This gamer/reviewer will attempt to explain what about The Fridge Is Red seems so compelling to many, and why TFIR is worth the time of many gamers (and that is no simple task considering the degree to which so many players have spoken out.) Perhaps the answer can be summarized simply: the horror in TFIR resonates so strongly (perhaps too strongly for many players) because the horror of TFIR is not the comfortable and escapable horror of zombies or attacking space aliens, but instead it’s the reality that people experience every day of their lives, which then becomes expressed in the most cyclical and inescapable nightmare scenarios our minds can concoct. Where does game-context IRL end and the nightmares begin (if nightmares are truly even what the game so vividly expresses)? That mostly indefinable, significantly nebulous point separating reality and nightmares seems perhaps best identified as… The Fridge Is Red.
We all, including TFIR developers, know why nightmares are so terrifying. Whatever logic we possibly encounter there is contrived and specific, and we are trapped there with our only resources being any possibilities for escape that may lie within ourselves, and perhaps then only after we realize where reality ends and the nightmare begins. But does that point of separation actually even exist? TFIR seems to say that it may not, and to say so with frequent, potentially karmic, brutality. So, when the actions of living become horror in themselves due to their cyclical and inescapable natures (and they then translate into our worst fears, expressed as nightmares or similar) we have few tools to protect or extract ourselves. This all too frequently results in endless circles of wasted effort, confusion and frustration with the contrived “rules” encountered within our dreams. That is perhaps the best way to summarize TFIR: endless inescapable circles/cycles based on the very actions begun in our waking lives but magnified geometrically once nightmares are given free reign with the most hellish personal aspects of our lives. You live a private life of guilt, fear and loss? The Fridge Is Red says that the hell you live will only be magnified by how you process that pain and fear internally.
As TFIR developer, cosmonaut wrote, “….we often have to deal with a soulless system in our lives, especially where we need ordinary human empathy the most. We tried to show that in our game.” And in at least one player’s opinion, SWORD Team succeeded unconditionally.
The Fridge Is Red is made of six individual stories that seemingly originate in the waking world, and without connection with each other. It doesn’t take long for connections between the various scenarios to be apparent, as each one quickly migrates to a hellish state with little means of exercising control, understanding or solution. While all six scenarios are shown in time to be connected (if only seemingly peripherally), when the game is completed, the story told is a truly horrible one from the character’s IRL, as heartbreakingly permanent as any story imagining could create. The point of TFIR seemingly being, “nothing in your nightmares will ever begin to prepare you for the horror within the waking life you live.”
Admittedly, The Fridge Is Red is not a horror game for everyone, even if it’s questionably either a “game” or “horror” (although it is most assuredly horrible.) Sometimes games feel too real to enjoy entirely as a game, and perhaps should be experienced more as a life lesson. TFIR seems to belong on that list. Perhaps the negative reviews say more about those choosing to play TFIR than the game itself, and it is unfortunate that a large number of players have failed to notice what may be (as developers have implied) the true point of TFIR. Yes, TFIG is painful and confusing to a maddening degree, but that’s because it’s meant to reflect the life we each live, and The Fridge Is Red succeeds both admirably and uncomfortably.
While I’ve seen TFIR referred to as a “walking simulator”, I’m not sure that observation actually hits the mark. It’s a game involving substantial searching, puzzle solving, and with much trial and error as numerous out-of-the-box solutions toward escape are attempted, with failure resulting in restarting the episode or returning to an earlier point. I’m admittedly a purposefully slow gamer, and with almost 13 hours of “loving almost every minute” gaming in TFIR, I’ve managed to solve all but one episode, and have seen how all (completed thus far) episodes come together at the end for a final bout with brutal reality. I can imagine that many gamers want games they can exit and walk away from, and The Fridge Is Red is as much (with apologies to Lizzo) “not that game” as any game I can recall playing in my almost 40 years of PC gaming.
As far as a well-developed game, The Fridge Is Red succeeds (to me) on all levels. The artwork of TFIR is exceptionally effective, and to be commended for walking a fine line with a task that is more demanding than in a more traditional horror game. The sound design is also very effective and using AI voices creates a state of encountering even less humanity when we often need it most (in the thoughtful words of TFIR developer, cosmonaut.) Attentive developers seem committed to their project, and equally committed to making it as good as possible technically, as small issues are steadily and quickly resolved.
On a personal note, I’d like to thank the developers for including material that has a very personal impact on my life. (I would not be surprised if most TFIR players were able to make a similar observation, though perhaps not specifically this.) Not only in Seaside, as I noted in a discussion topic, but the connection of that episode with the last one, Chili Handled, reached out to me individually. Just as these issues are connected in TFIR, they are similarly connected in my life, and I was shown myself in a manner that I very much needed to see. Thank you one and all at SWORD Team for helping me survive life at least a bit more effectively.
Thank you all for reading.
(4K)
EDIT: 10/113 It turns out SWORD Team has another game! I'll try to let readers of this review know what I think of it in the near future. (DLing as we "speak".)
https://store.steampowered.com/app/814530/Death_Crown/
