Admiration Point

by Rachel Helps

Science Fiction, Slice of Life
2022

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
A nuanced workplace-antiromance , January 9, 2023
by Mike Russo (Los Angeles)
Related reviews: IF Comp 2022

(This is a lightly-edited version of a review I posted to the IntFiction forums during 2022's IFComp).

Welp, much like with No One Else is Doing This, I come to Admiration Point with some personal experience that makes this “anti-romance” about mutual attraction between married (not to each other, natch) co-workers especially resonant: my wife and I met at work, at a time when we were likewise both coupled up (but not to each other, natch). I can attest that makes for a situation rife with the potential for drama, submerged feelings, and angst, with a hundred different choices every day attempting to balance guilt, desire, innocence, and fulfillment, so it’s an appealing setup for a work of choice-based IF. Add to this an interesting, self-reflective future setting – the main characters all work at a digital museum and spend most of their time assessing and analyzing the online culture of the early 21st Century – and you’ve got some compelling ingredients. I didn’t find Admiration Point entirely successful, due to some significant elements feeling underdeveloped, but there’s a lot here to enjoy and think about, so I’m happy to have played it.

Good stuff first. Much of the game plays out at work, as Maria, the main character, responds to the demands of her work as a exhibition artist at the museum – this means she does things like create 3d avatars for her colleagues when they give talks in online VR, or mock up backdrops or interactive experiences to support exhibits – and decides exactly how far to lean in to her attraction to Sean, a somewhat-older curator. Some of the details of this work can feel a little silly – TikTok clips are ephemeral by their nature, so putting significant effort into preserving them has the air of the absurd – but there’s an impressive attention to the detail that this work would require, and various books and lectures eventually make the case for this study of digital culture.

Throughout, Maria has the opportunity to take on extra projects to get closer to Sean, providing for some engaging choices, and allowing the technological elements of the setting to create unexpected intimacy. At one point in my playthrough, she decided to make an avatar of Sean, building the model from reference photos:

"His knuckles are unexpectedly knobbly, and he keeps his fingernails shorter than the default fingernail length. You adjust some of the knuckle wrinkles, the shade of the arm hair, and the opacity of the skin on the palms."

The relationship with Sean is nicely drawn throughout, in fact. He’s not completely idolized – while he’s smart, charming, and occasionally thoughtful, he can come off a bit smug and patronizing – which adds to the reality of the attraction, and Maria’s physical desire for him comes through in details like those above. In my playthrough I skated on the edge, never pushing for a declaration of love or doing anything that didn’t have plausible deniability, but not losing any opportunities to spend time together, either – so his feelings remained plausibly ambiguous. It’s clear that Maria is getting something positive out of their connection, and sees it as a reason to stretch herself artistically and intellectually, but it also clearly leads to her neglecting her family. There were more than a few moments, playing Admiration Point, when I felt a shudder of recognition at how well the game reminded me of how things were when my wife and I were just co-workers.

There’s one element of the relationship that felt less natural, though, which is the game-mechanical pieces. Once you reach a certain point in the story, a sidebar’s unlocked that shows little icons representing your feelings for Sean, his feelings for you, and his “alert” level. These aren’t explained – Sean’s indicators appear to be based on a weather metaphor, like cloudy to sunny, and since I played it cool his alert level stayed at a question mark. But I found the squiggly circle representing Maria’s feelings for him incomprehensible (though it belatedly occurs to me that might be the point), and the whole rigmarole seemed unnecessary given that the prose was already doing a perfectly adequate job conveying the situation.

Speaking of pieces that fell a bit flat for me, I didn’t find fin-de-21st-Century sci-fi world entirely believable – other than a U.S. that has fragmented into Infinite-Jest-style corporate-branded substates and some scaled-up VR technology that feels at most 15 or 20 years off, not 70, neither technology or culture seem to have moved on that much. That’d all be fair enough – this isn’t meant to be sociological speculative fiction by any means – except for the glaring fact that the game’s gender roles often struck me as a bit retrograde even by 2022 standards. It is established that nonbinary and genderqueer people do have significantly greater acceptance (a major plot point hinges on a study examining how folks from those communities created art in response to a second pandemic in the 2030s), but in terms of how the named cast interact, it feels more 1990s than 2090s. Sean’s instinct is to talk over Maria and treat her ideas dismissively, until he’s called on it; Maria and her husband have a sex life straight out of a period sitcom (he’s gotta have it, she’s mostly frigid); her attraction to Sean is based partially on wanting to take care of him, though “as a woman, [she] like[s] to support other women in positions of power in [her] workplaces” – in fact she often feels “powerless at work.”

Of course, it’s possible that the setting of the game – the Nevadan successor-state of MGM – is meant to be more culturally conservative than future society as a whole. This brushes against another somewhat-disappointing aspect of the game, which is the treatment of Mormonism. The blurb plays up the fact that Maria is Mormon, and so is Sean, as it turns out. But short of her noting the fact that they have a religion in common (without any substantive comment on what that means to her), a sequence where they bump into each other at an LDS event – which could have been equally well set at Shakespeare in the Park or a football game – and one moment where Maria has the option to pray for sleep, her faith and its role in her worldview felt underdeveloped to me. I never got a sense of whether she was a fervent believer, or whether this attraction to someone she wasn’t married to threatened her faith, or if Sean being Mormon as well made flirtation safer, or alternatively, less appealing because it becomes less transgressive. Perhaps the author was worried about making the player feeling proselytized-to – a good impulse! – but I think the game went too far in the other direction; Maria is a strongly-characterized protagonist so having this important part of her identity and experience of the world deemphasized feels like a missed opportunity.

The biggest area where underdevelopment undermines the game, however, is Maria’s home life, which gets maybe a fifth of the word count, and an even lower fraction of authorial attention, of her work. Her husband makes cardboard seem interesting – he never even gets a name over the course of this 90-minute game, and given all the focus on Maria’s job it’s noticeable that we don’t even find out what he does until an hour in (he’s an industrial production manager, god help him). She has a four-year-old who’s occasionally being annoying, occasionally being cute, but who doesn’t seem to take up nearly the space in her attention as most toddlers do in the minds of their parents. But there are very few sequences, or decisions, where these relationships are activated – there’s one point where you need to decide whether or not to stay home from work to take care of your sick child, but it’s primarily framed around Sean (selfishly wanting to go into work to be near him, or selflessly performing familial obligations).

Of course, this could well be an authorial choice, portraying the home as drab and stultifying in contrast to the excitement Maria experiences when she’s with Sean. But often the writing in these segments doesn’t feel like it’s portraying feelings of dullness and artificiality, and is just dull and artificial itself. Like, there’s an interesting subplot at the museum where Maria makes a 3d model of a mommy-blogger to go along with an exhibit of some of her writing; the excerpts are from right after the blogger gave birth, so Maria makes the model a realistic rendition of a post-partum body. This pisses off one of the blogger’s descendants, who wanted a more idealized portrayal. The work sequence is interesting and well done, and gains personal resonance because it’s revealed that Maria had a hard pregnancy with her first child, with a long recovery time, which is one reason she’s reticent to have any more kids even though her husband would like them.

When the incident with the relative comes up in conversation at home, here’s how the dialogue goes, after a prefatory “as you know” phrase establishes that the husband knows about Maria’s work on the exhibit and he asks whether she made the change the relative requested:

“I did not. Postpartum women often sequester themselves and we have few public examples of what their bodies actually look like. Women giving birth for the first time are surprised when they have a baby and can’t fit back into their old clothes after giving birth or sometimes, not ever. My art should depict what we want to exhibit as accurately as possible.”

“Hmm. That makes sense.”

This is not how people actually talk, much less people who are married to each other, much much less people who have feelings about what being pregnant, with the child of the person they’re talking to, did to their own body. It’s a significant missed opportunity, and it’s of a piece with the treatment of Maria’s family throughout, which winds up undercutting the dilemma at the heart of the game – instead of a dilemma hinging on Maria’s desire to be with Sean counterposed with guilt at hurting her very human, very specific husband and kid, her desire is only opposed by abstract considerations of fidelity. This makes the drama significantly less compelling – and, again drawing on personal experience here, it also makes it significantly less true to life.

In many respects these are minor critiques, I should say. Certainly if the good parts of Admiration Point were less good, I’d feel less disappointed by its weaker parts – I can’t help imagine what the game would be like if the quality of writing and characterization were more consistent, so I’ve done my typical thing of harping at length on the negatives in a piece I overall liked. So let me just say once again that there’s a lot to like here, and seeing that the author has written other works of IF – including some that appear to lean more heavily into Mormon themes – I’m definitely interested in checking those out.

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Genre-busting, January 7, 2023
by Jim Nelson (San Francisco)

Admiration Point is a genre-busting story, a Mormon slice-of-life “anti-romance” (author’s description) set in a near-future America and shot through with anti-corporate and neo-feminist themes. I could dig up more labels to slap on the side of the game, but I think the point is made: There’s a lot going on here.

AP is also a significantly longer work compared to the other choice-based games I’ve played to date. Prose passages approach the length of short chapters. The game has the ambitions and sensibilities of print fiction. The prose and dialogue is clean and flows well.

You play Maria, a futuristic Mormon digital archivist in a happy but unsatisfying marriage. While assembling virtual exhibits of the digital past (which are more-or-less our digital present), Maria grows attracted to coworker Sean, also a member of the church and also married with children.

My first play-through was a bust—I’m a sensible-shoes kinda guy, and my choices led to a rapid conclusion: Maria shrugs and tells herself to set aside her fantasies of Sean. Yawn.

My second play-through, I pushed the envelope and had Maria get aggressive about pursuing Sean. The story blossomed. Maria’s past, her self-doubt, and all her feelings for Sean surfaced. In-game creepiness options unlocked, such as trying on Sean’s coat when he’s out of the room, or modeling Sean as a full-sized 3D virtual avatar and staring longingly into his uncanny-valley eyes.

As for “anti-romance,” the plot elements actually tick a lot of romance fiction boxes: A smart, independent female lead; the intriguing, handsome, and seemingly unattainable love interest; and plenty of moments of personal-space violations. It’s the kind of story where Maria worries that brushing lint off of Sean’s shirt might be construed as making a pass. The restraint of a faithful wife is substituted in for the romance novel’s ingenue. The tale is semisweet, and not exactly wholesome.

My problems with Admiration Point involve narrative focus and outcomes. An odd amount of time is spent detailing Maria’s work as an archivist—the prose gets boggy enumerating the challenges of building VR exhibits of mommy bloggers and other digital cultural artifacts of the 2000s to 2030s. An editing pen could have pared these passages down, and better connected them to the emotional core of the story. Meanwhile, Maria’s home life is strangely glossed over. Her child gets brief mentions; her husband is little more than someone to tell she has a headache tonight. It’s a gaping absence in a story about a woman contemplating an affair.

Maybe I didn’t make the right choices my second time through (I was hitting the gas pedal pretty hard, though), but Maria’s self-destructive choices never came home to roost. Both endings I reached halted abruptly. Punches were pulled. An old saw in creative writing workshops is, “Why is this story being told?” Even if the author insists on making this an anti-romance—fair enough—the puzzle pieces don’t assemble to a story of ripe consequences, leaving the hollow sense of missed opportunities.

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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
Workplace crushes and their discontents, December 18, 2022
by Andrew Schultz (Chicago)
Related reviews: IFComp 2022

Um, so, yeah, Workplace crushes bad. There's reasons any self-respecting HR department has a whole stack of procedure on what to do about potential workplace relationships. But then again, HR is just about covering a company's legal liability, even if they throw in bromides such as "harassment-free work environment." Fortunately, there's more to Admiration Point than this. It weaves in the awkwardness with what is a very interesting look at a hypothetical museum in the future. It tracks social media in the 2010's and 2020's, and while it doesn't point the finger, it certainly lets the reader connect the dots. (It being the museum and story.)

Not that things are all dark and dystopian and so forth. You have a job as a graphic designer, though it's not the position of responsibility you want. Some of the things you need to do whitewash some very real struggles in the past in order to gain looks for your museum. (It seems to have missed the point of the social media it seeks to analyze. It's part of the problem, but hey, things happen like that.) The job seems pretty stable, though, maybe with some friends moving in and out. You have problems at home with your husband, about having sex, and while I try to avoid that stuff in my games (cheap and hopefully harmless jokes notwithstanding,) someone's got to discuss it, and in this case I'm glad it's not done in all caps or with dreadful text effects or, worse, talking about how they've been repressed from doing so by society. It's just: things happen. Certainly in high school, I had crushes on what I see now to be pretty awful people. But they were attractive. Or I felt impressed by someone who seemed charismatic and told dirty jokes. And, yes, some decent people didn't reciprocate to me, and that hurt. Immaturity isn't an excuse in the workplace, though.

There is considerable agency as to how much you can get to know Sean, your crush. I just didn't want to deal with him at first, because 1) I was interested in why the museum was there and its daily workings and 2) I didn't want to have to deal with workplace relationships. I'd seen some work well and some not. I also remember a poor schlep who, neglecting a co-worker's picture of her with her fiance she'd attached to overhead metal cubicle drawers with a magnet, say "Think I have a chance with her?" This may only scratch the surface of possible awkwardness--I realized I didn't want to deal much with the core issues AH brought up, and I was actually glad it didn't force me to, right away. Also, I generally don't think much of socializing, period, with coworkers more than I have to. So perhaps I am like Sean, except with friendship, for some people. Though I enjoy what they share, sanely, on Facebook. That Facebook (FACEBOOK!) works better for this than face-to-face may say something about a former work environment. Or about me.

So there's so much that can go wrong, but it's handled pretty delicately. I have to admit that after I'd gotten three endings, I sort of just breezed through the rest and said, okay, I have to be flirty to see it all, and I didn't want to be flirty, and I don't think I'd have wanted to even if AH's description mentioned things wouldn't be reciprocated. Thankfully there's nothing cringey beyond the signs misread, and you feel like you can forgive the protagonist. Yet all this sort of echoed how work can be – you do the same thing every day, except when some annoying emergency pops up, and then you wish you went back to the boring stuff, and the only way out is – to act out, or maybe to start an office fling. Anything to break the monotony. Fortunately you have enough of a life outside the office that you're offered other jobs in some threads, and this all feels more than satisfactory. I appreciate discussions of missing signs, because I've missed them, and I've had them missed, deliberately or not.

AH did a good job, to me, of capturing the discontent of office work beyond any mere need for romance or career fulfillment. Some games go full angst or corny joke, which are great whn you don't want to be chanllenged, but I'm glad middle ground is being filled. There were times I sensed the main character was as drawn to complaining about the hidden restrictiveness of her job as she was to flirting with Sean. So this feels like a nontrivial work. It certainly reminded me of my own frustrations and of people who acted out more than the player-character could have dreamed of. This with me not really being its target audience. So, well done.

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
The future of digital archiving is here!...in a thoughtful slice-of-life story, December 7, 2022
by ccpost (Greensboro, North Carolina)
Related reviews: IF Comp 2022

As someone whose day job deals with digital archiving/curation work, I was instantly intrigued by this game. The protagonist, Maria, works as an exhibition tech at a digital culture museum in the near future, and grapples with burgeoning romantic feelings for a curator, Sean, at the museum while they work together on an upcoming exhibition. Both aspects of the story are very well done, as scenes that feature detailed descriptions of Maria's work meticulously restoring aspects of historic games switch off with at times awkward and at times sweet interactions with Sean.

I found the mix of these narrative threads to be balanced well, achieving a realistic representation of someone who's engrossed in their work, who has a fulfilling (if complicated) family life, but runs up against romantic feelings for their coworker. More so than a description of the affair, the game centers around Maria confronting these feelings and struggling with what they mean and what to do about them.

Maria's internal monologue as she goes through these thought processes is well written if a bit detached. Maria reflects on her identity as a Mormon, which adds an interesting dimension to her character, but doesn't seem to overly determine anything about how she approaches her feelings for Sean. On my first play through, I was expecting something spicier, more akin to a romance game, but I actually found this headier self-assessment of what these feelings mean to Maria to be just as intriguing. There are enough books and games out there that deal with carnal passion -- let's actually enjoy sitting and thinking through even our remotest attractions!

The other major thread of the game, Maria's work as an exhibition tech at a digital museum, was equally engrossing to me and equally thought out and well written. I enjoyed the descriptions of Maria thinking through the decisions she was making and the highlighting of some of the intricate details that can be really important to recreations and restorations of historic works of software -- the way digital grass moves, for instance. I appreciated the introduction of some longer texts, some of Sean's writings, for instance, that deal with the theory of archiving digital culture in the near future.

The discussion of some other aspects of society and culture in the near future was the only part about the game that didn't work as well for me. I felt like Helps was trying to inject some social commentary about our current trajectory in regards to algorithmically-driven systems and corporate social media platforms, but this sort of fell flat for me. There are some efforts in the game to discuss some of the implications of these things, but it seems like the media landscape of the present time in the game isn't all that different from ours today. So I was left wondering what Helps' point was in making this commentary. I'm not sure if this is a complement or a criticism, but it felt like the game could have been set 5~ years from now rather than the 70+ years from now that was the intention.

This commentary on our media landscape is a really minor aspect of the game though, and doesn't really impact the otherwise stellar treatments of Maria's digital curation work and Maria's tentative affair. All in all, this is a lovely slice-of-life story tinged with just a bit of melancholy.

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Don't Make Me Adult!, November 28, 2022
by JJ McC
Related reviews: IFComp 2022

Adapted from an IFCOMP22 Review

This is a deeply adult work, and I don’t mean in the sense of “tee hee nudity and devil worship.” I mean actual experiences and challenges relevant to actual adults. You are a digital artist working in a near-future digital art gallery. It's kind of an office drama, and it is crackerjack. The lived in setting of the office, the casual jargon-filled interactions, the constant tension between satisfying your creative urges and getting the job done, the highly specific triumphs and failures that are impenetrable to outsiders. All of this is painted so crisply, so matter-of-factly it is instantly immersive.

The characters in the workplace similarly feel organic. Over time you get enough background to establish with certainty why they are in the business they’re in, and where they are satisfied or dissatisfied with the work. It is insanely lived in. No notes! It also makes the crucial decision to effortlessly establish that it is these common intellectual and artistic passions that provide a baseline attraction, not “ooh, hotty!”

It is all so satisfyingly subtle. The piece builds attraction through dry academic texts and deeply technical dayjob project work, so that when the inevitable “wow those bike shorts” injects it feels like the involuntary chemical reaction it is - as much a result of what came before as “wait, humans can just be horny.” Now I can’t decide how much this resonated for me because I happen to ALSO be deeply interested in the digital issues the protagonist and 'love' interest are. (Which by the way, loved every single detail of the future corporate/online/cultural world building. There is a special place in my heart for (Spoiler - click to show)The Handmaid’s Tale video game being used to hawk makeup) Would someone less fascinated by these topics find this as compelling? Dunno, irrelevant to my experience!

The interactive choices on display here were similarly just perfect. You were choosing small, harmless(?) actions, so small they often didn’t register as choices in the sense of steering the game. The writing in the choices was laser precise - it was clear WHAT you were doing, but the game steered super wide of WHY. Are you flirting up to a tittilating line? Filled with shame? Actively looking for something new? Lying to yourself about your motivations? Only rarely did the game weigh in on any of that, mostly that was between you and your mouse. What a powerfully immersive choice that is, a fragile illusion you are creating that is so easily dispelled by incautious word choice. AP almost never cracked.

I’m gushing here. 3/4 the way through I was already crowning this Transcendent in my head. I was anticipating equal subtlety all the way to the end, where my mental model of the protagonist and dramatically chosen world events collided in a natural and unpredictable way. I was positively crestfallen, when amidst the super slow and organic building of tension, I was abruptly confronted with a metagame choice: (Spoiler - click to show)do you pursue an affair, try to stay friends or cut off contact? This choice was so different than everything that came before: it was blunt and confrontive and shattering of carefully constructed character self-delusions. I could see a scenario where narratively this brutality could be justified in-story and even be rewarding, but that wasn’t the case here. I could similarly conceive the game jumping in and saying, ‘all that subtlety was self-deluding lies, because here’s the reality of all that weaseling.’ Which it kind of was? I needed more text for any of that to land, I’m afraid. Without that, all the work the game had done was discarded with inadequate compensation.

In the end, this was such an impactful design choice it eroded the Transcendental experience I was having. It redeemed somewhat when I reloaded and explored the alternatives, only to find (Spoiler - click to show)it didn’t change the ending! I’d already baked the character and it was gonna be what it was. Adultery is a choice you make for sure, but its not a choice ONLY you make. That was kinda cool. This is a top 5, maybe top 2 game for me. Its application of interactivity and world building was qualitatively more mature and nuanced than almost everything else so far. I wish that one thing didn’t undermine it right when I was soaring but it got me so high in the air, I had room to drop.

Also quick shout out to the phrase “using steamed baby carrots to expore her facial orifices.” That is now just endlessly echoing in my head behind everything I’m doing.


Played: 10/27/22
Playtime: 1hr, 1 ending 3 different ways
Artistic/Technical rankings: Transcendent-/Seamless
Would Play Again? Yeah maybe, if I can get past the fear that I’ll destroy the butterfly by looking too close

Artistic scale: Bouncy, Mechanical, Sparks of Joy, Engaging, Transcendent
Technical scale: Unplayable, Intrusive, Notable (Bugginess), Mostly Seamless, Seamless

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
A blend of futuristic curation, cultural values, & personal ambition, October 24, 2022

Admiration Point takes place several decades into the future. You play as Maria, a 3D artist at the Digital Culture Museum where she designs virtual exhibits. But lately, her attention keeps wandering to her coworker, Sean. Romance is unlikely.

Gameplay
The interactivity usually consists of deciding whether to explore Maria’s attraction to Sean, or to shift the attention towards her work and family. To use an example, (Spoiler - click to show) in one scene you choose whether to read Sean’s book, search for Sean on the internet, or read a novel having nothing to do with Sean. Other times, choices are centered around character dialog.

Gameplay choices generally do not affect the overall track of the game. The most influential choice occurs about a quarter into the game where the player decides on how Maria should approach her feelings about Sean. Maria can choose to wreck her feelings, ignore them, or use them to fuel her own work. Your choice is then listed at the side of the screen for the rest of the game. This choice does not change the gameplay path but features text changes that are varied enough to make each playthrough a unique experience for replays.

Admiration Point is not a stat intensive game, but there are a few. Stats are meant to give the player a general idea of Maria’s feelings and standing with Sean. Cleverly, they are indicated with icons rather than numbers. (Spoiler - click to show) Maria’s obsession with Sean is represented by a looping scribble that becomes denser as her interest grows. I think that explains itself clear enough. Sean’s attitude towards Maria is shown with weather icons that begins with a neutral cloud before slowly transitioning into a shining sun. There are no rainy clouds or thunderstorms. It is just meant to be an estimate of your progress of getting to know Sean since opportunities can become available.

Story
Immediate story
The story revolves around Maria’s infatuation with Sean. He is the new guy in another department at the museum, but his work often overlaps with Maria’s work. Like Maria, he is married, though considerably older than her. As I mentioned earlier, the player’s choices do not branch the gameplay. Instead, it determines how Maria approaches her romantic feelings. Sometimes this will take you in an unexpected direction.

Have you ever played a Twine game where you click on a link that surprises you with a message instead of carrying through with the command? You probably have. Sometimes games use them to make the player think that a character is about to do something major, only to say, “yeah, not happening.” Sometimes you can sense it in advance. In this game, there were cases where I thought, “surely, the game would not allow me to actually do that,” only to click on the link and realize that, no, Maria really is going for it. I think that this allows the player to share the awkwardness with Maria rather than just feeling awkward at her situation, although the awkwardness can range anywhere from cringy to Going Too Far. Some were pretty painful to try. (Spoiler - click to show) Ending 2 was sad.

Overarching story
I am not sure whether Admiration Point takes place in the late 21st century or early 22nd century, but my guess is the former. When it comes to games that aim towards the near future, I always like to see authors’ interpretations what happens.

Apparently, (Spoiler - click to show) things seemed to go downhill during the 2040s where algorithms in social media allowed corporations to weasel their way into leadership positions and other societal pillars that changed everyday life. Names of states and countries were even changed to corporate brands. It is a familiar trope, perhaps not the most novel. But the game has nice worldbuilding by introducing these concepts through character conversations or Maria’s reading material. It makes explanations more integrated in the game rather that pulling the player aside for a crash course on the history before releasing them back into the gameplay.

Also, futuristic technology (or at least advanced versions of preexisting technologies we have today) is subtly placed throughout the game. For example, we hear mention of synthetic meats called Near-Meat. I am not sure if Near-Meat is a brand-based product. It seems like games that speculate on the nature of consumer meat products in the future tend to opt for flashy fictional marking such as NearMeats™ whereas this game takes a more subtle approach by lightly incorporating it into the writing. No? Maybe it is just me. Regardless, there are small hints that provide exposition about the world Maria lives in.

Characters
The premise of Maria's character is an exciting one: A protagonist who creates 3D art for virtual exhibits at a museum on digital culture in the future. But she also brings something new to the table: She is Mormon. Aside from the author’s other works, I have never really played any interactive fiction games that look at a specific branch/group of Christianity. The only one that comes to mind is the Methodist church in Robin & Orchid. I would not say that Admiration Point is heavily based on religion, but there are scenes where it takes center stage. I cannot say that I am familiar with the subject, but the game does share some cultural insights that were interesting.

One theme that often surfaces with Maria is motherhood. In one part of the game, (Spoiler - click to show) Maria reviews an exhibit script where women share how pregnancy was not a positive experience for them. One woman in the script notes that being overjoyed about expecting a child does not mean you are thrilled with being pregnant. For Maria, these hit close to home since she deals with indecisiveness about whether to have a second child. While there is plenty of existing media that cultivates the image of upbeat motherhood and "perfect" pregnancy, media can also be an avenue for women to share experiences, such as blogging. In Maria’s case, hearing someone who can relate to her struggles was a powerful moment. That seemed to be the main idea the author was going for in this scene.

Visuals
The game has a polished minimalist look. Green links, white background, and grey text organized into neat paragraphs at the left side of the screen. And to the left of that is a grey panel with rounded borders. This panel is mostly blank until the stats are introduced which have fun icons which I discussed earlier in this review.

Sometimes the game uses different fonts for newspapers or other content which added nice stylization. Occasionally there are text boxes used to simulate a text chat screen. It uses basic shapes and colours to imply the idea without needing to be elaborate.

Final thoughts
This was one of the earlier entries that I played. I liked the design and candid nature of the story. A highlight of the game for me was the author’s interpretation of the future and the corresponding worldbuilding, but I also enjoyed the character development.

If you asked me to pick one genre to summarize this game, I would not choose romance, religion, or science fiction, but slice of life. Romance, religion, and science fiction would fit under this umbrella and describe the complex character that is Maria. Admiration Point is short game with a compressed story, and worth more than one playthrough. Even if you decide that you do not like it, there still may be something in it for you.

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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
A future museum employee deals with desire for affair, October 21, 2022
by MathBrush
Related reviews: about 1 hour

This game is a fusion of a couple of concepts/story threads. The first is a futuristic story where you are part of a VR museum curation team. This is a really interesting story that feels well-researched and describes things like how to crowdsource tagging videos with metadata and how perception of culture changes over time.

The other thread is where you are a burnt-out member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and mother and wife, and your older but handsome coworker Sean starts looking really attractive to you as a way to escape.

A lot of the game deals with the outlook of unhappy wife who somewhat believes in the Church but feels oppressed and dislikes several aspects. A lot of this part was hard to read as I was divorced primarily because my wife felt much of the same things that this protagonist feels with regards to the our church, and just like the protagonist, she wanted a way out.

I appreciated a fact I didn't discover until the end notes, which is that (Spoiler - click to show)there is no way to actually have an affair. It made me feel like the game really did a good job of representing player agency, since (Spoiler - click to show)just because you do everything can to make someone like you or want you, doesn't mean it will work.

Besides dredging up a lot of uncomfortable personal feelings (which I think is a sign of good writing), the one thing that didn't entirely click for me was the pacing; it was never clear just how close we were, or just what actions would have what results, if that makes any sense. Stylistically, it's a reasonable choice, since relationships are messy and confusing. But I felt like the gameplay was obfuscated (if that's the right word here).

Overall, I think this one will do well. Great research and touches on a lot of pertinent points in modern society.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Clever and engaging, October 9, 2022

This is a very smartly written IF. I was so glad when I finished this game that I hadn’t read any part of its description–it might have influenced my choices. As it was, I scored a 5 out of 5! However, I think I arrived at an early ending and missed a lot more of the story, so I will play again. BE SURE to read the FAQs as well as the influences page. Did you know that the first choice-based game book was a 1930 publication that let you make decisions about careers and relationships for three different women???

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