase – you are ‘tasting’ them all, trying them out, seeing how they work in isolation. I believe that some of the seriousness you feel comes from knowledge that the historical situation is real. You’re sort of trying to do justice to those who actually fell. That’s weird, but I think it’s true. If the scenario had been more fictional, it could not have had the same impact.
On the other hand, this only brings us so far. Our protagonist remains fairly unknown to us, and his thoughts remain abstract. The interface is clunky: for some actions you need to use the keyboard, for others the mouse, and this kept distracting me. But look, I got to think and to feel and I got to learn about Mexican history. These were twice ten minutes well spent.