The Place

In the game's blurb, the author announces (after begging the player not to quit the game early, which is always a good sign) that, " I am a believer of absurdity, that our actions in the end have no meaninging (sic) in the interacting force between humans and universe." Yet, this author's other entry in the competition was a moralistic game which strongly advocated that our choices make a lot of difference.

Playing through The Place does little to shed a light on the purpose of this story, though the message appears to be to look within for happiness instead of material pleasures. The player listens to a narrator talking about the life of a woman who is somewhat defined by the player's own tastes, as the story is constantly interrupted so that you can answer questions about your own dreams which are then projected onto the female protagonist. I suppose the message here is to ask the player to put their own dreams in perspective, though if that's the case then I'm not sure why the protagonist is given a specific gender.

Regardless, the story is just not written well. In addition to a lack of proofreading, the prose tries way too hard and trips over itself. The most egregious passage may be the following: "She feels the breeze of spring air brushing through the tip of her nose. Her lungs (sic) capacity expands, absorbing that volume of fresh air. Then, slowly decompressing to release the cardon (sic) dioxide, she gets the negative thoughts out of her mind." I am not certain how air can brush through the tip of a nose, and juxtaposing this with a biology textbook kills any mood this passage was going for.