My Pseudo-Dementia Exhibition by Bez
Note: I’ve been sitting with this one for a bit. It definitely spurred a lot of thoughts, and although I’m still not totally sure how I think it works as a game, I did want to share some reactions.
TLDR: The author shares his memories and artifacts from his life during a period of mental health recovery in the format of a virtual museum exhibition. (I understand that the “frame” we’re given here is factual, in contrast to some of the games in the comp with fictitious framing stories.)
[ + ]
-
I was surprised how effective the simulating of a physical exhibition space was for me. The transitions screens (with footstep sounds), the pane showing an overhead map, the ability to walk between the displays in whatever order I wanted, it was working for me.
-
This piece is full of raw and unfiltered autobiographical material, which has a gripping “can’t look away” feeling. That compelling feeling of honesty and real life is one of the strengths of the game.
-
The author is a keen observer, and has the ability to relate incidents from his life in a way that both has the weight and specificity of actual experience, but also connects with the player through universal experiences. For example, in one of the bits that I was most affected by, we learn that the author had been considering committing suicide and leaving a last gift for his sister, but then says “And I realized (thanks to, as strange as it sounds, a YouTuber’s critique of Guardians Of The Galaxy Volume 2) that leaving a final gift for Eliana and then killing myself would be kind of a dick move.” I’ve never been in that exact situation, but I’ve been turning that moment over in my head since, reminded of the many times in my life that a piece of media that is objectively extremely mundane has spurred a deeply personal revelation.
[ Δ ]
-
This is a quibble, but when I wanted to move quickly through the exhibition (for example, to go back and look at something I’d been looking at earlier) there was a bit of friction because the physical placement of the movement options shifted up and down. It would have been easier to navigate if, say, all 4 directions had been permanently present in fixed locations (perhaps with the impossible directions grayed out), so that the player could just click “north” “north” “north” without having to move the cursor.
-
It would have been nice to have a sense at the beginning of how large the museum was—when I visit museums irl I find that helpful to marshal my resources
-
I don’t know if this would be logistically possible, but it might have added a fascinating depth to include contributions from anyone else involved in the author’s journey (e.g., twin, friends).