Cycle

So you're this hapless guy, Tiel, who learns his partner Heron is breaking up with him. Luckily, he has what every jilted boyfriend wants: a pocket time machine! So he rewinds and tries again. And again. And again...

(Spoiler - click to show)From the first loop on, it's pretty clear that Tiel is a bit of a creep. This gets worse in one of the paths you can take, where you learn that he only got with Heron because of the time machine, which let him try to seduce Heron again and again until ey reacted the way he wanted em to. Not exactly the foundation for an equitable relationship. Here, the situation is similar to that first meeting: you can keep trying again and again until you hit upon the right combination of words and actions that will get Heron to stay with him. Or you can actually make Tiel throw up his hands and give up, acknowledging that he's being a manipulative bastard, and destroy the time machine.

That option is clearly the most moral one, but from Heron's perspective it's interesting, because none of that ever really happened, did it? Heron doesn't remember anything you do to em before a reset. So from Heron's perspective, the ending where Tiel convinces em to stay is just - "dang, my boyfriend suddenly turned a new leaf the day I was thinking about breaking up with him, maybe this can work after all".

And Tiel thinks it can, but personally I don't think it will. There are some pretty dark implications that come with turning back time to get a better result for yourself in a relationship. If Tiel does something awful to Heron in the future, can he just turn back time and be like "aw gee shucks that didn't happen" and get away with it scot-free? (I read a story a while ago that involved an abuser who could manipulate memories, so he could do anything to his boyfriend, make him forget about it afterwards, and pretend they lived a happy life together. It didn't end well.)

Part of me wishes the story leaned more into the implications, but Ending 1 is fine as it is, too. Tiel still thinks of himself as a good person, and resolves not to hurt Heron despite the fact that he's still the one with the time machine and the desire to manipulate people by using it. Not a great combo.

Anyway, fun story, and easier to understand than Primer.

Playtime: ~10 min