This Won't Make You Happy

(This is a lightly-edited version of a review posted to the IntFict forums during the 2021 IFComp. My son Henry was born right before the Comp, meaning I was fairly sleep-deprived and loopy while I played and reviewed many of the games, so in addition to a highlight and lowlight, the review includes an explanation of how new fatherhood has led me to betray the hard work the author put into their piece)

This Won’t Make You Happy gives a first impression that seems like it’s going to live up to its title: the design is close enough to default Twine to look rough, and the confrontational narrative voice is way too in love with the cleverness of a meta premise that’s actually pretty played out (like, have you ever thought about whether hoovering up shiny objects might have some metaphorical resonance with the pursuit of happiness and mental health under late capitalism? If so, approximately six billion indie platformers would like to have a word). Happily, the game pulls the good kind of bait and switch, and while its short length limits the impact it can have, This Won’t Make You Happy actually did bring a smile to my face. If you haven’t played it yet, definitely don’t be put off by the prickly presentation – it’s worth the additional five minutes to see where it’s going.

If you have, here are some final spoilery thoughts: (Spoiler - click to show)the crux of the game is clearly the moment where, after provoking a fight through its blatant unfairness, the narrator admits that it’s been a rough year all around, and shifts gears to provide some reflection and self-care – enforced through timed text that’s actually a good idea, for once! I was confused by the blurb’s characterization of this as a sort of funny, sort of sentimental game, but after finishing it, that totally makes sense.

Highlight: Despite the initially-blah design, there are actually a bunch of neat visual effects as the text transitions from one passage to the next.

Lowlight: In the first chunk of the game, I wound up seeing the narrator make the same dumb “the object seems to say X, but of course because it’s just an object and I am pretending to not understand how metaphors work despite just having deployed one, that doesn’t make sense!” joke like three distinct times in five minutes.

How I failed the author: I played this one-handed on my phone while Henry napped on my shoulder, and again, this wound up being a secret success: if there is a jewel of happiness more efficacious than a sleeping baby, I’ve yet to find it.