the lamp of your body

Adapted from a Review-A-Thon 26 Review

Style: Single-Choice
Played: 7/2/26
Playtime: 20m, two playthroughs

University is an exciting, challenging time for a young person. Trial and error adulting. An array of new people all attempting to build a social order on a blank canvas. Complex realities colliding with simplistic expectations borne of sheltered upbringing. It is one of very few times when the world seems ours to write, bounded only by negotiations with others attempting the same feat. The thrill of discovery colors it all - discovering new rules to the world, encountering expectations and perspectives we could not dream of on our own.

In the face of that wonder, it might be easy to forget that not all motives are generous and personal safety is simply not a priority. This is a single-choice work that puts you in the role of a student, getting to know an off-putting classmate with a singular perspective. I am loathe to put it more clearly, as that will be well and truly spoiler territory. As a single-choice work there’s really two criteria to bring to bear: the effectiveness of the table setting and the impact of that choice.

As far as table setting goes, the specifics of the setting were a bit muddy to me. We see the protag cleaning up a common area, only to later be told they live alone. Now, this COULD be quad-room situation, but the text declines to clarify. Similarly, the physical description of the key NPC, specifically their eyes, are given a lot of attention, but the descriptions kind of seem at war with each other. All of this could be a deliberate attempt to put the player off, to generate discomfort and mystery aligned with the protag’s own. I don’t think it quite landed though. There is a gulf between struggling WITHIN the story, and struggling to GRASP the story. The nature of the NPC becomes clear enough, so baldly in fact that the earlier murkiness doesn’t seem to pay off?

I would say a more effective use of table setting was in the protagonist themselves. Starting as a blank slate we are seemingly invited to stamp ourselves onto, as the story progresses their questions and priorities nudge us away from that vanilla impulse with pleasantly surprising choices. The protagonist is revealed to be every bit as singular as the NPC.

The latter is what really makes the single choice land. The work toys with the subverting-expectations aspect of uni, and ends up including the player’s POV in that subversion. When given our single choice, its tradeoffs and consequences are ambiguous. What might seem obviously bad has been clouded - perhaps making it that much more dangerous for its reasonable doubt. Or perhaps it is refuting misconceptions in a way that only open engagement with the world can reward. Interestingly, the possible PRICE for the choice is never resolved. Maybe it is also subverted? Or maybe some expectations are COMPLETELY JUSTIFIED? The story ends before consequences are discussed leaving us in the newly-crafted space of the promise of our choices before it collides with a potentially cruel reality. It uses horror tropes to evoke the real world thrill of its setting, not forgetting the underlying terror and fragility of it. Ultimately, I think ending on that ambiguity makes the work stick better than playing out to a definite conclusion. The suspension of suspecting but not knowing is more interesting than either possible concrete outcome.