Song Accompaniment
I feel like I should come back to analysis on this one now that I'm in a relationship with the developer and this is probably the game I reviewed that perked her ears up about me. Before I get into it proper give me three paragraphs to notice something and I'll talk about the game.
As of the time of writing this, only 8 people have marked this game on the site as played. Despite the fact 3 prominent users have written large and thoughtful posts on this piece a year ago, and one, the developer wrote on it twice. It may seem sensible to shame people for not doing their due dilligence in trying out a work but we need to be fair here. A lot of this is a result of, writing that's inwards. People really took to Heather's other title Quantum Bummer Blues because all of the writers focused on what was distinct about the experience as something you play, and not just something you look at or how you personally felt.
This aspect of inwards writing, writing that focuses on the purely experiential, exists for a few logical reasons. One is that this is the expectation for social media. The other is that it feels too difficult to write constructively about a videogame because a game has several different elements its borrowing in design from other mediums and so writing outwards on those distinctions gets incredibly unwieldy and often shows ones ignorance on at least one subject. The last is the most interesting tho: Writing outwardly is cynical and carries with it a feeling of free lance marketing to people 'products'. Heather had to avoid avoid talking the game experience because if she assessed the formal elements of her own work it would come off as an advertisement, which means that writing outwardly can be thought of as proxy advertising or worse a 'consumption review'. To defend against these 'ugly' elements of writing its best to turn inwards and show the flourish and character of the writer themselves, its a buffer effect.
That said, I think if I've learned anything from writing on games, its that this understanding of outwards writing, which focuses on formal qualities and distinct comparison as crude obscures one important note: It's hard to get people to care about a game if you just ramble about your life or off topic observations first. I had to literally prime potential readers about these first 2 paragraphs because it makes it really hard to actually care about the relevance of it to the game. It's harder to get people to care about the game itself, if they stick around at all they end up instead caring about you. This creates a feedback loop where all criticism of a game is in relationship to you. My initial review isn't bad, but it branches off topic fast.
So here's what's distinct about No One Can Ever Know that you can't get almost anywhere else: It's a 1st person narrative that exposes internal thinking as an unhappy place. It's easy on the internet to forget this fundamental unhappiness because when it happens too much we see it as toxic (see: twitter). Besides, the idea of telling someone over text that something they did hurt your feelings doesn't really work that well. So instead positivity is centered and all the whinging thoughts are quarantined to a 'venting' channel or a private twitter, etc. The problem with this is its fundamentally unrealistic, unless you are a maniac (in literal terms) most of our thoughts are critical ones by design. No One Can Ever Know reflects this authenticity of the mind which is phenomenal, especially if you're a writer. No One Can Ever Know intervenes in reminding us that there's nothing spoiled in having bad thoughts. There's a lot to be unhappy about in the world and so for 1st person stories to ignore this fact misses a pretty great part of characterization and how to attach a player to that character.
That being said, Disco Elysium also notices this. See the difference here though is that No One Can Ever Know has no visual depiction element. Earlier I mentioned that its hard to express to people negative emotions over text, this is partially due to systemic patriarchal values which dont center emotional vulnerability almost at all. It's also just really hard to do tho because of how blunt text is as a format so it's fairly easy to go overboard. If somebody asks me how my day was in person they can get a read not just through my reply but through my face and my eyes. I usually say 'it was ok' and then let my face indicate what 'ok' means. In text I don't have access to that timing or the faces, all I can do is post this ---> ':/' which is also hilarious in how ineffectual it is. The complexity of negative thoughts, especially if they are slight, are hard to convey so we often just dont. Legitimately No One Can Ever Know is a game that reminds people that there are internal thoughts and feelings of the other user in a digital age without even relying on visual expressions at all. That minimalism is absolutely worth the price of admission. Which is nothing, by the way. This is free. Short to.
That's it. So writing outwardly is not hard at all (I wrote this in literally 20 minutes, its a shower thought), and contrary to perceptions it can be done more easily and more effectively than internal writing. It's possible it still feels like an advertiser's approach although I think this can oversimplify. At this point though I'd rather prefer people focus on the content of my assessment and on the game itself rather than focusing on me so if I have to be labeled a marketer to do it that way, so be it. I'm really happy that I've strayed away from those initial habits and I deeply appreciate all my other writer friends for helping me out here but I hope maybe you can find your own sense of comfort and solace knowing that there's dorks like me out there that prefer the outwards writing approach over the inwards one for displaying whats great about a game. Smiley face.
I feel like I should come back to analysis on this one now that I'm in a relationship with the developer and this is probably the game I reviewed that perked her ears up about me. Before I get into it proper give me three paragraphs to notice something and I'll talk about the game.
As of the time of writing this, only 8 people have marked this game on the site as played. Despite the fact 3 prominent users have written large and thoughtful posts on this piece a year ago, and one, the developer wrote on it twice. It may seem sensible to shame people for not doing their due dilligence in trying out a work but we need to be fair here. A lot of this is a result of, writing that's inwards. People really took to Heather's other title Quantum Bummer Blues because all of the writers focused on what was distinct about the experience as something you play, and not just something you look at or how you personally felt.
This aspect of inwards writing, writing that focuses on the purely experiential, exists for a few logical reasons. One is that this is the expectation for social media. The other is that it feels too difficult to write constructively about a videogame because a game has several different elements its borrowing in design from other mediums and so writing outwards on those distinctions gets incredibly unwieldy and often shows ones ignorance on at least one subject. The last is the most interesting tho: Writing outwardly is cynical and carries with it a feeling of free lance marketing to people 'products'. Heather had to avoid avoid talking the game experience because if she assessed the formal elements of her own work it would come off as an advertisement, which means that writing outwardly can be thought of as proxy advertising or worse a 'consumption review'. To defend against these 'ugly' elements of writing its best to turn inwards and show the flourish and character of the writer themselves, its a buffer effect.
That said, I think if I've learned anything from writing on games, its that this understanding of outwards writing, which focuses on formal qualities and distinct comparison as crude obscures one important note: It's hard to get people to care about a game if you just ramble about your life or off topic observations first. I had to literally prime potential readers about these first 2 paragraphs because it makes it really hard to actually care about the relevance of it to the game. It's harder to get people to care about the game itself, if they stick around at all they end up instead caring about you. This creates a feedback loop where all criticism of a game is in relationship to you. My initial review isn't bad, but it branches off topic fast.
So here's what's distinct about No One Can Ever Know that you can't get almost anywhere else: It's a 1st person narrative that exposes internal thinking as an unhappy place. It's easy on the internet to forget this fundamental unhappiness because when it happens too much we see it as toxic (see: twitter). Besides, the idea of telling someone over text that something they did hurt your feelings doesn't really work that well. So instead positivity is centered and all the whinging thoughts are quarantined to a 'venting' channel or a private twitter, etc. The problem with this is its fundamentally unrealistic, unless you are a maniac (in literal terms) most of our thoughts are critical ones by design. No One Can Ever Know reflects this authenticity of the mind which is phenomenal, especially if you're a writer. No One Can Ever Know intervenes in reminding us that there's nothing spoiled in having bad thoughts. There's a lot to be unhappy about in the world and so for 1st person stories to ignore this fact misses a pretty great part of characterization and how to attach a player to that character.
That being said, Disco Elysium also notices this. See the difference here though is that No One Can Ever Know has no visual depiction element. Earlier I mentioned that its hard to express to people negative emotions over text, this is partially due to systemic patriarchal values which dont center emotional vulnerability almost at all. It's also just really hard to do tho because of how blunt text is as a format so it's fairly easy to go overboard. If somebody asks me how my day was in person they can get a read not just through my reply but through my face and my eyes. I usually say 'it was ok' and then let my face indicate what 'ok' means. In text I don't have access to that timing or the faces, all I can do is post this ---> ':/' which is also hilarious in how ineffectual it is. The complexity of negative thoughts, especially if they are slight, are hard to convey so we often just dont. Legitimately No One Can Ever Know is a game that reminds people that there are internal thoughts and feelings of the other user in a digital age without even relying on visual expressions at all. That minimalism is absolutely worth the price of admission. Which is nothing, by the way. This is free. Short to.
That's it. So writing outwardly is not hard at all (I wrote this in literally 20 minutes, its a shower thought), and contrary to perceptions it can be done more easily and more effectively than internal writing. It's possible it still feels like an advertiser's approach although I think this can oversimplify. At this point though I'd rather prefer people focus on the content of my assessment and on the game itself rather than focusing on me so if I have to be labeled a marketer to do it that way, so be it. I'm really happy that I've strayed away from those initial habits and I deeply appreciate all my other writer friends for helping me out here but I hope maybe you can find your own sense of comfort and solace knowing that there's dorks like me out there that prefer the outwards writing approach over the inwards one for displaying whats great about a game. Smiley face.
Erato_Heti
1 year ago