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Review
Right off the bat, this game caught my eye with its title and interesting blurb- and as soon as I started the game, I was greeted with some of the best Twine text styling I've ever seen! WOW, this game does amazing things with its visual interface. This game gets points for STYLE because it has got style to spare! The multimedia backgrounds, the styling on text and online messages, and even the typography all form a strongly unified whole that must have taken a lot of hard work. I was really impressed by how seamless all of it looked, too- I never encountered any technical issues displaying these beautiful multimedia flourishes. The switching between light and dark backgrounds was a little difficult on the eyes- I recognize it's thematically important though.
Aside from how darn PRETTY this game is- let's talk about the content. This is a down to earth, sexually explicit coming-of-age story about a young British trans man (the same age as me, actually) as he comes to terms with his identity and relationships with others, including his experiences meeting a love interest at a kink club. I absolutely loved the realistic and thoughtful consideration of queer kink culture. Anyone who wants to step into the mindset of somebody with an interest in kink would really enjoy these portions of the game, and it helps that the description of the main love interest makes him sound super cute! This game really reminded me at times of talking to some of my own friends, since we're also mostly queer and share a lot of the interests, anxieties, etc as the characters in this game.
In addition, the narration is very perceptive and funny about the tiny everyday anxieties and awkward social interactions we all face- trying to suss out what Valentine means when he texts "yay!" was funny and relatable. The writer has a very good eye for the absurd- maybe this is strange to say, but I think they'd make a fantastic stand-up comedian!
However, it's not all just sexy fun and games for our hero- he's very socially withdrawn and doesn't really connect with his real-life friends, and instead he prefers to do most of his socializing online. Although a very realistic depiction of a certain type of queer experience (and I have absolutely met people just like this before... could even be me, if I were way more online), this element is where the game started to lose my interest, because most of the guy's online friends are ANNOYING JERKS. I understand that that's the whole point of a lot of those scenes, and they're absolutely realistic, but I really just didn't enjoy reading the circular, negative conversations about who slighted who, etc, etc, etc. I think I would have preferred a more exaggerated take on those online interactions, because I could easily go watch a bunch of people have the exact same fight on Discord right now if I wanted to- no need to play an IF game to get the same experience. Also, a pretty pivotal scene involves the characters arguing about a Youtube video I haven't seen (which the narration implies is a waste of time to watch, so I wasn't about to go watch it either) so it was hard to understand the conflict.
Not all of the internet stuff lost my interest. The person in the Discord server who just sends links to weird videos was a fantastic comic relief character and constantly made me laugh, and the scene where the main character keeps blurting out memes to express his attraction to a woman he meets is both hilarious, and a really thoughtful look at how online culture can mediate a lot of queer experiences. Overall, though, I thought some of those scenes dragged down a really compelling and emotional narrative.
Ultimately, I'm really glad I played it, but in the end there was just too much internet fighting and not enough latex in this game for me- and unless it's behind a branch I didn't see, I never encountered ANY leather (and no, the pleather jacket does not count!). I'm looking forward to exploring more works from the collective behind this game!
EDIT: I have been informed by the author that this game uses inkrunner, not Twine.
