Death by Lightning

Adapted from an IFCOMP22 Review

And now for my first review sub-sub-series of my review sub-series “What Do I Do With This?” This review sub-sub-series is entitled “What in the Name of a Gentle and Loving God Do I Do With This, It’s Full of Stars, the Horror, the Horror, Rosebud.”

It opens on an 80’s eight-bit graphics rendition of a snowbound station of some sort, with chunky 80’s graphics font. It’s kind of endearing, but quickly becomes surreal, depending on the branch taken.

My first playthrough, I got a quick one room drama of sex and violence over whether one character can leave another. Motivations were only loosely sketched, it was more about the physicality of the interactions. There was little investment in anything going on, Mechanical at best. But oh, that lonely, isolated building took on a Lynchian aspect as the actions described behind the closed door were fleshy and concussive. The impassive snowy facade seemed strained, somehow barely holding its bland, 8-bit face against the raw passions and furies within.

My second playthrough, boy did I step through the looking glass. Making a different choice on how to ‘restrain’ the second character, led to what was likely (Spoiler - click to show)the protagonist slowly dying of exposure. This playthrough was so much longer. No less mechanical, mind, but infinitely weirder. There are choices to make, and lots of text to read, but to call it stream of consciousness is like calling Hurricane Ida a ‘brisk blow.’ This was a deluge of consciousness, rapid fire word play, and mental white noise. (Spoiler - click to show)Probably all in the protagonists’ mind as their brain freezes them to death?

Y’know how most people who smoke pot are giggly and mellow, but there’s always that one person who gets super uncomfortable, a little paranoid, and loses all patience with the giggly mellow people around them? I felt like I was that poor buzzkill dude that tried to smoke in good faith and peer pressure, but just totally skunked it for everyone. NO, I CAN’T TASTE COLORS, WHY ARE YOU ALL LAUGHING SO SHRILL??

It didn’t work for me as poetry, as paradox, as surrealism, as Dada, it just didn’t work. In fact it Bounced me so hard I started having a mild panic attack mid-game trying to figure out how I was going to deal with this in a review. I’M STILL WORKING THAT OUT! And that whole time I’m flailing through that crisis of confidence? That damned 8-bit snowbound station is staring at me with its single darkened-window eye (weirdly not the door or lit window), scornfully bemused by both my and the protagonist’s shared sufferings. It just loomed there, quietly displaying its imperviousness to our pain, rather than invite us back inside.

I played it twice more, but at that point, I think I had seen the extremes and these felt … limper? There was another violent episode, and a 4th wall breaking unwinding-music-box kind of ending, but neither had the power of the first two. The station was just a picture. Yeah, this one Bounced me hard. That said, it wedded some truly bonkers narrative experiments that had no business being together into a tottering Frankenstein of mismatched parts. Most especially that 8-bit picture. The result was really singular. It certainly provoked a reaction from me.
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Played: 11/2/22
Playtime: 15min, 4 endings
Artistic/Technical rankings: Bouncy/Seamless
Would Play Again? No, why would I do that to myself?

Artistic scale: Bouncy, Mechanical, Sparks of Joy, Engaging, Transcendent
Technical scale: Unplayable, Intrusive, Notable (Bugginess), Mostly Seamless, Seamless