A Collegial Conversation

I don’t think we’ve seen a SeedComp game yet in the thon, so this is a nice surprise now that we’re getting close to wrapping up. Actually the genesis here is slightly more interesting than that; the plot and characters are drawn from the author’s earlier game Structural Integrity – where a city-planning bureaucrat faced a difficult moment in his relationship with his partner – while the seed provides the structure, summed up as “one click, one viewpoint”. That means there’s no branching this time out: the story, which focuses on the aforementioned couple having a strained conversation with the bureaucrat’s boss and his partner, plays out the same way every time, but after each bit of narration you’re given the option to jump to a new perspective to see the next chunk from another character’s perspective (in fact, until you complete a playthrough you can’t stick with the same viewpoint two times running).

I admit I experienced a bit of disorientation at first; less due to the perspective shifting as such than because it’s been a year and a half since I played the prior game, and having four characters with fantasy-ish names that lack close real-world equivalents who can be referred to either by their first or last name depending on what viewpoint you’re tracking. Fortunately there’s an always-available dramatis personae link in the corner, which was a helpful reference, but it still took me a minute to get into the swing of the story. Fortunately, what’s going on here is relatively simple: Ubay, the boss, is a snob intent on cutting his working-class staffer, Yaan, down to size with a withering remark or two, while their respective partners provide support and/or a bit of additional snark. And that’s really the size of it – there is a threat of escalation, but it’s preempted by the arrival of a fifth character, which ends the scene and the game.

It’s an engaging enough sequence that I replayed until I’d gotten the full story, but it’s also relatively slight, the kind of thing snippy exchange that would take up maybe a minute and a half in an episode of Parks and Rec. I don’t mind the stakes being low – heck, Parks and Rec is one of my favorite shows – but the quadrupling of perspectives means that this is more akin to a full six-minute sitcom act, and after the second or third repetition, the core action felt less compelling. Ubay’s classism doesn’t feel especially motivated, and despite his partner Erandan getting a bit of backstory establishing that he resents Yaan after being passed over for a promotion and is kind of horny for his partner Kel, he definitely feels like a bit of a third (or I suppose fourth) wheel.

With that said, the core dynamic between Yaan and Kel is well drawn, and having been to a lot of work events with my wife, seeing them support each other through an awkward moment resonated with me. And if I hadn’t replayed it fully, I might not have experienced the flaws mentioned above. Actually, I wonder whether the “stick with one character” mode, while a welcome convenience, might not have been the best idea to implement – because you can jump into any character at any time, each passage necessarily restates some of the core dynamics for that character, meaning that staying in just one head for a full playthrough, as I did for all of mine past the first, makes the game feel a bit more plodding and simple than if it’s played as intended. Besides that, given that it’s a sequel there might be more games in this sequence to come, which might provide better context for the eponymous conversation; regardless, for now it’s still a nice bit of writing that may be better to just experience once or twice than plumb exhaustively.