My Name Is Soda

If you got through the first pages of Recherche du Temps Perdu, you may remember Proust once talked about madeleine bringing back a bunch of memories. You may remember it even if you didn't. It's become one of those literary cliches.

Here it's root beer. Root beer, the poor neglected cousin of Coke and Pepsi, and I've always preferred it, too, and I suspect I have more brethern or sisters than could be polled. (I in fact made a far more flippant reference to it in Threediopolis. It made a tester laugh. I'm still proud of that.) But the root beer is sentient! It's hidden under a porch, and it'll bring back memories. Like the meat in Douglas Adams's Restaurant at the End of the Universe, it's okay with you digesting it. And yes, it's a bit unnerving, too, but it all makes sense. Sadly, this state will only last for twenty to forty minutes.

That's more than enough for a lot of memories for you-the-character, and it brought back memories for me as well. Memories of chugging one two-liter bottle too much while studying, or of a pop can with the Minnesota Golden Gophers logo and 1984 Big Ten schedule on it. Or maybe of leaving root beer so long in the fridge, proud of my restraint, it went flat. Memories of mixing root beer with different types of ice cream to make a root beer float. (Don't get me started on ice cream flavors. Seriously.) Heck, even Red Bull drunk once every two years brings back memories beyond "this is why I don't drink Red Bull."

The character has different memories, of course, combinations of happy and sad. Alcohol is briefly touched on without judgement from the root beer or narrator. As a teetotaler, I felt a bit superior, though.

I didn't once I had The Choice. What is it? Well, you can be selfish. I saved the game and took the selfish one first, then took the selfless one. I immediately rationalized that I could do what I knew from the selfless one once I went selfish, or it would have happened anyway. I'd like to think I would, in real life. But things probably don't quite work that way.

I think the final choice is strong and well-placed enough not to spoil here, and MNiS would have been well-done without it. I place a high value on games that let you think in your own way without being all "I'm making you think" or being too unstructured and general and MNiS hits that spot for me.

This was part of the Single Choice Jam.

It's a well-written surreal-ish game from the perspective of...

soda pop.

Apparently, it can talk! And it can read the mind of people that are drinking it...and it know all about you and your past.

This absurd setup is used to tell a touching and sad story about family and, possibly, something larger in the world.

There is only one choice, but this game rests almost entirely on the strength of its writing, which is strong in this case.

Ever met a drink or a food that could talk to you while you were ingesting it? Me either… but I feel like if I were at a low point in my life, I too would want a friendly ear (or well, voice) keeping me company and maybe even helping me through things. Because sometimes it’s just easier to talk to an inanimate object than unload your feeling onto another being.

But this soda is even more special: it is not only sentient, it can also remember thoughts and memories of people who drank soda before. Like your brother at his seventh birthday party, or you mother throughout her life (even though she claimed to hate them). Able to retell those memories to you (old or new), Soda tries to bring you comfort through what seems to be a hard time. Remind you you are not completely alone.

Like soda, the entry is quite the saccharine coating over relatively darker themes, enhancing the contrasts between elements. Soda is cheery while you are a bit morose. It reminds you of better time when currently… it’s really not great. It engages with you in ways you may not have been in a while (was there a hint of Covid in there?). The whole thing is very sweet.