Jane

Baf's Guide

A serious, story-heavy look at the problem of domestic abuse. Similar to Photopia in its basic design, this doesn't have much by way of puzzles, but presents a narrative from the viewpoint of several different player characters. Reactions have been somewhat mixed, but this is a moderately effective piece despite the generic characterizations of the major players. Not particularly light-hearted or fun.

-- Emily Short

>VERBOSE -- Paul O'Brian's Interactive Fiction Page

Jane takes on the topic of wife-beating, portraying it from the perspective of the victim, the abuser, and a few others besides. The experience of playing through a story in IF form, as opposed to reading it on the page, really intensifies my identification with the characters, and there were moments during my time with Jane that I started feeling physically ill, and dirty, involved in something I did not wish to be a part of. I don't mean to sound disapproving -- those moments were quite powerful and dramatic, and the game did give a clear warning about its subject matter before it began. Indeed, the times when I was feeling the most upset were when I was admiring Jane the most; its writing and its implementation occasionally managed to affect me quite strongly.
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A decent enough idea, but the execution just didn't work for me, November 25, 2007
Jane is a puzzleless, story-driven piece with multiple narrators. It takes maybe about 10 minutes to play.

The subject matter of this game is domestic violence (not a spoiler — the author tells you this up-front); this makes it slightly tricky to criticise, since it feels a bit like criticising a charity for the wording of its mailshots. The author's heart is clearly in the right place, and the text certainly isn't badly written, but I never really felt drawn in to the story. It also didn't tell me anything I didn't already know.

I'd have liked to have seen a bit more individuality in the characters; they just felt like stereotypes to me. I think the message would have been more powerful if there had been something to the characters beyond their specific roles in this specific narrative.