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Press 6 for Inappropriate Laughter, November 27, 2022Adapted from an IFCOMP22 Review
The other day, I was just kind of lounging on my couch thinking “Y’know what I could go for? An automated phone service simulator! Something that really captures the tension and mystery of navigating an audio menu!” Of course I wasn’t thinking that. No one has, ever. And yet TPEEP1 (lol, what?) comes along and says “maybe you should!”
This is a quick play. It models a supernatural/emotional support line that is no better at customer service than your cable company. This thing carries off an amazing balancing act, wringing dry chuckles from a first impersonal then somehow VERY personal bureaucracy exacerbating an emotional spiral. See, you read that sentence, and you’re like “what kind of sociopath would get chuckles out of that?” This is the dark alchemy TPEEP1 pulls off.
As you navigate the menu, and there are quite a few paths through, the responses get increasingly personal, unhelpful and belligerent in a somehow hilarious way. The story is almost completely conveyed in phone menu options, both the text of the option and what is an option, which itself is fun and unexpected. My first few paths were giddy with surprise.
But as I navigated a few different paths, there was a common thread that struck me. Somehow, TPEEP1 (yeah, I’m now addicted to squeezing that abbreviation in as often as I can) pulled away from committing to its own bit. Despite presenting menus begging to build on the conceit, instead you cycle through duplicated “no, repeat” responses, and not in a compellingly, thematically resonant way. There are two possible explanations I can think of off the top of my head. Either this was an entry that was pressed on submission deadline, or the impulse was to not milk the joke. “Brevity is the soul of wit” is a bedrock pearl of wisdom, no doubt. To this I say fie! A joke should be as long as it needs to be and no longer. These could be longer! If deadline-bound, should the author decide to expand the entry, I would gladly pick it up again to see where it went.
A note on presentation, though let me say nothing here figures into the scoring as I am speculating on alternate presentations which isn’t fair to the game. I was put in the mind of a phone menu mini-game in Kentucky Route Zero a compellingly odd, uneven and fabulous commercial graphical adventure. In its implementation, you are confronted with a desktop phone, and have to mechanically navigate the audio menu. This is maybe the first Texture game (an engine I am a normally a fan of) that doesn’t really benefit from its drag and drop mechanism. An actual number pad input would have been stronger here, as would an audio ‘beep.’ End of tangential digression which, if you have seen my other reviews, you have probably become pretty inured to by now.
So that’s where I land: TPEEP1 elicits Sparks of Joy, Seamlessly implemented, but wishing it would more fully embrace its strengths.
TPEEP1.
Played: 10/29/22
Playtime: 15min, 6 endings
Artistic/Technical rankings: Sparks of Joy/Seamless
Would Play Again? If expanded, sure!
Artistic scale: Bouncy, Mechanical, Sparks of Joy, Engaging, Transcendent
Technical scale: Unplayable, Intrusive, Notable (Bugginess), Mostly Seamless, Seamless
TPEEP1.