Reviews by manonamora

Tectonic is a short Twine piece, inspired by the myth of Persephone. While stuck in the underworld, you (as the goddess) reflect on your situation, with Hades being distant or seemingly interested in you, and you struggling with the reaction of your mother as the “deal” was made. Whichever ending will depend on whether you concede to your new role as the Queen of the Underworld, whether your anger is greater than your love. Whichever choice you make however, never brings back what was taken from you.

turn the lights off is the final part of the trilogy, wrapping up the story some times after the sequel, where the protagonist met someone new, but struggles with the differences in relationships. Comparing this one to the abusive one they left, they show how opposite these two men are towards them, in the way they interact with their body, respect their boundaries, and care for them.

While it is lovely to see the protagonist get their happy ending, or more like starting their path towards it, the entry still continues its depiction of how complex living the consequences of abuse is, and how it can still linger, frustratingly reverting you to old bad habits instead of going through the difficult work of accepting the past and healing from it.

Yet again, the minimalist aspect of the game, with one single dithered background, a looping muted track, and few words on the screen, hits all the more stronger. As a single entry, it is great. But as a whole, the series is fantastic.

Shrouded is the last snippet of a larger project, in which you interact with Joel, a religious man, praying by himself in a pristine church. Trying to find peace and solace, you interrupt his prayers, and he returns the favour by sharing his appreciation for the exercise. You get hints of his relationship with the other men of the cloth and his struggles in maintaining his circles separate (between his family and The Family?). Like inside a church, the atmosphere is solemn, both cold and comforting, warm and inviting.

(limited time offer) is a short Twine piece set on a faraway planet where you play as Theo, a drunk and dying woman, in front of Lisa’s door, your physician/crush, about to tell her the truth. Realising you have little time left, you take a leap of faith and blurt it all out. It is a short scene, muddled with many feelings, messy circumstances and inebriation. The choice given was a bit funny, with that second of clarity through the vapours of alcohol. I wished it had been longer. 500 words feels too short…

sweet shop is a short Twine piece about sweets, and accepting yourself. Feeling like having some sweet thing in your life, you go to a sweet shop, a place you find comforting and soothing. Seeing your favourite candy there, you give in and splurge a little… only to beat yourself up for it, falling into a cycle of despair where one negative feeling brings on another one (specifically of the trans experience). Until… something snaps. And you find some peace. Like the described candy, it’s very sweet.

It can’t be true it mustn’t be true is the third act of the RGB trilogy, recontextualising the events of the second act. Here, you embody another different person, in the bedroom of the man from the previous act, as you attempt to quietly leave his bedroom while he’s showering, following a warning text from a friend. Again, it switches up gameplay, going for the escape room puzzle. There are multiple ways to trigger the ending, though whether you are successful…

It didn’t click right away that this sequence wasn’t really following the previous one, though, as a whole, it made sense for it to happen now, making the events of the previous act even bleaker and somewhat more satisfying than at first play. And again, the game plays with your senses of agency and influence over the story (is this why the puzzles are relatively easy?). You get so entranced in trying to complete the game that it makes you forget about the inevitable end…

I don’t want it to end just yet… ;-;

Love, Sam is the second snippet of a future project, following Sam, a haemophiliac spending an afternoon with an unnamed person, decorating pots and talking about life. The snippets focuses specifically on a short moment, where Sam must carefully take his medication while keeping and eye on Mihr, his mischievous cat who like the pill bottle. It is a very touching moment, and bittersweet.

Swan Neck is a short medical kinetic piece, where you play as an intern to become a medical professional, looking to recreate that one-in-a-million event that affected you once when you were younger: a swan neck facture. Where your arm breaks in such a way it resembles the neck of a swan, with the bones still inside. Gruesome, right? But that pushed you into this path, obsessing into seeing it again. And then a trauma situation happens at the hospital, flooding the halls with patients…

This was so chilling and full of tension, building slowly until the final moment. In the back of my mind, I knew where it was going, but I hoped it wouldn’t end up there. And still. The descriptions are so clinical, looking at horrific and gruesome event with such coldness and strange admiration. So disturbing. And so good.

Eat the Rich is a short piece wanting to be thought provoking. Taking on the titular old slogan, the game takes it literally, showing that eating those billionaires would only result in realising there are still rich people out there, that maybe should be eaten too so it would be more fair. Or maybe wealth could be distributed instead and… oh wait, now we have more rich people and look there are still poor people in that other country.

So, what should we do? Is Eat the Rich the right way of looking at things? The message the author is trying to push forward is to take another approach on the matter. Rather than eating the rich, we should look into one’s self and… realise we’re actually richer than other people, and appreciate what we have.

Inspired by their personal background and realisations, the message ends up feeling preachy and tone-deaf (which the author already conceded).
To me, it made me think of those people pointing out at cancer patients when you’re complaining about a headache and berating you for not realising how lucky you are. Even if people share a trait (e.g. pain, feeling poor), situations can be completely different, with neither being unworthy of space. Knowing you’re part of the worldwide 1% won’t really matter to you if you’re already counting pennies.

It’s a bit of a shame, because the topic (wealth disparity) is all the more important, as many populations are suffering due to inflations while large corporations tout record profits and executive salaries. But the angle was maybe not the right one to tackle it.

Glory to the ghosts of us is a short Ink fanfic piece about Disco Elysium, in which Steban and Ulixes, two infra-materialist, discuss events involving Kras Mazov and Ignus Nilsen, two figures they look up to. Through the conversations, the two debate on whether a certain text is factual or misleading, whether the figures should have met the fate they did or whether they knew certain after-facts. It’s an interesting depiction of younger generations learning about older movements (they themselves follow or are influenced by), and a neat look into the more minor characters of the main game.