Slated For Demolition

There was a big shift that I saw in Twine games from when I started (around 2015) to now. Those earlier Twine games were often influenced by Porpentine or furkle, and it was common to have long, surreal stories with intense, personal writing about loss, identity, or feelings with a big dash of absurd humor. There were other twine writing styles (like 16 Ways to Kill A Vampire at McDonalds), with more of a gaming/puzzle/points focus, but the number of intense personal games was higher.

Nowadays, the Twine field has too many genres to call any dominant, but a lot of popular Twine games are puzzle-based (still accompanied by strong stories), like The Den or A Long Way to the Nearest Star.

So this game gave me some nostalgia, as it seems like it could easily have been a popular 2015 game.

There's a good chance I missed something essential in this game, so take my summary with a grain of salt.

You play as someone who has experienced some kind of loss or betrayal of a friend or romantic partner. 'You' and 'me' are different people; I think they might both be facets of the same character, or 'me' might be a demon or grief itself or the person who they lost, I'm not sure.

In three different acts, you explore an abandoned house (that is 'slated for demolition' and is also the game itself), a grocery store and an apartment building. There's a checklist of items that you can find in those, but it's not necessary to get them all and the game has fully prepared for you not to do so. It allows you to play with or without the back button, and I chose to play without it, and I also chose to choose the most self-damaging or excessive options at any point.

And there are a lot. Spaghetti has trauma associations here (and so do red slurpees), with multiple memorable scenes where you can draw out your own innards as spaghetti with continual pulling until you're hollowed out.

There is a segment near the end involving (Spoiler - click to show)suicidal ideation by someone dear to us. I couldn't tell if this was a new person or the main person we think about.

The ending prompts us to (Spoiler - click to show)consider something we regret and might need to let go. I enjoyed picking a few things in my life to contemplate on and to write down in the game, like my alma mater not accepting me back as a professor when they had intimated for years that they would do so, and the slow decline of a once-close friendship.

For me, I didn't understand the story, but I understood the feeling and feelings, or at least I experienced the emotions I read about in the game like ' this game gets it, I've felt like that before'.

The game seems like it has many different paths, but I didn't feel compelled to replay, as I feel like it fits the game's message to not go back and correct mistakes.