WRITTEN

WRITTEN is a looping philosophical interactive piece where you are given 500 words to define yourself, your life, your beginning and your end. In a completely white plane, stretching indefinitely, you have 500 words to make a mark, or disappear without a trace. To fight your fate or accept it. To leave unfinished or find comfort in knowing yourself.

This was both comforting and gave me an existential crisis. I loved the meta aspect of flipping the 500-word restriction onto the player, honestly genius. And there are so many ways of interpreting the piece itself: are we just the pen running through a blank page, with space for only 500 words before a new one is given? Talking to some sort of Death Administrator with limited time/energy to give you before you're filed away? A meeting with the Fates to define how your life will be before you're sent down to actually live it?

And why so little words? Why is a life defined by only 500 words? How can you describe or quantify a whole person with so little?

I've seen many interesting ways to fit a game in a 500 word limit, but this is a totally new ball game. Here, we have a game which makes a mind-blowing reference to the limit of five hundred words

Existential and mystery vibes run strong here in the writing. This is largely a branching choicegame, where you are told that you have 500 words before your very end. You can choose to accept it or flee from it, but you can't escape your fate. When the numbers go up and get close to 500, prepare to start counting your final words.

The music was pretty nice too.

I'm giving this five stars as this is the most creative take I have seen on the 500 word limit thus far.