Ratings and Reviews by verityvirtue

I was confused at first: "Load configuration file?" Well, okay, once I figured out how to start a game, it seemed like a database of little factoids, seemingly unrelated to each other. Then there were the personal notes, which made the unseen narrator an NPC in its own right. Endling tugs on your heartstrings because the triviality of some of the 'files' contrasts starkly with the gravity of the disaster the narrator alludes to.

Even though there is no story in the traditional sense of the word, even though it basically is a bunch of factoids, it is elegantly written, carefully constructed and moved me to tears.

In this game, you are a bright student, bullied by everyone and desperately lonely. As you are running from a bunch of bullies, you bump into a friendly adult who seems to hold great insight as to your situation.

It mentions (Spoiler - click to show)women in science and has school bullying as its premise, though the former seems almost an afterthought. If either of these were meant to be major themes, neither were developed enough to bind the whole story together.

The whole story seems a bit thin on characterisation and it made it hard for me to empathise with the main character or get emotionally involved in the story, while the dialogue was unsurprising and didn't reveal much about most characters beyond a generic template.

The game has typos and not-very-thoughtful dialogue. Pity: it touched on weighty topics which could have been developed further; the characters, certainly, could have fleshed out more fully.