trans girl guro game is on its face a very attractive premise to me (ignoring the "puzzle platformer" part) so it's sad this is mostly just mediocre. the most important thing to understand is that this is basically ineffectual as both trans art and gore art. the game isn't interested in interrogating body horror, gore, dismemberment etc in relation to transfemininity, instead letting all the violence amount to a fairly asinine metaphor for 'the pain of living' and so on, in turn reducing the possible interest of the gore to its power purely as an image, of which there are many more interesting examples across various mediums. there isn't a trace of the erotic-dysphoric mutilation of films like splatter naked blood or in my skin which are as works by and about cis people much more "meaningfully trans" than the missing. the game isn't problematic, it's ultimately toothless -- not willing to meet violence, desire and self-image at their intersection where it ought to. it's objectifying not for any of its violence but for its lack of interest in transfemininity as subjectivity rather than an identity category. i'm not going to accept the idea that art about trans women is too heavily defined by suicide and misery, at least until my life isn't either (i'm the center of the universe after all), but that's the thing: this is barely a text about trans suicide, and it's not a text about dysphoria at all. all it has is a puerile message of self-acceptance (the 'your demons are of your own making!' thing just doesn't work in this context). as i understand it swery's work has a a very spotted history with these subjects but after this (and given i can't stand twin peaks pastiche) i'm not in a hurry to find out for myself.