wasn't originally gonna review this but seeing some reviews... felt i should say my piece, cause this game is definitely not for everyone but that doesn't mean its writing is automatically bad. just that its intention is very difficult to read if you're not used to/if you personally dislike the style.

also, importantly, i feel like people tend to forget the fact that this game was made on a time constraint for a deadline. it is as condensed as it is for a reason. this is a distilled expression of a marginalized experience - it rings truer to those that share it, but is understandably more difficult to understand/relate to if you don't.

this is a game about people that cannot say what they mean because they are not and have never been in an environment where they have the freedom to do so. the characters and the prose surrounding them will say things that circle around what they really want to say - but again, cannot, because they are aware they can't do so without severe, lasting consequence. considering they're kids being stifled to this extent, it makes sense they don't have remotely clear or 'correct' vocabulary to talk about anything emotional, much less orientation/gender-related. every word in this game is meant to convey the desperate yet restrained need underlying the interactions between 3 kids stuck in a world where immaterial concepts of hegemony & social ostracization have been condensed into corporeal Things (God & the Devil) that're now part of the actual physical universe (e.g. voices, physical wavelengths on the radio).

and yes, there are some parts like the drinking scene that are relatively 'normal', but their presence in the pacing of the game reinforce the dynamic between the shaky status the 3 hold as 'barely-normal' kids, and the factors preventing them from being recognized as fully 'normal' by their peers. (because the whole thing is that they're absolutely tagged as freaks by their environment and are all bound for ostracism until 2 of them prove they can be 'normal' by casting out one of their own that's deemed more freakish. or yknow, they choose not to do that, and embrace freakhood together)

yes it's a highly specific (and pretty unpleasant) kind of lgbt experience that's being phased out of current popular depictions of the topic but it is one that still exists and has existed for a long time, across many demographics. i am personally not religious but still felt cathartic playing through this game because i shared that core experience of never being able to express what i want to an understanding & accepting audience, because of any number of reasons - religion for the authors, culture for me.

if i had to describe it, this is a game that depicts the struggles of being lgbt by focusing on the fucked up & 'irrational' emotional states of the subjects rather than the specific events that might've made them this way. (most mainstream media focuses on the latter.)

anyway. fine game. people recommend it for a reason. don't knock it unless you know it!! (i hate purple prose/'tumblr writing' too but this is absolutely not it considering the prose has purpose. like you can still personally dislike it. it's just incorrect on multiple levels to call it purple prose)

i can't defend the mixing however bc the game definitely gets loud as hell. love the ost tho