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Review
Adapted from a SpringThing25 Review
Played: 4/9/25
Playtime: 10m, 5 (of course) playthroughs
Here is the order you should play this game: 1-5-2-4-3. You’re welcome.
That’s a jarring approach for me to take, right? This is an autobiographical-feeling work of art, detailing a dire, debilitating emotional and physical disorder. Yet here I am, superimposing myself between you and the work, telling you how it should be experienced. I’m probably going to go on and tell you how you should feel about it. Then maybe how successful or unsuccessful it is. I kinda have a history of this. Honestly, who the f*#$ am I to weigh in on any of this?
On some level, this is how I feel with ALL deeply personal works I presume to review. Where is the line between dissecting a piece with the same toolkit I use on, I dunno, Cyber-Swordsman Detective, and dismissing actual experiences by actual people, striving to communicate their anguish? I’d LOVE for that line to be “intent,” whooo boy, I’d wear that like armor. But you don’t really get to say “Sorry my Coat of Sharp Knives sliced you up so badly, I was really just trying to find some space in this subway car. Oh, this old thing? Just something I threw on this morning.”
This is a work about eating disorder. It plays with the concept of “trigger warnings,” presenting various levels of trigger to select among. I appreciated this conceit, overlaying narrative on those selections while challenging the player with explicit charges of misery-voyeurism. I found the graphical presentation minimalist, but effective in its aims. The choices of what each level communicated were wry and effective, escalating as you expect but also embedding commentary with WHAT each trigger level could actually express (and the inherent artificiality of it), relative the underlying reality. How close are we willing to get to someone else’s pain, how much of it can we ultimately experience? And what are our motivations in doing so?
I think that is about as much as I am willing say here. Why do I even own that coat?
Horror Icon: Leatherface
Vibe: Confessional
Polish: Smooth
Gimme the Wheel! : Pass.
Polish scale: Gleaming, Smooth, Textured, Rough, Distressed
Gimme the Wheel: What I would do next, if it were my project.
