Succor

It's a game about depression. You wake up hungry in your dirty, cluttered mess of an apartment, and have the option to try to fix things, or not. Menus and environmental details provide flashbacks that tell you about the protagonist's life and how they got to this point. You also encounter metaphorical demons representing your emotional struggles.

The art is minimal and evocative, while the classical piano music set me on edge. I associate classical piano music with misery for various reasons and don't like it much. I suppose it's ultimately fitting for this game. The music was quiet enough to not distract from the text, either.

Though fictional, it's a personal kind of story. I imagine the player's response will vary depending on their own experiences and how much they can relate.

A lot of people go through situations like this, I guess, where you're not sure how to pull together the motivation to continue on. In the end, you either do or you don't. The protagonist seems to have no friends or family to talk to about their struggles, so they're left to deal with it on their own and the outside world doesn't really care whether they succeed or fail. It's a harsh fact that when you're alone and at your lowest point it doesn't even seem to matter whether you do the "right" thing or not, and whether you suffer a "victory" or "defeat" in the game people call "managing your mental health", one day will still become another, and you'll still have to keep addressing your own needs, trying to stay above water.

The TV channels evoked this the most for me. The cynical channel descriptions get at the soullessness of modern media that worships profit and lauds the perfect life you'll never have:

Shots of bright beaches, breathtaking vistas and luxurious resorts comprise the majority of a snazzy travel show. The host benevolently devotes 45 seconds of the hour-long program to visiting an orphanage in the impoverished exotic destination before a change of location to dig into a seven-course meal.

An ad filled with high-pitched singing, nauseatingly bright colors and boggle-eyed creatures entices you to buy toys branded off a popular children's show.

A news segment features footage from a nearby homeless encampment, while a scrolling ticker along the bottom of the screen screams about the stock market's record highs.

You find a cooking show featuring a celebrity chef using ingredients most folks would need to mortgage their home to afford. The host oohs in awe.

An elderly couple stare at each other in gentle adoration while a man breathlessly rattles off a list of medicinal side effects.

An ad for a charity comes on, filled with images of starving children and soft, tearjerking piano music.

You find a documentary about space tourism and watch for a few moments as the world's wealthiest leave the planet. You change the channel before they can return.

Generally speaking, the outside world doesn't care about you at all. It only makes your situation worse, if anything.

One of the harsher things about the protagonist's situation is that they're completely alone, and have no friends or acquaintances to ask for help. No one to talk to. In a state like this you really need to rely on your own will. Or maybe your money reserves - I was surprised money didn't play a larger role in this considering it's mentioned the protagonist grew up poor and they clearly don't seem to have a lot of money, but they seem to be able to afford food, at least. Even if they don't have the kind of parents who would let them return to the family mansion for a few months to convalesce after an unsuccessful venture, which is what the luckier have...

Things I might change: The interface can be awkward to navigate at times, and not all the description elements seem fully responsive. The TV sometimes couldn't get a channel description and just printed [undefined]. For example, the journal can be covered with a thin layer of dust, indicating disuse, even after you've just written in it. I also couldn't find a way to interact with the lightbulb after interacting with something else beforehand, since the link seems to only be in the room description, so I had to leave and come back first. Small things like this added up to make the experience less smooth. Also, the "defeating inner demons" thing may be a bit overplayed. Didn't do too much for me because it seemed to literalize the protagonist's interior state a bit too much - I would have preferred even more about the protagonist's life and family, though we do get plenty already.

I still liked this game, though. What I really like is the ending doesn't involve the protagonist's life being ruined forever or fixed forever. Change is incremental. Good and bad streaks can both be broken. But you have to keep trying, for as long as you can bear to.

Haven't actually gotten around to cleaning my microwave yet, but this game did remind me it's been a while since I did.

(As a side note: this game was initially made for a jam in 2023, which explains the 2024 US election-related news on the TV, along with the details about "the stock market's record highs", which unfortunately doesn't reflect current US reality last I checked.)