A Simple Happening

Adapted from a SpringThing24 Review

Played: 4/1/24
Playtime: 30 min, two playthroughs

I don’t get the sense that Frank Miller particularly cares what you think about his legacy, which is his prerogative as an artist. 80s/90s US comics fascination with Western-idealized Japanese culture can sure use some re-evaluation though, and his name will loom large over it all. I raise this spectre because despite being a reasonably well-read, well-traveled adult, nevertheless that is the main touchstone I have to bring to bear to this piece. (Well, along with dim memories of the miniseries SHOGUN, no the earlier one, that my parents looooved.)

This is relevant to my review because leaving aside any specific cultural details, the overwhelming VIBE of Miller’s works’ was amped-up, self-serious melodrama, preoccupied with a vaguely defined but super urgent all-caps HONOR. It is kind of hard to tell where Chris Claremont stops and he begins. What was expressly missing was any sense of humor. Given the works he now says should be read as comedies, this is probably a good thing.

A Simple Happening drives unknowingly into that cultural baggage with a parser game of samurai committing seppuku (ritual suicide). There is every probability Miller’s corpus is an unfair backdrop to this work, that the resonances are unintended and purely my own invention. I accept this. Certainly, the work attempts to cue its mischievous heart early, in describing the offense that brought the player to the solemn ritual.

Even without Miller though, between the relatively spare descriptions of place and setup, and the charged ritual hanging over everything, its tone cannot help but be somber and suffocating. The early game observance of ritual, again described in tight, almost journalistic sparity, reinforce the solemnity of the proceedings. In particular, the cheeky ‘death poem generator’ is a subversive bit of humor, except that the straight-laced randomized phrases themselves don’t play along with the joke. A bit of compounding wry humor there could have done worlds to try and blend the tones. When the game shifts to an escape, and one filled with clear slapstick moments, the effect is jarring. Not unpleasant, mind, but decidedly dissonant.

The game presents as a dire melodrama, but anytime the player goofs, the game goofs right back, then quickly re-establishes its somber mood. In many cases it REQUIRES the player to goof to make progress. It makes for a very conflicted tone to the work - clearly intended comedy threaded through Miller-esque all-caps HONOR. And some not-for-laughs murder. All reinforced by the abrupt end to the journey.

As a comedy it is often funny. It just doesn’t try to reconcile its two tones into anything larger: not ironic contrast or pathos or even subversion. I played it twice to see if it was me. (Which is a wild claim. I mean, it was clearly ALWAYS ME.) The second time, I deliberately goofed early and often and was surprised that many of the gags themselves were terse and truncated, like the jokes themselves thought they were intruding. Even when I leaned hard into the comedy, I felt like the game was holding itself back. In the end I didn’t have a bad time - just one that couldn’t reconcile its two tones in a satisfying way.

Fair’s fair though, SO much funnier than Dark Knight Strikes Again.

Mystery, Inc: A somewhat muted Scooby
Vibe: Conflicted
Polish: Textured
Gimme the Wheel! : For sure, if it were my project, I think I would thread the playfulness more clearly into the early going, both with the poem generator and certainly the (Spoiler - click to show)attack to escape. Some slapstick in the latter would go a long way to a more coherent mood. Maybe also some words from (Spoiler - click to show)the wife to segue tones into pathos.

Polish scale: Gleaming, Smooth, Textured, Rough, Distressed
Gimme the Wheel: What I would do next, if it were my project.