Maybe you'll respect this dead person instead

I suppose this exposes me as a person of limited imagination, but before I played Maybe you’ll respect this dead person instead, I’d never really contemplated the broad advantages – to one’s social life, career, and general psychological well-being – of being able to summon a giant hermit crab to wreak havoc at your merest whim. Christmas party running long? GIANT HERMIT CRAB. Frustratingly vague performance review? GIANT HERMIT CRAB. Seasonal affective disorder? GIANT HERMIT CRAB. Truly, self-actualization via enormous crustacean is an idea whose time has come – get this crab a podcast and an Instagram account.

Admittedly, the protagonist of Maybe you’ll respect… has more legitimate reasons for letting a hermit crab do the talking than the generalized anomie of modern life. As a mute spirit-summoner in a fantasy milieu, he must rely on a quartet of ethereal allies not only to defeat the powerful monsters trying to destroy the world but also for basic communication, not to mention to push back against the institutionalized sexism of the all-female Hunter’s Guild he wants to join. And players with more restraint than me might lean more heavily on the other three inhabitants of the censer he uses to call forth the spirits: a diminutive sword-saint, a giant ogre warrior, and a duelist as deadly as she is conceited (this last one does double duty as the game’s narrator – she’s almost as fun as the crab).

(Almost).

The plot here is very basic – our hero is snubbed by the powers that be and takes on a dangerous mission to prove himself, accompanied by a plucky ally who provides the exposition that’s tricky for a mute character to deliver. As well, the game’s got the kind of hazy fantasy worldbuilding where the guild of monster-hunters has property and casualty insurance for their headquarters (it’s not clear this is meant to be a joke), and the prose is evocative but occasionally tends to adjectivitis:

"The perpetual lava falls on the cliff face backlight the marble white city in the evening light of the setting sun and the planet’s orbiting rings."

It feels churlish to complain about these slight rough edges when the main business of the game is so entertaining, though. The gameplay revolves entirely around choosing which of your four summons to lean on from moment to moment, through two major setpieces: first, trying to persuade the guild to let you join, and second, the aforementioned adventure to bring back trophies from some defeated monsters. You can’t always summon anybody, and the author does a good job of imposing restrictions to help the player internalize the fancy anime-style names (at least as long as you’re playing; I’ve completely forgotten them one day on) and get familiar with their capabilities. The choice of two radically different scenes also highlights the importance of versatility – contra my intro, the crab isn’t always the optimal choice. And speaking of optimal choices, while I think you can get to a good ending no matter what, the game does keep track of stuff like how many times you and your partner get hurt in the fight, awarding fun achievements at the end, which feels like the right level of consequences (I didn’t get many of these, because again, any time I could introduce my opponents to the power of my Crab Style Kung Fu, I did).

Maybe you’ll respect… makes good use of this simple but novel gameplay structure, then, and the straightforward story does resonate with positive values of representation and belonging. And, as the “to be continued” at the end indicates, this might only be the introduction to a larger saga, in which case keeping things comparatively simple before proceedings get more complex is entirely understandable. And as long as “that’s an interesting point, why don’t you repeat it to my GIANT HERMIT CRAB” remains an always-available option, bring on the sequel.