ESC

I adore everything about this game. The writing is phenomenal, which is great because it kept me tapping away at my keyboard for hours. IMO it's best to go in here blind - just dive in and get wrecked by a story full of twists and turns and some excellently written characters. I sobbed like a baby. That's the highest praise I can give it.

I want to throw my review out here just because of how few this visual novella has and its quality. I like to think of it as a sort of novella with a soundtrack and a bit of visual flair, as it is hardly interactive. I found it after listening to a few interviews with Lena Raine and thought it would be interesting to see another outlet for her creativity besides music, and I was not disappointed. I am a fan of weird sci-fi and ESC definitely delivers on that, even if some of its ideas may have aged a little poorly when relating to [spoiler]ai and its effects[/spoiler]. It was enjoyable to see how ESC brought together its disparate ideas with the core one of the CereNet, and the twists and turns of the actions of a small subset of its user base. I've never participated in online roleplaying, but it was surprisingly easy and enjoyable to get into as a framing device for a majority of the game's narrative. If anything put me off from bits of this story, it was the sections written in a more traditional, first person, perspective that have the more interesting plot and concepts, but the tone of the writing is fairly insufferable and arrogant for me compared to everything else. There is a character reason for this tone, and an in-universe reason for why you're reading it, but it was still my least favorite part of ESC. I finally want to touch on how I am usually unable to read with music, but I think that's usually because it never matches exactly what I'm reading. Lena Raine matches music to her writing in such a way that does not distract from the text, and can greatly add to certain scenes and moments, as opposed to if it was entirely text. ESC also has some visual elements, although they are mostly very abstract and serve to heighten a general vibe rather than change how you interact with the story, except for [spoiler] the train horn effects, which actively impede your ability to read more of the story for a time and add to the urgency of the situation the characters are in[/spoiler]. Overall, I would recommend ESC if you enjoy reading sci-fi and want a short experience to give you some things that your brain is able to chew on both between reading sessions and after you're finished reading. This has mainly been some rambly thoughts, but I hope it helps this novella reach more people.