Digital: A Love Story

This is both the highest-rated and most-rated game on IFDB that currently doesn't have any reviews. I played it in preparation for the IF playoffs.

This game is a downloadable executable. It simulates the look of old windowed (not windows!) computers, like Amiga style. It gives you a couple of programs, at first just messages and a way to connect to BBS (bulletin board systems, and old style of forum), and then more over time.

A major facet of the game is typing in numbers to connect to Bulletin Boards, some of which are very convoluted. A common experience in the game is typing in the local number for long distance lines, typing in a long distance card number, finding your card number is expired, typing in a different local line, getting more card numbers, typing in the long distance line number, typing in the new card number, finding its also invalid, typing in the long distance line number, typing in a second new card number, then typing in the long distance number you want to enter.

This is repeated several times in the game and is mind-numbing, a major drawback for me.

Outside of that, it's a great game. You encounter the wild word of the early web, before the public knew much about it, before there was really any government oversight, and even before it was actually a 'web'.

You meet tons of people arguing about things they care about, like Star Trek TNG vs TOS, or hacking Sprint phone lines. But you also meet a woman named Emilia, who writes poems and wants to learn more about you.

Eventually drama ensues, and the game expands in scope and genre.

Like Emily Short in her Game Developer review, I found it very effective that we never see 'our' messages, only the replies to them. The power of imagination helps us build up a relationship.

There was a point early on where I felt genuine panic and an urge to try and move quickly as possible. Right after that is when the game's pacing plummeted. But the content was good enough that I wanted to keep going.

This work feels much more like a "hacking game" than what would typically be called interactive fiction. The game has a graphical user interface, and the only text entry to be done by the player takes the form of multi-digit numbers. A sort of limited choice-like player input is also accepted via button-clicking to initiate or respond to messages from NPCs. The fact that all significant narrative events are depicted via text arguably places it somewhere at the outskirts of the form. It doesn't feel quite out-of-bounds to qualify as IF to me; your mileage may vary.

The world of the game is a strange one, a kind of alternate 1980s much like our own but in which (Spoiler - click to show)early breakthroughs in computer science had developed truly self-aware AIs. The most far-fetched component of the plot is the idea that such a program could run on a 16-bit home computer.

As other reviewers have noted, the author goes to great lengths to capture the feel of the BBS era despite having no firsthand familiarity with it, even accurately portraying the sounds of the dialup sequence for 1200/2400 baud modems. This work may have some value just as a kind of "living history" display, making it easier for those who grew up with the internet to appreciate its technological roots.

The overall plot is relatively constrained. The early parts of gameplay have a richness to the NPC userbase that rapidly falls off as the main plot gets going. Gameplay options are expanded over time as new programs become available, but their implementation is limited to the need to run them at certain times; fundamental gameplay is not altered. The pacing is rather too quick for my taste after the first act, robbing a significant twist of much of its intended impact. Based on the order in which some messages were received, I may have gone through key events in an unanticipated sequence, so again your mileage may vary.

Despite these significant flaws, I admire the work done on the interface and did find it to be an enjoyable short play experience.

Note that although this game is tagged as "queer" on IFDB, that seems to have no relation to gameplay. Although an interpersonal relationship is an important part of the plot, it is handled in an entirely abstract and non-sexual way.