Fat Ass

I played both versions of this game: the 'basic' 0.5 mb strippd-down version and the full 800 mb version with multimedia. The latter is definitely better, since the contrast of blocky white letters on black background makes the basic version hard to read.

This is a fairly short game, as typical for Ectocomp games, but maximizes its content by being choice-free. This style is sometimes known as Kinetic fiction, which draws its interaction potential from our own self-pacing and choosing to further the story. It doesn't always work for me, but when the writing is good, like here, I like it. Another good example is Polish the Glass.

The story is about a woman whose mother hates fat and pressures her to make a deal with a demon that would keep her skinny forever...until it didn't.

I've seen a lot of discussion of fatphobia online, with camps who are extremely upset with each other. The most extreme on one side get extremely upset at any online posts showing a person who's not skinny, while the most extreme on the other claim that obesity doesn't cause any health problems.

This game focuses on a gentler course than either of those extremes. Instead of telling us whether fatness is good or bad, it asks us to decouple our personal sense of worth from our body size; we can still make plans on decide what to do with our weight, but not to please others or out of shame.

I think that's an important message, since a guilt-fueled obsession with weight can lead to many bad habits that are worse than simply being overweight in the first place, such as eating disorders.