*OVER*

This is a long Twine game about a family of 19 that visits a theme park that (to me) seems clearly Disney-influenced (due to things like a water-based ride that takes a picture of 8 people at a time for a souvenir, or a hall of american history).

The overall structure of this game reminds me of nothing more than the Wikipedia summary of Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, which has been voted the best movie of all time. I haven't seen it, but it's described as a very long, slow movie about a single mother who has a dull daily routine (including daily prostitution). Her day is shown in slow stillness over and over for hours, but then flaws enter her routine, and in the end she becomes violent and breaks out.

This game is similar. The beginning part emphasizes the chaotic and frustrating nature of a Disney (or Universal Studios) trip with 19 people. There are constant little arguments and clamoring from children and adults wanting to take a break and get a drink or food, etc. Like Jeanne Dielman, this story is (intentionally) paced painfully slowly, with large pages filled with large paragraphs of very similar, repetitive material. To me, this seems intentional, so that when the strange flaws begin to creep in (which I first noticed in a scene involving a mole), it becomes more shocking and strange.

There are two main protagonists I saw more than any other, Lou and a name you chose yourself (I chose Evelyn from Incredibles 2). I had great trouble distinguishing between the two at first, as speakers and act-ors change frequently in the middle of paragraphs, and spoken text is often written without italics or quotations. Here is an early sample:

The combination of smells only intensifies inside the park. Added to it now is the smell of melting rubber-shoe-soles, engine exhaust, caramel, horse manure, artificial vanilla. grandma is dying for a cup of coffee, does anyone else want anything? Three hands go up, two adults and one child. The two adults want coffee also, the child wants an ice cream cone. This earns a rebuke from her father. Ice cream! It’s eight in the morning! But grandma is quick, this is vacation! Let’s have ice cream!

While the protagonist whose name we choose is interesting and has some experiences meeting up with other local college students, I followed Lou more. Lou is older, a gay woman in her 30s, and not out to her homophobic family. As she ventures through the park and navigates interactions with her family, she also encounters a mysterious voice on a walkie-talkie channel, as well as an attractive bartender. The ending of her story was long, complex and unexpected.

I think the overall concept of this game is well-thought out, and it's clear the author has great skill at writing. In this case, they obtained the effect they desired, but I found it dense and not fully enjoyable. The suffocating feel of the large paragraphs, the confusion of switching perspectives and speech, it effectively simulated the 'big stressful vacation', but one maxim I've had over the years is "a perfect simulation of a boring or annoying situation is boring or annoying". However, I'm torn, because this same frustration in the early sections is needed for the setup for the big changes in the end. So I don't have any advice for this author, other than to give my own personal subjective experience.

Playing the game did make me reminisce a lot. For the last five years or so, me and my son have been part of a big family vacation to the mountains in Utah, where we wander around as a group of 17. Many parts of this game felt familiar, like navigating different political climates (some of my family are ardent Trump supporters, while others are lifelong Democrats) and the chaos of big groups and tracking down missing kids. Others were less familiar; we don't drink or have blow-out arguments, and we pick completely chill vacations without structure where we mostly swim. We do have closeted gay family, but the 'support' side is large and there is no open hate. None of this affects the verisimilitude of the game, and is likely not relevant to the author or other readers, but it's interesting to see how other people perceive the same life events as us. I have also, conversely been on non-family trips that had this exact suffocating feeling, desire to flee from everything, and buying a flight early. So a lot of this story rang true to me.

Another factor tied in to the whole 'frustrating setup, satisfying payoff' is that there isn't much freedom early on, and we only get freedom in choice as the protagonists themselves do. I was particularly frustrated early on where I had the choice to expose a family member's cruelty or not. I chose not to, but the game said something like, 'Yeah right! No, you do the other choice.'. Similarly, at the very end, for Lou's path, I had to choose between two major options. I chose the more cowardly option, and the game ended very abruptly, leaving me wondering if this was a 'fake' or 'bad' option and that I'd need to replay to see the other.

I commend the author's intense efforts and strong writing skill. For me, I felt a strong dislike for the world in the first half, but that was a reflection of the author's ability, and not the lack thereof.