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Making Virtue a Vice, January 6, 2024Adapted from an IFCOMP23 Review
Historically, the British have a lot to answer for, no doubt. They may not have invented colonization, but they sure perfected it. They turned class warfare into a national past time and a global preoccupation. They pulled the levers of racism to throw European economy into chaos. They plundered historical legacy from cultures around the globe. Don’t even get me started on their culinary corpus. But you know what they DON’T need to apologize for? London Dry Gin.
London Dry Gin took Dutch Genever, a full-mouthed almost-whiskey, and/or too-sweet-by-half Old Tom and said “rawther, pip pip, we’ll just sharpen this up, old bean, distill away the sugars, layer in botanical complexity for a crisp, clean dram that is best chased with more of itself, what ho?” Y’know, cause that’s how they talk. London Dry Gin single-handedly turned the Martini into the most popular cocktail in the world for the latter half of the 20th century, before the Martini got corrupted by the complete nothing Vodka and the Old Fashioned justifiably stole the crown. Gin pairs so sublimely with Tonic and lime that its name is synonymous with ‘refreshing.’ In the Negroni, the Italians showed that Gin can rescue even the unappealingly bitter Campari. If you’ve never had a London Dry-based Corpse Reviver #2, you have chosen a life of privation and self-denial that disrespects your brief time on this mortal coil.
London Dry Gin doesn’t deserve Virtue’s scorn.
This is a fiction with almost no interactivity. There are less than a handful of choices to make, and only one seems weirdly impactful. Most of the time clicking is purely to advance the text. The story itself is a character study of an unpleasant, unfulfilled housewife with suppressed trauma transferring her desperate dissatisfactions into social outrage. That outrage takes on its own life, ignoring or eliminating anything that doesn’t feed it (like family relationships or the simple truths right in front of her), and exacerbating things that do, like casual racism. No lies detected, tell me more!
While that is a very timely phenomenon to showcase, and not just in England, the story makes some choices that undermine its impact. For one, the work puts us squarely in this protagonist’s pov - we only have access to the story through her. She is off-puttingly one note. I think the story introduces her trauma as a way to generate sympathy but it is so downplayed it becomes incidental. Don’t get me wrong, foregrounding trauma is probably NOT desirable as that would carry all kinds of unwanted subtext. Rather, before the plot turn, all we get is trauma and repressed anger and a side of mild othering. The story makes no other attempt to make her complex. Even before things escalate she is unpleasant to be stuck with. I think the work might be better served to show more fullness to this character, some positive aspects the reader might want to share. Or even go all in on flaws that are more fun to gawk at. Cruella De Ville is not sympathetic but she is a tremendous hang! Elphaba is deeply (ok maybe somewhat manipulatively) sympathetic and her descent is engaging to watch. Instead we are stuck with someone kind of awful to start with, then we just watch her curdle.
Another defeating choice is how clumsily the story hammers the obvious truth at her. Her daughter flat out spells it out for her (yet despite disapproving of her mother’s arc, doesn’t take any other action?). An MP, presumably not local, knows the truth. That HAS to imply that at least some locals are well aware of it too - where else is he getting his info? Her outrage is portrayed as so magnetic it has become a local political movement. While a bit ham-fisted, I can get on board with self-delusion overtaking reason here. It beggars credulity though that 1) EVERYONE is willing to overlook this glaring, embarrassing fact and 2) that it would not be used by political enemies at a minimum. With a more compellingly rendered protagonist we might forgive this conceit. Certainly conservative party willingness to fan flames for political advantage is not a stretch. Worse, it doesn’t need that political detail to get its message of gross hypocrisy across! It could have stayed a family secret and political disinterest in the truth could be just as damning without straining credulity!
The work is billed as a satire, but the whole thing is pretty humorless. Maybe with a more firm hand on tone, these things would be sold better? As is, the protag seems more grounded than caricature, and the plot developments more illogical than satirical. [sidebar: I hope we all know we are living in a post-satire world anyway, yes? As a species we have lost the ability to detect insincere rhetorical exaggeration.]
While the story may be unconvincing, the interactivity on the other hand was just flat confounding. The only impactful choice to make is (Spoiler - click to show)what beverage to share with an opportunistic politician. Of three choices, two lead to an abrupt, unsatisfying end of (Spoiler - click to show)‘welp she made her own choices.’ It resolves nothing in plot or character, it just ends. Maybe this is the satire? If so, the end screen needs to do a LOT more work to land it.
Regardless, if she chooses the GIN at that last choice we (Spoiler - click to show)mint yet another awful politician! With THAT choice?!?!? I found no thematic or satirical resonance. I don’t think alcohol is even mentioned prior to this. Maybe it’s a metaphorical choice to embrace the most extreme option, drinking the cool-aid as it were? Ok, but there is no clue to the player that that is what we’re doing until it’s done. Also, it feels like the protag had committed to ‘extreme’ WELL prior to this point.
I really feel I need to defend London Dry here, even in satire. The narrative is timely, its theme could not be more spot on. I just found as a story it didn’t spark for me, and satirical elements were too underplayed to land. A Mechanical, Mostly Seamless exercise of page turning. (Shy of Seamless due to confusing ending use of interactivity.)
Classic Martini: Anywhere from 5-2 to 5-1 ratio London Dry Gin to Dry Vermouth (less vermouth is a pose. More vermouth appropriate to other gins, not London Dry), dash orange bitters, stir with ice. Strain into chilled glass, garnish with olive (no brine) or better squeezed lemon twist.
Classic G&T: 2 oz London Dry Gin over lots of ice in a Highball glass, top with Tonic, garnish with slice of lime, and sprig of spanked mint if feeling saucy. Give lime a light squeeze before drinking.
Negroni: equal parts London Dry Gin, Campari, Italian Sweet Vermouth. Stir in a rocks glass with ice, squeeze and garnish with wide twist of orange.
Corpse Reviver #2: equal parts London Dry Gin, lemon juice, Contreau, and Lillet Blanc (or the historically closer Kina l’Aero d’Or), shake with ice, strain into a chilled coup glass, swirled with absinthe. Garnish with cocktail cherry, not maraschino.
Gin is not the villain here.
Played: 11/5/23
Playtime: 45min, 3 cycles, 2 endings
Artistic/Technical ratings: Mechanical, Mostly Seamless
Would Play After Comp?: No, but would definitely have a cocktail after IFCOMP23. Or during!
Artistic scale: Bouncy, Mechanical, Sparks of Joy, Engaging, Transcendent
Technical scale: Unplayable, Intrusive, Notable (Bugginess), Mostly Seamless, Seamless