Can't remember when I picked this up, but it seems to be free, so I guess I paid nothing for it. I sure hope I did.
This will contain spoilers, because the game is so short, I couldn't talk about it if I didn't spoil anything.
Basically, the problem started when running the game in the first place. The game would expand far beyond my monitor, take up half my second monitor, and thus, I wouldn't be able to actually play it, because a lot of it was missing and when I clicked on segments extending to my second monitor, the game would retract into the taskbar and my mouse would be permanently stuck to the upper left corner of my screen making me unable to close the game, having to go WAYS just to fix the problem. Since the game doesn't seem to have a menu, I couldn't change any settings, and I know the problem from F2F, so I input the screen width as a preset for opening the game via Steam, but that didn't work either.
I changed settings so my computer would only run on the main monitor, but that didn't change anything either. Turns out, though, because the first time I forgot to press "keep change" after setting my display preferences, that when I would be fast enough to run the game afterwards, and the second monitor would jump back on after time ran out for me to confirm the change, it would then, FINALLY, adjust to my screen. This was not a fluke, btw, in case anyone else out there has a problem like that. I could reproduce it.
Anyway, I was finally in the game. You play inside a cabin, click numerous things, and discover the relationship of two people through the lens of the man, who goes around, trying to remember his wife, Serena. Of course, there are two objects you can interact with, but not really, and a cabin outside - an outhouse - is mentioned as well, along with him mentioning where the keys to said outhouse were, so I figured we might get to go there as well, which was not the case. However, the other two objects you can interact with, but not really, are a big trunk and the wardrobe. So I was like "He probably killed her, and she's in the closet - or inside the big old trunk." Closet was more likely, because the trunk seemed too small.
But pretty soon, I felt like it was way too on the nose. Also, when the mummified corpse actually came out of the closet, I was like "Nah, she's fine. He's dead."
Because you got numerous hints on how he's confused, doesn't remember anything, doesn't remember murdering her either, and the corpse looks old, so you couldn't possibly tell who it was, unless you're a doctor and see the corpse more closely, so you could tell the gender at first glance.
Either way, I was right. It wasn't surprising. The story wasn't pulling me in enough to care about either of them. She likely had an affair, since she set the cabin on fire with some dude who clearly knew about the corpse inside. They even argued about the wedding ring she had left behind, which was something we found inside a small trinket chest, which was inside the trunk. There are nifty little things, like certain details changing - the photo of the man and Serena changed twice, as far as I could see.
Don't know if there are different endings, but I highly doubt it, since you couldn't get into the next phase before obtaining certain information. There was also a framed poem on the wall, which would also change with every phase. Phases are set by the clock on the wall tolling, and once you return to the photo on the dining table, which is also your starting point, the image you see will have changed. Then you walk around and click on everything inside the cabin again and again, until he doesn't tell you anything new.
In other words: Gameplay is repetitive on a veeeeery small scale. Voice acting is often awkward, but likely not in the way it was meant to be. The characters kind of didn't get to me at all, which gave no room for me to get attached in any way. It was also, as mentioned, extremely predictable, and the ending felt unearned, rushed, and unfinished. I even sat there, staring at my screen in disbelief, watching the credits to the last moment, until the game collapsed automatically, thinking there might be an after-credits scene. But no, of course not.
Now, do I actually want to trash that much on a game that probably costs nothing and is just meant to be thought-provoking? Yes, indeed. Because I hate games that do this, pretending to be thought-provoking (I really have no clue what the intention was, otherwise), but don't put in the effort. There's far too little input for me to care. The protagonist goes from reminiscing far too heavily about his love Serena, to becoming borderline creepy when in phase two, he almost exclusively talked about her looks im a sensual way, like a stalker - which, don't get me wrong, can be part of a destructive, toxic relationship - with his words turning more vile by the third phase, when we also get to find that ring and, shortly thereafter, the corpse in the closet. I actually clocked right off the bat that either she's dead, or he's dead, but by the second phase, it was clear that he's the dead one, because it was too obviously playing on him being weird.
I think, what sets this game apart from like-minded ventures like "Gone Home" is the attention to detail and the amount of things to uncover. Instead of going on wild tangents about some irrelevant myth based poem (and btw I love all types of mythology and I LOVE poetry, so that's not the problem - he even quoted frost's "Nothing Gold can Stay", which is one of my all-time favorites, by my favorite poet) when I really clicked on that one love letter in the dresser of the bedroom, every damn phase, because I thought that something would change. I did NOT expect they would focus on some tired, barely reflecting poem, which had nothing to do with anything, when they didn't touch that letter, yet I kept checking - okay, well, I DID expect the poem to change, to some extent, but I did not expect they didn't change the letter, but the poem; if anything, I thought they's evolve both of them to "degrade", especially since there was another letter sent by Serena, far more negative, which was stashed away in the trunk.
There were also two pictures on the wall, which didn't fit the room's decor at all, and you can zone in on them, but you don't get to interact with them; he doesn't say anything about them at all. Maybe, if I hadn't gone to the window, ending the game, right when he said to go to the window, I might have seen the photography change once more, or I could have interacted with the pictures on the wall? I don't know. I guess I will never find out.
Games are different from one another. In this case, having more room to breathe and more things to explore would have given me more insight into the couple's dynamic. I'm sure the developers didn't want it to be a bigger game. I get it, but that's basically why it was so boring, because it gave nothing to care about these two. For all I care, they were both scum, who knows? They depicted him weirdly, probably to "sUbVErt ExPEctAtiOnS", but that just made it more obvious to me. In the end, who cares?
And that is, quite frankly, sad, because the reason I felt this rant coming on, after a game that barely took an hour to finish, was because of the wasted potential and nothingness I was left with. And that is such a shame.
