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Review
The art of naming fictional places is a tricky one (and one I’ve never had much facility with), so kudos to take me to the lakes… for nailing it. Lake Dioscuri invokes the twins Castor and Pollux – one a demigod, the other fully human, due to Greek-mythological shenanigans one shouldn’t inquire too closely into – which is a more than apt reference for the game’s themes of reflected identities. But to my ear, in combination with the title it also calls to mind Villa Diodati, where Mary Shelley told the story that became Frankenstein to an audience of poets: if there’s a monster in take me to the lakes…, it’s one whose misdeeds can’t be meaningfully separated from its creator’s.
Presentation-wise, this is a Decker kinetic novel – so while the only interactivity is clicking to advance to the next bit of story, the electronic presentation makes perfect sense; Decker’s moody monochrome art is a perfect complement to the text, painted in glistening grayscale stipple-effects like someone put a film noir classic on a mid-80s Mac. Of course this is something you’d play on the computer!
The noir vibe is completely on point given that things open with the trenchcoat-clad protagonist monologuing about a body being found in the lake. We never get outside that subjective POV, even as the story takes some twists and turns, making meaning – much less truth – a slippery thing. The pas de deux (Spoiler - click to show)(or… pas de une?) between the narrator and Elizabeth, a poet who is the object of their obsession, is well realized, with abstract considerations of identity, inspiration, and jealousy grounded in a blunt corporeality:
"You knew the way it breathed, the way it sighed… and it’s all gone now. All gone with her."
(The “it” is Elizabeth’s body).
My one small kick against the writing is that it occasionally undermines its effectiveness with repetition; “all [Elizabeth’s] poems were about one of two things: love and drowning” is a great line, making the unnecessary follow-up (“Elizabeth was obsessed with the vision of sliding down into the lake and disappearing without a trace”) seem limp by comparison. And the ending likewise has a couple sentences that feel like they’re going over already-plowed ground.
But these are minor nits to pick, and the climactic move of the game (Spoiler - click to show)(revealing that the poet wished to be a muse instead) is a unique and satisfying way to bring things to a close. Meanwhile, I’ve got no critique at all of the visuals – I don’t usually spend a lot of time on graphics in IF, but my notes are filled with oohing and aahing at the pictures (there’s one of a hand reaching out from the waves that I especially liked). That great place-name is just one of the well-chosen details that make take me to the lakes… a unified and engaging aesthetic experience.
