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COMPLETE: The Milgram Parable
Oops, IFComp is on again and I accidentally fell in.
One month, at least five IF games judged and scored for their contest. Can be more--I ended up doing six last year, because even though I'd had my five all done and turned in, I just couldn't not play Animalia. My strategy last year was a semi-random yet still interest-based selection method where I'd randomly shuffle the list, then scroll down and browse the randomly shuffled list until I saw the first one that looked like something I actually wanted to play. (There are 80+ games here and they only want you to judge 5 or more; life is too short to make yourself stick to something you hate just because the RNG picked it first.) It was a good experience, and I've been looking forward to doing it again, so this year I think we'll employ the same strategy.
Anyway, I swear I was just loading the ballot page and testing the random button to see if it still worked, with intention to actually dig into these later, but then I saw one and was like "... these are randomized. If I don't play this one right now, how am I going to find it again next time?" So, with a heavy sigh, I had no choice but to concede that I'd blundered my way into I guess we're starting IFComp now. Damn it.
Speaking of having no choice, first up is The Milgram Parable by Peter Eastman. Named after the infamous Milgram experiment, this is a game about doing exactly what you are told without question or hesitation, with a content warning that states: "Includes violence, both physical and emotional. This story challenges you to confront difficult facts about yourself." So, you know, we're off to an incredibly cheery and uplifting start.
Look, I've played Star Billions. I know that feeling of being so utterly torn by a VN choice that you have to get up and go for a walk. (Or, in Star Billions' case, the feeling of making a snap decision based on the first thought that popped into your head, and then having to get up and go for a walk to come to terms with what it says about you that that was the first thought that popped into your head.) This game really wants to be that. It has a content warning that implies it's that. It tries so hard to be that. But it's... just... not. I'm sorry.
You are a soldier of some sort, whisked off on an unknown mission to an unknown location with an unknown objective because your commander is a bald-faced tyrant and doesn't recall saying you were allowed to ask questions. War crimes aplenty happen, then your squad gets caught, and you can either surrender and be executed or die fighting, clinging to your last orders even with no idea who your enemies are or who you are what's going on or why in any way whatsoever.
The Milgram experiment was chilling because it used a layer of obfuscation and frog-in-boiling-water effect to make a plausible buildup to making its subjects go too far. This, meanwhile, is a game that throws very blatant and obvious "your commander orders you to shoot an unarmed civilian who's running away. Do you?" prompts and then railroads you. Not via any sort of natural and effective sense of wanting to follow instructions because your personality is like that, but via an artificial restriction on the actual game design. At one point, your commander trains a gun on you and says you have ten seconds to shoot a young child before your commander shoots you. You get literally one choice prompt: to do it. There's no "No" option, nor does anything happen if you wait more than ten seconds to click "Yes" (which might have been somewhat clever.) You are straight up But Thou Musted into committing an atrocity unless you... I don't know. Physically close the window and stop playing this game, I guess?
I'm sorry, but if the game wants to pin this child's death on me as a difficult fact about myself that I need to face, then I flatly reject the accusation. I tried waiting. I tried looking through the code in the page source to see if there were hidden buttons or something. The Milgram experiment was about choosing to do something unethical because of orders; it was not about watching a non-interactive cutscene about doing something unethical with a cheesy "Kind of makes you think, doesn't it??" at the end.
In conclusion, the uncomfortable truth about myself that I have uncovered is that I guess I'm the kind of person who will click through to see the ending of a CYOA game because I'm judging it for IFComp. Somehow, I don't think this is the lesson the author wanted me to walk away with, but it's what we have.
I will say that the writing is nice. The descriptions are well written. The author certainly had an intriguing idea here and I cannot fault his ambition. There's a bait-and-switch game-within-a-game opening that works incredibly well, and that really did get me thinking about heavy questions at times. The reveal when it pulled back to the actual game was very well done. It just... fell apart from there. Ultimately, The Milgram Parable ends up being a heavy-handed attempt to borrow the emotional and psychological weight of an allusion that it hasn't earned.
One month, at least five IF games judged and scored for their contest. Can be more--I ended up doing six last year, because even though I'd had my five all done and turned in, I just couldn't not play Animalia. My strategy last year was a semi-random yet still interest-based selection method where I'd randomly shuffle the list, then scroll down and browse the randomly shuffled list until I saw the first one that looked like something I actually wanted to play. (There are 80+ games here and they only want you to judge 5 or more; life is too short to make yourself stick to something you hate just because the RNG picked it first.) It was a good experience, and I've been looking forward to doing it again, so this year I think we'll employ the same strategy.
Anyway, I swear I was just loading the ballot page and testing the random button to see if it still worked, with intention to actually dig into these later, but then I saw one and was like "... these are randomized. If I don't play this one right now, how am I going to find it again next time?" So, with a heavy sigh, I had no choice but to concede that I'd blundered my way into I guess we're starting IFComp now. Damn it.
Speaking of having no choice, first up is The Milgram Parable by Peter Eastman. Named after the infamous Milgram experiment, this is a game about doing exactly what you are told without question or hesitation, with a content warning that states: "Includes violence, both physical and emotional. This story challenges you to confront difficult facts about yourself." So, you know, we're off to an incredibly cheery and uplifting start.
Look, I've played Star Billions. I know that feeling of being so utterly torn by a VN choice that you have to get up and go for a walk. (Or, in Star Billions' case, the feeling of making a snap decision based on the first thought that popped into your head, and then having to get up and go for a walk to come to terms with what it says about you that that was the first thought that popped into your head.) This game really wants to be that. It has a content warning that implies it's that. It tries so hard to be that. But it's... just... not. I'm sorry.
You are a soldier of some sort, whisked off on an unknown mission to an unknown location with an unknown objective because your commander is a bald-faced tyrant and doesn't recall saying you were allowed to ask questions. War crimes aplenty happen, then your squad gets caught, and you can either surrender and be executed or die fighting, clinging to your last orders even with no idea who your enemies are or who you are what's going on or why in any way whatsoever.
The Milgram experiment was chilling because it used a layer of obfuscation and frog-in-boiling-water effect to make a plausible buildup to making its subjects go too far. This, meanwhile, is a game that throws very blatant and obvious "your commander orders you to shoot an unarmed civilian who's running away. Do you?" prompts and then railroads you. Not via any sort of natural and effective sense of wanting to follow instructions because your personality is like that, but via an artificial restriction on the actual game design. At one point, your commander trains a gun on you and says you have ten seconds to shoot a young child before your commander shoots you. You get literally one choice prompt: to do it. There's no "No" option, nor does anything happen if you wait more than ten seconds to click "Yes" (which might have been somewhat clever.) You are straight up But Thou Musted into committing an atrocity unless you... I don't know. Physically close the window and stop playing this game, I guess?
I'm sorry, but if the game wants to pin this child's death on me as a difficult fact about myself that I need to face, then I flatly reject the accusation. I tried waiting. I tried looking through the code in the page source to see if there were hidden buttons or something. The Milgram experiment was about choosing to do something unethical because of orders; it was not about watching a non-interactive cutscene about doing something unethical with a cheesy "Kind of makes you think, doesn't it??" at the end.
In conclusion, the uncomfortable truth about myself that I have uncovered is that I guess I'm the kind of person who will click through to see the ending of a CYOA game because I'm judging it for IFComp. Somehow, I don't think this is the lesson the author wanted me to walk away with, but it's what we have.
I will say that the writing is nice. The descriptions are well written. The author certainly had an intriguing idea here and I cannot fault his ambition. There's a bait-and-switch game-within-a-game opening that works incredibly well, and that really did get me thinking about heavy questions at times. The reveal when it pulled back to the actual game was very well done. It just... fell apart from there. Ultimately, The Milgram Parable ends up being a heavy-handed attempt to borrow the emotional and psychological weight of an allusion that it hasn't earned.