![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
COMPLETE: A Game For You, Josh
This was on an itch.io bundle of "So you're stuck inside self-isolating, here are like a million games you could play" giveaways. I picked up more games that day alone than I will probably ever play, but of all of them, this weird-ass thing I was curious about and so it was the (first? only? so far?) one I actually installed and played.
A Game For You, Josh is a 15-30 minute romp. You are Josh, and it is is your birthday. Your best friend could not be here in person, so he made this game where you take a tour of your own house while conversing with your friend's stand-in.
On the surface, it's made to look like a low-budget yet sincere happy "Happy Birthday Josh! I made you a game and I hope you like it :)" effort, the kind I used to make for people in ZZT when I was a teen. Meanwhile, I went in expecting Eversion or Pony Island or some kind of indie horror along those lines. The guide is clearly meant to look unsettling, after all, and it's clear as you talk to him that he is desperate to please you and give you a good gift and a good Birthday because he is a good friend and you're having fun, right? Please?? He even has various states of physical breakdown. The sprite where he appears to be made up of image-searched patches of close up photos of human skin is just the outer layer, naturally, and he loses and regains, uh, layers I guess, in time with his composure. I expected some kind of Baldi's Basics style "Uh oh, now you've made him upset" surprise switch to be thrown at any moment.
But it's not really that, either. It's not vapid surface-level saccharinity but neither is it a haunted gaming creepypasta. It's... self-aware, and vaguely sad. You're not Josh. He knows that. He knows he's a program, too. He does his best, but he can never be what he's emulating, and the world out there scares him. He's sorry.
I got the ending where I comforted and bonded with him, watched as he picked a name for himself, and thanked me for our time together. I assured him that I was his friend and he could be more than just code, because... *aside glances toward Sara and Ardei* ... well, this is a topic that hits close to home for us, I guess.
It looks like the 100% off sale is over and I don't know if I can recommend paying $5 for this, but I do hope you find a way to check it out at some point. Maybe find a longplay or something, or wait for another sale. Or heck, maybe just buy it full price, if you're as intrigued as I was. It's good. It's worth experiencing, especially if I know you well enough that we talk on IMs and such. There are a lot of weighty quotes from there we need to talk about with people next time we see them.
A Game For You, Josh is a 15-30 minute romp. You are Josh, and it is is your birthday. Your best friend could not be here in person, so he made this game where you take a tour of your own house while conversing with your friend's stand-in.
On the surface, it's made to look like a low-budget yet sincere happy "Happy Birthday Josh! I made you a game and I hope you like it :)" effort, the kind I used to make for people in ZZT when I was a teen. Meanwhile, I went in expecting Eversion or Pony Island or some kind of indie horror along those lines. The guide is clearly meant to look unsettling, after all, and it's clear as you talk to him that he is desperate to please you and give you a good gift and a good Birthday because he is a good friend and you're having fun, right? Please?? He even has various states of physical breakdown. The sprite where he appears to be made up of image-searched patches of close up photos of human skin is just the outer layer, naturally, and he loses and regains, uh, layers I guess, in time with his composure. I expected some kind of Baldi's Basics style "Uh oh, now you've made him upset" surprise switch to be thrown at any moment.
But it's not really that, either. It's not vapid surface-level saccharinity but neither is it a haunted gaming creepypasta. It's... self-aware, and vaguely sad. You're not Josh. He knows that. He knows he's a program, too. He does his best, but he can never be what he's emulating, and the world out there scares him. He's sorry.
I got the ending where I comforted and bonded with him, watched as he picked a name for himself, and thanked me for our time together. I assured him that I was his friend and he could be more than just code, because... *aside glances toward Sara and Ardei* ... well, this is a topic that hits close to home for us, I guess.
It looks like the 100% off sale is over and I don't know if I can recommend paying $5 for this, but I do hope you find a way to check it out at some point. Maybe find a longplay or something, or wait for another sale. Or heck, maybe just buy it full price, if you're as intrigued as I was. It's good. It's worth experiencing, especially if I know you well enough that we talk on IMs and such. There are a lot of weighty quotes from there we need to talk about with people next time we see them.