Chinese Family Dinner Moment

When I played this game, I expected a single choice (given what Jam it was for), not no choice, so when I finished, I was pretty surprised. I replayed it a few times to see if there was literally anything else I could do, and read a few reviews to see if I was missing anything. I don't think I am...? The closest thing I can think of is that you can kind of hop between listening and looking during the leg moment, which seems to delay the leg moment progression, but nothing changes because of this and I wasn't 100% sure it wasn't an Inform implementation bug.

Past my initial confusion-- I think that this game is very good at depicting the moment and feeling it's trying to convey, a profoundly uncomfortable family dinner trapped within the bonds of social/familial norms and the echoes of past abuse, both gender and sexuality based in the text, and possibly more. The lack of agency throughout the whole game is a simple and perfect execution of ludonarrative harmony, where our own lack of agency as players reflects the lack of agency of the protagonist. I also found it poignant and sad that this feeling of having no right to voice their problems extended past their family dinner to their attempt at a social media escape, which only seemed to hurry on the death of their willpower.

I just played Repeat the Ending today as well, and in the metatext, the author comments that while his game may seem like a miseryfest, sometimes life is just abject shit for people. This seems to reflect that sort of approach. This isn't a fun game, it isn't particularly fulfilling, but it's not trying to be fun or fulfilling, it's trying to depict a very specific experience, and it does quite a bit thematically with very few words.

However, I have to admit that I am not rating it very highly, though for an extremely subjective reason.

I am Chinese, however I am specifically a Chinese-American adoptee. I really don't relate to most stories, anecdotes, memes, or anything that other Chinese people tend to use as cultural touchpoints (whether those living in China or those in the diaspora). Nothing currently makes me feel more alienated from my ethnicity than Chinese (and honestly, East Asian diaspora people in general) people talking about "subtle asian traits" or the relatability of having Tiger Moms or whatever.

While I *fully acknowledge* that this game is not trying to claim that Every Chinese Person Has Had This Experience, and in fact the protagonist appears to be *incredibly* specific (being, presumably, a trans person who was AMAB, along with other particular details), and I also fully acknowledge that this is an "i am feel uncomfortable when we are not about me?" take of mine, I can't help but feel a little cold about this game labeling the experience as a Chinese™️ Family™️ Dinner™️ Moment™️. I didn't have a Chinese Family™️, I've never had a Chinese Family Dinner™️, and I've certainly never had a Chinese Family Dinner Moment™️ , so this game is definitively Not About Me, and it's not trying to be about me, but the labelling sure does remind me that I am not Chinese™️. (I also know that this was not Kastel's intention. It's just a subjective feeling of mine.)

An extra dimension of it is that I did not know my birth parents, and I get a little horrified at the idea that this is what I was ""missing out on"". It seems a little flattening, because I think, surely not all Chinese Family's Dinners are like this? But then I remember that I do not actually, and will never actually know, so it gets me feeling weird.

I will lastly note there are a few verbs that get Inform standard responses, like "jump", "hit (or any violence term)" "eat", and "touch" which kind of ruin the agency-robbing effect to a degree, when everything else points you toward one thing.