I've been gradually learning about myself value neutral things that I like and dislike

for me, there is very much such a thing as too much in games—mechanics, exploration capacity, details, etc. I often want focus and clarity—definitely in narrative, often in mechanics—and games that don't have just don't work as for me

can definitely see why people love a game like this, but I am not them

messy coming-of-age point-and-click adventure with the family aesthetics/energy of roseanne set on a fictionalized fire island (mostly) in the off-season? why yes I did greatly enjoy this game

I love specificity in stories, and every little detail in this one—the characters and their complex personalities, the content and delivery of dialogue, the fatally accurate period elements (AIM I miss you), all the way down to the subtlest pixel changes on a character's face or in the seasonality of the cursor—just sang, and made for such a rich, enjoyable experience

my only real complaint is that the, uh, period-appropriate jank common in the point-and-click world was a bit of challenge sometimes, especially!! when you discover there can be multiple endings and especially when you realize how wildly unintuitive some of those pathways were to find lol

but, life is unintuitive and this is true to mara's story, so I can't be too annoyed thematically, at least, lol

all-in-all though, great time. and if you don't want to do another playthrough to see the best ending, def look it up on youtube, because it's lovely

look, the lead characters remain ever as charming and the novelty of seeing phoenix and maya interact with the professor and luke is genuinely very enjoyable, but the actual plot is breathtakingly stupid and is as elegantly delivered as a boeing 737 through a duplex

still, despite the experience, I remain grateful for the opportunity to play as phoenix and maya working alongside each other for what appears to be the last time (boo, hiss)

edit: bumping this up a half star because I just finished playing the epilogue episodes and damn it the sweetness and sentimentality made me tear up

the attention to detail in this game—be it in the replication of the early internet or in its cutting satire of social media and silicon valley—is otherworldly. it reawakened so many past internet lives of mine that I thought I'd buried deeper in the grave

really, deeply impressive. loved so many of the characters, especially the minor ones. can't believe _ _ _ _ _ of all people made me tear up.

I have a few minor quibbles on the plot, but it's a masterwork otherwise

weirdly the second game in a row I've played where the plot hinges significantly on a corporation's lack of safety protocols leading to a mine collapse and death of its resident miners

a really fascinating collection of highs and lows. every aspect of the art design is superb. the writing is a positive skew mixed bag—the dialogue is fun until it's a bit grating, and the plot is unexpectedly good until the ending, lmao. I do absolutely hate the metafictional author-as-narrator framing, though. the cute upsides to it do not remotely make up for how annoying I find the author character, and how much I'd prefer Jenny, the title lead, to be canonically "real" and not framed exclusively through the male narrator's perspective.

I don't feel it's fair to ding the game for its relatively straightforward game mechanics, because that's what this type of game this is, and it often reminds me of an extremely souped up Humungous Entertainment game in that regard, which I very much enjoyed as a kid. very much scratched that Spy Fox itch

overall: very glad I played, very impressed with how it improves throughout the middle, and am very mad at the ending