![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
COMPLETE: Something for Someone Else
Jan. 18th, 2020 04:29 pmThis is tough to review, because it's really more a heartbroken game developer's personal art therapy project than, like, something mass audiences are supposed to enjoy.
Something for Someone Else was originally a private one-off game someone made for his boyfriend to communicate a rough patch they were going through at the time, with the hope that playing this would help fix things between them. It did not, and now the memories of failure and loss haunt the developer, who eventually put the game on Steam in a sort of Director's Cut version to help himself move on.
You are a poorly drawn stick figure. You walk around and jump over things and avoid obstacles on your way to the next checkpoint. It's very basic. It gets cheaply difficult (that is, you will die a zillion times due to what feels more like fiddly controls and hitboxes and unfairly placed obstacles than a fair test of player skill) but there is an option to no-sell damage and be invincible as long as you hold Shift, so you can either engage with the author's "intended experience" or not. Once you finally make it to the end, you then do it all again in a sort of director's commentary mode (and this is where I cheated my way through, because I'd done the whole climb legitimately and really didn't need to prove anything to anyone by doing it again) while the author explains the intention and feelings behind the various design decisions. Then there's an epilogue where the author ruminates about the game in hindsight and about you the player. Then the game finally ends after the author finally works up the courage to let you go.
Can I recommend this? I hesitate to say yes because the actual game is an awful slog. If I say yes, it sounds like I'm calling this a good game, which it emphatically isn't. It's cheap and frustrating, it has one song that's decent enough but you will grow to hate it by about the millionth time it loops, it plays like My First Fusion Platformer By Billy (Age 6). But it's... kind of supposed to? Everything from the cheap and frustrating difficulty to the obnoxious musical repetition to the bad graphics are all 100% intentional. The developer wanted to capture feelings of hope versus hopelessness, striving toward some sort of nebulous goal at the top even with a tidal wave of bitter frustrations in the way. He wanted to punish his then-partner for every grievance in their relationship by making him suffer through the un-fun parts of this, while still hoping that their problems could be worked out and a happy ending could come of all this. When it didn't, the author then turned it into a thought exercise about game development and a time capsule from his past self, something for his present self along with you and me to chew on and think about. Therefore, I hesitate to not recommend this because on that sense it succeeds. If I say no, it sounds like I'm calling the entire experience a failure, which it also emphatically isn't. It's pensive, it's raw and vulnerable and touching, it's a clear window into the author's soul.
In the end, I'm going to say no, but only because I'm thinking of... you know... typical audiences, who want a game they can play, which this isn't. If you expect quality, and especially if you don't care about this one particular game developer enough to play through his bad game twice just to hear him talk about his feelings, then there's nothing here for you.
However, if this looks interesting to you, then it probably is. If you're curious, then you should probably ignore my downvote and hear him out. This made me feel a slight connection, like I'm a good listener just for having gone through it. And that's... something.
Something for Someone Else was originally a private one-off game someone made for his boyfriend to communicate a rough patch they were going through at the time, with the hope that playing this would help fix things between them. It did not, and now the memories of failure and loss haunt the developer, who eventually put the game on Steam in a sort of Director's Cut version to help himself move on.
You are a poorly drawn stick figure. You walk around and jump over things and avoid obstacles on your way to the next checkpoint. It's very basic. It gets cheaply difficult (that is, you will die a zillion times due to what feels more like fiddly controls and hitboxes and unfairly placed obstacles than a fair test of player skill) but there is an option to no-sell damage and be invincible as long as you hold Shift, so you can either engage with the author's "intended experience" or not. Once you finally make it to the end, you then do it all again in a sort of director's commentary mode (and this is where I cheated my way through, because I'd done the whole climb legitimately and really didn't need to prove anything to anyone by doing it again) while the author explains the intention and feelings behind the various design decisions. Then there's an epilogue where the author ruminates about the game in hindsight and about you the player. Then the game finally ends after the author finally works up the courage to let you go.
Can I recommend this? I hesitate to say yes because the actual game is an awful slog. If I say yes, it sounds like I'm calling this a good game, which it emphatically isn't. It's cheap and frustrating, it has one song that's decent enough but you will grow to hate it by about the millionth time it loops, it plays like My First Fusion Platformer By Billy (Age 6). But it's... kind of supposed to? Everything from the cheap and frustrating difficulty to the obnoxious musical repetition to the bad graphics are all 100% intentional. The developer wanted to capture feelings of hope versus hopelessness, striving toward some sort of nebulous goal at the top even with a tidal wave of bitter frustrations in the way. He wanted to punish his then-partner for every grievance in their relationship by making him suffer through the un-fun parts of this, while still hoping that their problems could be worked out and a happy ending could come of all this. When it didn't, the author then turned it into a thought exercise about game development and a time capsule from his past self, something for his present self along with you and me to chew on and think about. Therefore, I hesitate to not recommend this because on that sense it succeeds. If I say no, it sounds like I'm calling the entire experience a failure, which it also emphatically isn't. It's pensive, it's raw and vulnerable and touching, it's a clear window into the author's soul.
In the end, I'm going to say no, but only because I'm thinking of... you know... typical audiences, who want a game they can play, which this isn't. If you expect quality, and especially if you don't care about this one particular game developer enough to play through his bad game twice just to hear him talk about his feelings, then there's nothing here for you.
However, if this looks interesting to you, then it probably is. If you're curious, then you should probably ignore my downvote and hear him out. This made me feel a slight connection, like I'm a good listener just for having gone through it. And that's... something.