How Dare You

After a long stretch of the randomizer doing a shockingly good job of ensuring I play games in the proper order (beyond correctly sequencing the RGB trilogy, I’ve noticed that it also put A1RL0CK before its sequel, and ensured an adequate distance between the two porn games), it’s now thrown a curve-ball by having me play an Inform remake before its Twine original. I’ll be interested to assess comparisons once I hit Cycles in about eight more games, but I can’t imagine I’m missing out by playing How Dare You first, because this is a game that is unashamed about rejecting context, focusing on the dramatic action of a lover desperately trying to avoid a breakup without overly concerning itself with backstory or plot. Sure, you get the bare bones of the setup, but the opening text starts with “we have to talk” and only provides four or five short paragraphs of elaboration before opening up the interactivity.

Such a character-focused premise isn’t the most natural fit for a parser game, but the design cannily takes advantage of what players are likely to do. The scenery is densely-implemented, for example, and the descriptions provide a bit of nuance as to what’s going on. You’re having the breakup fight just outside your partner’s room, and here’s what X HOUSE gets you, for example:

"It’s smaller than the one you share with your parents; only Heron and eir mother live here. She’s out somewhere right now."

(Heron is your soon-to-be ex, and uses ey/em pronouns; I think this line is the clearest suggestion that both of you may be teenagers or young adults).

A lot of your and Heron’s body parts are also implemented, which gives some additional color to the scene and also helps clue potential actions. You see, while the concept might make you think that this is a dialogue-focused game, there are no conversation menus in sight; TALK TO HERON (ask/tell aren’t implemented) just gives you one brief exchange, while subsequent attempts just have you begging “please, Heron…” before drifting into silence. Since you can’t try to convince Heron to change eir mind with words, you’re just left with approaches, which of course is right in the parser wheelhouse. Many of the standard Inform verbs will lead to a customized response (my favorite was sitting on the floor, which sees Heron heave a sigh at your I’m-not-leaving-here-until-you-un-break-up-with-me dramatics), but there are a whole lot of additional possible actions available too, from taking eir hand to weeping. While you’re not limited to just one verb – though there are some that shunt the story to a conclusion – playing How Dare You reminded me a little bit of playing Aisle, since it has a similar dynamic of trying to suss out a large possibility space by testing prompted but not explicitly spelled-out verbs.

So playing this scene while dramatically de-emphasizing the talking is an interesting choice, and I’m curious whether things will be different in the game’s Twine incarnation. I liked the way it lent a heightened, almost theatrical air to proceedings, with one lover searching for the grand gesture that will win back the other. It makes for a novel portrayal of a familiar kind of scene, but at the same time it did mean that I wasn’t especially invested in the outcome since I didn’t get much sense of who either the protagonist or Heron were, or why (or whether) their relationship was worth fighting for. As a result the game didn’t land with much emotional impact for me, though I should add the caveat that beyond attempting one last kiss, I studiously avoided any actions that involved physical violence. I confirmed from reading the spoilery commands list you can read after completing the game that a number of these are implemented, and depending on how those play out I could see them having a significant impact on my sense of what the game is doing. But while domestic violence is an entirely valid thing for a game to take on, it’s not something I feel comfortable opting into if I have any other choice; perhaps that means that my view of How Dare You as an interesting and successful writing exercise is incomplete, but if so I suspect the probably-more-guided experience of playing Cycles may let me in on what I’ve missed.