Ratings and Reviews by darlarosa

I must admit the timer caught me off guard, until I realized the hourglass really was measuring the time to read this beautiful poem. In terms of adaptations this is a clever piece. It makes for a relatively quick read, and it's done beautifully by unfolding the "link" passages of the poem, by unfolding them into the spaces between the lines of the poem. I think it's a very successful adaptation. It did exactly what it needed to do, which is emphasize the theme of the poem without taking a way from it. While this cannot fully replace an original reading it is a wonderful accompaniment.

This story is a very ambitious piece, but unfortunately falls flat in a number of places. I will start with some basic thoughts and then some of the larger picture items.

For starters this game does not use capitalization, which isn't an inherently bad thing, but it reads as somewhat lazy when the story is about this mature subject matter. It just is kind of unappealing for the amount of work that was seemingly put in it when looking at the website. Also the title has no reason to be there, and it doesn't fit the text because there doesn't seem to be anything to do with music. Next the first passage doesn't grab the reader's interest. It's mostly onomatopoeia's and it's done in a way that one of my favorite writing professors( Jessica Anya Blau if you want to read her stuff) always said was one of the problems with second person. It is an attempt to create something that can't really be captured in text without a gifted hand. Starting with blinking isn't interesting and it isn't notable really. It would have benefited the story to have started with the feelings and emotions of the character waking up.

There are subtle nuances in the writing that are rarely done and done well. The fact that the boyfriend and the protagonist are caught off guard and he calls her out, almost insulting her is great. Another passage that I liked , for example, was the passage about doing nothing. A number of the endings seem to just "end" without anything happening, but the choice whether to speak or not should leave a bit of impact. Not doing so is kind of a disappointment to the subject matter. Overall there are some passages that capture things well and really shine out, but the overall experience leaves a lot to be desired. It doesn't offer anything particularly insightful or new, but it attempts to tread on this ground in a different and more down to Earth way. But there just isn't enough in the way of results or meat to really impact the player/reader.
I once read an article that accused most IF of being like personal narratives, and while the article was almost insulting to everyone who wasn't in the writer's inner circle, the spirit is applicable here. There needs to be more detail. Why would we want to stay with him? What makes us special? What does our fear feel like? There's a way to go into that in second person that wouldn't compromise the imagination of the story. Without those details many passages feel like a straight script of an event where the player/reader has no agency that matters, doesn't achieve actual intimacy or investment with the situation or characters. Ultimately there's nothing to leave you satisfied even when the characters get a "good" ending, and they have no real problems. What problems there are do not get to experienced, but are told to the audience. Those problems and what they mean never felt by the audience. It is almost assumed that people will connect, and that's not true. I have had many relationships where this sort of conversation has occurred for a variety of reasons in many ways. Still the scenario as presented without real feeling, context, or umph lacks maturity and any impact.

There are some really good bits of dialogue. The character's have a nice voice and the use of space between them is a beautiful touch that people often over simplify. Those two things are the most convincing parts of this story. And I'm not trying to insult the author, but there needs to be a lot of thought on these subjects. People live them. People read them. People watch them on television and film. You really have to up your game and think hard about the whys, whos, and whats along with how to make them bring in the reader.

This game is both incredibly intimate and yet evokes a feeling of the sort of distance the protagonist has always seemed to have felt with live. This combined with the surreal and fantastical elements of the world's end creates a surreal landscape where the impossible is not terrifying but awe inspiring. The best way I can describe it is the descriptions of the world remind one of standing at the edge of a cliff into an impossibly black hole in the middle of a desert. Everything is at the brink, the end is accepted and known, but even still it is terrifying. This feeling is the undercurrent of the story, but the heart of it is a yearning for the past and regret at losing a close connection to someone dear to you.

That theme is evident in how various objects remind the protagonist of different memories of how their life unfolded. Every object that leads to a new passage is important and lends a greater understanding of who You are, who You were, how You saw and currently see the world, and yourself. Those memories and thoughts make the experience intensely intimate in a way few IF stories have really accomplished.

This IF includes some music, which deepened my experience, personally. It adds to it by basically helping isolate you from the world outside your screen, and also putting you in the right head space. It isn't a gimmick, but a very enjoyable enhancement to an already enjoyable story.

Overall, it was a really enjoyable short fiction operating in a cool surrealist landscape. It combines the supernatural, romantic, and surreal elements beautifully. It is truly worth your time.