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About the Storyno dreams Game Details
First Publication Date: October 1, 2014
Current Version: 1 License: Freeware Development System: Twine IFID: Unknown TUID: 445d989vuwlh4cvz Referenced in The Soft Rumor of Spreading Weeds, by Porpentine Charity Heartscape |
Awards
Nominee, Best Game; Winner, Best Writing; Nominee, Best Story; Nominee, Best Setting; Winner, Best Individual NPC; Nominee, Best Implementation; Nominee, Best Use of Innovation; Nominee, Best Use of Multimedia - 2014 XYZZY Awards
5th Place - 20th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition (2014)
32nd Place - Interactive Fiction Top 50 of All Time (2015 edition)
23rd Place - Interactive Fiction Top 50 of All Time (2019 edition)
Editorial Reviews
The Guardian
...this particular game asks of the player a particularly-intimate task: to draw symbols on your own skin while playing. It’s inventive and off-putting all at once.
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Rock, Paper, Shotgun
Physically Interactive Fiction: With Those We Love Alive
With Those We Love Alive is a free Twine game by Porpentine, a moving visit to a mundanely monstrous world. Her writing is so carefully measured, vivid yet small bursts, and a soundtrack by Brenda Neotenomie wraps the world around you. It is a beautiful and terrible game.
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Emily Short's Interactive Storytelling
The work itself is beautifully made, the words and images striking, the music effective, the mechanic of skin-drawing evocative and lovely. But . . . it was also painful and demanding to experience.
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Member Reviews
| Average Rating:  Number of Reviews: 5 Write a review |
Most Helpful Member Reviews
Wow, April 22, 2015First up, a confession: I'm really bad at high-concept stuff. To me, games are just games and as such I always feel like I'm missing something important with Porpentine's work - some point of contact that other people have and I don't.
But even then...
Even when I'm not getting the full experience -- playing, as it were, with a towel wrapped around my head...
With Those We Love Alive is a really, really good game.
The writing is brilliant. The world just the right level of underspecified to sink its claws into your imagination. Crammed with clever and interesting detail, but delivered with that sparse Porpentine style. And you can play through it in an hour.
I recommend this game to everyone. Even if you're not normally a fan of Porpentine's games, or find them inaccessible, or just too weird to play... give this one a shot.
Liked it, made me feel and think things, July 3, 2015I liked this one very much. There are bunch of reasons, but mostly because of the shared intimacy that comes with drawing on you own skin. I also became very aware how different genders manifest their reality and get manifested (if that makes sense) in very different ways. This leeds to very different ways of talking about our bodys "and using them" for world building. These are all pretty naïve points, but than again I'm but a naïve human… I liked that it was more of an experience than a skill based game. (Spoiler - click to show)And it made me kind of emotional, although the end came a little abrupt.
A dreamlike dark fantasy in service to the empress, June 10, 2018This game is one of Porpentine's best games, by her own admission and the acclaim of others.
It has music and takes the unusual tack of having you draw symbols on your skin as the game progresses. I chose not to do so, but many who have played have done so, and you can search for some of their images.
The game casts you as an artificer for a massive, insectoid alien queen. Isolation and body change are themes, as you wander a city and castle and spend time on yourselves.
The game has music and interesting styling. The story includes friendship and love and bizarre, alien history.
See All 8 Member Reviews
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Recommended Lists
With Those We Love Alive appears in the following Recommended Lists:Good games by Simon Deimel
This is a list of games that affected me. Their contents had a certain impact on me and kept my mind busy even some time after I had finished playing.
Great Twine/Choice games for those skeptical of the format by MathBrush
I didn't like Twine at first, but slowly I've changed my opinion about it, until now, many of my favorite games are Twine/Choice games (including Varytale or choice-style parser games). These games tend to be very different genres from...
Kiyo's Favorites by Kiyo
A list to keep track of my personal favorite IF games. Opinions on each forthcoming.
Polls
The following polls include votes for With Those We Love Alive:Mother-Daugher Relations by matt w (Matt Weiner)
What are some IF works that involve a relationship between a mother and a daughter? Not necessarily as the center of the work, but as something that impinges on it at all.
Games with Chases by Jeremy Freese
The chase scene, a staple of Scooby Doo and action movies, but how often has it been done in IF?
I'm looking for a great surreal game. by Bishopofbasic
It's pretty hot up here in Canada and I was wondering if anyone knew of any great surreal type games. Something I can spend my time in front of the AC or in my office hiding from the world. Thanks you guys.
This is version 13 of this page, edited by Zape on 9 February 2021 at 8:38pm. - View Update History - Edit This Page - Add a News Item