Doggerland

This was a Spring Thing game in the year I started participating in IF (2015), but I never played it originally.

It's a poem that seems to have a lot of autobiographical parts (although of course it could just be written that way). Lines of the poem can change if hovered over or clicked, and icons can appear, or words change into icons or images.

The poem (and some prose elements) is about Doggerland, a place in Northern Europe that is now submerged under water. The game also mentions things like IVF, body dysphoria (briefly), global warming, etc.

I thought it was really well done. There is one choice, as far as I saw, but a lot of interactivity.

This sort of thing is hard to "review" or discuss; it feels like something deeply personal, as if my presence is an intrusion.

As far as the narrative goes, it's a sequence of poetic vignettes about becoming a parent, and the ongoing fear for future generations as a result of global warming. The title refers to a former land under the current North Sea, a land that submerged as a result of climate change after the Ice Age. What did the people live there think as the land faded away? There are digressions on rural poverty, healthcare, and life changes. The story is very short but dense, about five minutes for me.

As often the case with Anya DeNiro's stuff, the writing has an incredible economy, and interactivity is used to full effect, with a lot of mutating text and cycling links. I absolutely love the way the text is presented, even if the mouse-over effects could get to be too much at times. There were images whose symbolic meanings I didn't exactly understand.

Anyway, it was beautiful and I wanted to cry. It was as if the author could beam a certain mood straight into my brain.