Jacob's Body

This game made me think, in a very unintended but positive way, of a whale fall.

This was written for the Neo Twiny Jam in 500 words or less. In it, a character name Jacob dies, fallen from the Ceiling (a literal ceiling? the top half of Midgar in FFVII? heaven?).

When they died, their bones, flesh, and blood were used for various purposes, detailed in the story.

The writing here is excellent and the story and imagery are rich. I didn't feel a need to replay this or revisit it in the future, though.

It's always good to see IFComp authors pop up somewhere else. Whether these people are publishing books or just clocking thousands of rep points on stack overflow, it's a reminder to me that while I enjoy having a corner of the internet, but I don't need to stay in a bubble. In fact, I should not.

The author wrote Flattened London for IFComp 2020 which was a combination of Flatland and Fallen London, and it was a pretty big and amusing parser game. Then for IFComp 2021, they wrote My Gender is a Fish in Twine. I thought it was an effective and succinct counter-measure to those who used gender pronouns as a joke, and it never got close to over-earnest crusading.

This is about a slightly supernatural cycle of life where someone's body is repurposed following death. It branches to three stories, then a conclusion. It has the odd effect of making, for a moment, (Spoiler - click to show)cannibalism seem almost natural, each small story in a way reminiscent of how I read Native Americans performed rituals after hunting certain animals for food and made sure not to waste as little as possible out of respect for the animal's life.

But in our brief glimpse into Jacob's world, even what is not used, is used. And what is not used to clear constructive purpose has its own use in a way. It makes a clear case for content warnings, but paradoxically, the stuff that causes them is potentially the most uplifting or hopeful.

I hope Carter Gwertzman is writing other stuff, too, outside of comps and jams. I'm pretty sure that is the case.

(Note: Manonamora's review mentions the first sentence, which left an impression on me, too. Maybe you as well.)

“Last week, under inauspicious stars, Jacob fell from the Ceiling to his death.”
And with this killer hook comes three distinctive short stories linked to one of Jacob’s body parts: his bones, his blood, and his flesh. All of which are gruesome, and sad, and strange. But the writing is so enticing, you HAVE to know what happened to Jacob’s body!