Cibele

whoever this game is about he should have to have a vulture eat his constantly-regrowing liver

From what I can tell Cibele aims to be a very intimate story based on the personal experiences of designer who plays herself in the game. It wasn't great when it came out, but if you're looking to buy it a decade later, I think you can do better. The game is basically split into three parts: FMV cutscenes focusing mostly on Nina herself. Exploration of her computer's desktop and a game within a game that simulates an mmorpg. The first two are a bit rough but good. FMV bits look very poor, like they were shot without tweaking ISO or lighting. And the desktop bits are better, but I wish there were more to explore between chapters. But both work, and they're the most enjoyable part of the game, as you get to explore who this person is in a way that feels voyeuristic and intrusive but compelling. The MMO part, on the other hand, is a disaster. The dialogue isn't great, but, then again, most real-life flirting isn't either. I get the game goes for raw, but the pace of everything feels off. The three acts of the story feel like beginning, middle, and middle, with the conclusion mostly being a single title card at the very end. But the reason I'm marking this as negative is the gameplay of the MMO itself. It's shallow, repetitive, and clunky, but you gotta do it regardless. Like the game was afraid of not having enough gameplay, but instead forced you through mindless clicking and awful pathfinding so you could progress the dialogue. At the end of Chapter 2 my game crashed and I gave up: saw the rest on YouTube, and while normally I hate this, it felt better because I didn't have to "play" a third section. I think Emily is Away, which came out around the same time, had a much better formula, even though the themes explored are very different.

It's not really a "game" but more of a "short movie" with minimally interactive parts. The story does not branch, so the interactive part doesn't change anything because there are no real choices to make. It's a single, linear story that takes about an hour to complete. I bought it on sale for $4.49 and I felt that was still a little high for what I got.

I slept on this game because of the lackluster reviews, but I adored this teleportation into a snapshot of elder-millenial life. Those inbetweens of old and modern internet, of highschool and adulthood, of being the personality you think you're supposed to be and the unforseeable human you are. Reviews saying it's a poor game: sure. Because it's not a game. It's a simulation of experiences lived by thousands of us. I'm not sure if the same can be said when the game first came out, but now the game play and the story has become second to the experience of looking into this mirror of the late 2000s.

Nelle intenzioni avrebbe dovuto raccontare la storia di una relazione nata all'interno di un MMORPG; nella pratica fatica a tenere a livelli decenti l'attenzione del giocatore a causa di un ritmo estremamente blando e noioso, una realizzazione del finto MMORPG abbastanza imbarazzante e una messa in scena che pecca di delicatezza e, forse, scade un po' nel disagiante. Cheers...spero che gli attori li abbiano pagati bene.

e-dating never works xd very interesting story fmv thing its short but worth it browsing desktop feels creepy and nostalgia from old internet times but its nice getting some ptsd from my childhood growing up addicted to mmos and living vicariously, meeting people from irl is a 50/50 chance of being a letdown so something to learn from this. It's a very good time capsule work of art and worth a shot, only had like 2 crashes and thats becuase the credits didnt load and i had to watch it on youtube xdd

Well it´s an interactive experience about meeting in an online game and falling in love for real making a long distance relationship work. Or benefiting from it... (Which actually is a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ move in real life though) ...Characters are quite likable. But maybe you should wait for a sale. You can pay 9 bucks if you wanna support the maker, but it´s about 2 hours until the story is told.

Little short game, about real human connection. Totally recommend

ivan and selin from elif batuman's the idiot....but for gamers. and its 2009