Take

Emily Short's Interactive Storytelling
Games on hard topics

Nothing is private. Everything occurs in public, to be commented on and reviewed later. You simultaneously have a reputation and no friends; devastating loneliness and an audience of thousands. Your “combat” scene is being reported to your opponent’s friends, so you can be mocked and criticized. There is no affection between the participants, no trust or good humor. (I don’t call them “partners” because they definitely are not.) The rules of engagement are rigged in a gendered way. By having sex at all, the woman is construed to have lost; she is the one who has to deal with any physical repercussions and any social stigma.

I wish that the design were such that more people saw what TAKE is doing. It can be rather obscure. But with that understood, I have huge respect for a piece that can combine that much rawly-felt emotion with such exact observations, together with mechanics that also tell part of the story. It’s brave and devastating, with some of the best prose in this year’s competition.