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Review
On Repeat
When I got divorced I realized I had never really formed my own musical tastes. As the second child in a family of 9, I usually just went along with whatever was around me, like musicals and pop. In college, when I got a smartphone for the first time, I asked girls I like what music they liked, some of which I enjoyed as well and some of which has remained on my phone for over 20 years with perhaps less than 10 plays ever (sorry, Matt Acosta's Songs we Sing and Carrie Underwood's Carnival Ride). I did pick up a fondness for opera. When I married my ex-wife, we mostly compromised on generic pop.
After my divorce, I was emotionally shattered for a long time. I looked up the 1000 best albums of all time on some website and tried listening to them. Radiohead's OK Computer was number 1. I ended up really liking Radiohead, Pink Floyd, and Kanye West (censored versions). I bought every Radiohead album except the first one (can't remember the name, just remember it wasn't as good) and I listened to basically nothing but Radiohead for 2-3 years. It was the kind of depressing music that matched my mood (along with Kanye's online clean version of "Runaway" in a movie form, which I typically listened to more than watched). I stopped listening as much when my emotional health and confidence improved in the last few years. While not relevant to this game, I then got into video game and cartoon music through my son (like Adventure Time, Undertale, Steven Universe), and currently have been listening to a lot of Daft Punk and French, Spanish, Chinese and German songs (French and German for when I teach the classes as elective, spanish and chinese to have something to talk to the spanish and chinese teachers about). (I was looking through and found my recap for June-August 25. It's trash but that's okay. The number one song on there was, slowed down, the background music for a swimming video, and someone said it was the worst song they had ever heard, but I liked it and listened to it a lot. A lot of other videos on the list were only on there because of autoplay; I don't even like some of them. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=LRSRApzxWf1UTFGSjbiKiaPMz-XzR-n1g777u&si=LZMb5TNIQUK5OUtf. I also just found my 2023 recap which was in my transitional period between Radiohead and other stuff and has a bit of everything above https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=LRYRWuIJu55ZElFFBGjagoHV69yXEJSAsAJdt)
Anyway, this game reminded me of that Radiohead period, I'd put it on all the time when feeling bad.
In this game, you are going through a kind of funk and can spend each day cycling through calling your mom, listening to a new album, getting coffee, etc. with the same options each night and day. Different options can help you feel good or bad.
On my first playthrough, I did nothing but listen to the album at all times, and, predictably, I was sick of it at the end. This playthrough was kind of boring. On my second one, I played a variety of links, going back to the album only when I needed a pick-me-up. That was nice.
The game did make me reflect a lot; it's filled with relatable things that most people would experience, though a few things differed from my own. I like calling and talking to my mom, but I don't do it very often; typically when I do it's because I'm feeling down and I know she'll make me feel better. I don't hear about protests and don't even know what news I'd have to listen to to get protest alerts. I have a cat, but not one I got for myself, one that ended up with me, and we both coexist with each other but don't have dedicated playtime together (she's pretty antisocial).
The game serves as a mirror, reducing our PC and their lived experience to bare essentials to better reflect our lives. It's not substantial, but we can easily make it substantial through our own impression of it.
