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About the StoryYou are battle-weary. Your armor is scanty and your countenance is loathsome; you tire of the swords flicking at your neck. But you have a duty. There is nothing you can't take. Game Details |
The Breakfast Review
I kind of get the sense that there's some sort of social commentary involved here, or that can be made. Maybe I'm overthinking things; but then, a game with no proper "win" state--or rather, one where the only way to win is to put oneself in the shoes of the person to whom we lost--must surely be trying to say something, right? Something about people who are meant to lose and people who are meant to win, and what it's like to be in the shoes of the designated loser? I don't know. I'll just say that it was interesting to spend a few minutes walking around in this story, with the whole thing unfolding around me.
See the full review
Emily Short's Interactive Storytelling
Games on hard topics
Nothing is private. Everything occurs in public, to be commented on and reviewed later. You simultaneously have a reputation and no friends; devastating loneliness and an audience of thousands. Your “combat” scene is being reported to your opponent’s friends, so you can be mocked and criticized. There is no affection between the participants, no trust or good humor. (I don’t call them “partners” because they definitely are not.) The rules of engagement are rigged in a gendered way. By having sex at all, the woman is construed to have lost; she is the one who has to deal with any physical repercussions and any social stigma.
I wish that the design were such that more people saw what TAKE is doing. It can be rather obscure. But with that understood, I have huge respect for a piece that can combine that much rawly-felt emotion with such exact observations, together with mechanics that also tell part of the story. It’s brave and devastating, with some of the best prose in this year’s competition.
v.15: 07-Feb-2024 22:57 -
JTN
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v.14: 04-May-2021 22:38 - Zape Changed license type | |
v.13: 13-Dec-2020 09:11 - autumnc Changed external review links | |
v.12: 15-Jul-2020 15:22 - Zape Changed download links | |
v.11: 20-Jun-2020 07:30 - Zape Changed download links | |
v.10: 20-Jun-2020 07:27 - Zape Changed download links | |
v.9: 17-Jun-2020 15:18 - MathBrush Changed download links | |
v.8: 25-Nov-2019 20:49 - cas Changed IFIDs | |
v.7: 21-Nov-2016 21:50 - Doug Orleans Changed cover art, Web site URL, author | |
v.6: 21-Nov-2016 05:54 - Emily Short Changed external review links | |
v.5: 18-Nov-2016 21:47 - CMG Changed external review links | |
v.4: 18-Nov-2016 08:25 - <blank> Changed version number | |
v.3: 18-Nov-2016 05:17 - <blank> Changed download links | |
v.2: 02-Oct-2016 23:37 - CMG Changed cover art | |
v.1: 01-Oct-2016 18:14 - verityvirtue
Created page |