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Form, Meet Function, November 26, 2022Adapted from an IFCOMP22 Review
Of course I’m not the first to observe that interactivity doesn’t have to mean story branching. Interactivity in linear stories can accomplish at least two things: 1) it can invest the player in the protagonist more deeply than raw text and 2) it can carefully manage the pacing of the text to enhance emotional effect. I am saying this to the population that least needs this explained.
Glimmer is very much a short, linear study of depression and to varying degrees attempts both of the above. Because the subject matter lends itself to spiraling introspection and lethargy, there was a particularly nice fit with form here. The player can dive into tangential mental rabbit holes. Scene changes are paced slowly, with small blocks of text where the act of interacting slows down the proceedings. The formula is subtly shifted as the narration proceeds, the interactive pace as much as the words conveying the protagonist's mindset. All of this displays a nicely deliberate marriage of form and function.
As far as protagonist investment, Glimmer didn’t quite get me there. Early game events were fairly dispassionate, showing the protagonist with flattened response to increasingly important events in their life. I understand the intention here, that the protagonist is increasingly withdrawn such that events do not register like they should. It seems that because we are introduced to this mental state before we have built empathy, there is an unnecessary hurdle to our investment. For me, I didn’t get over it until way later and was playing catchup to the narrative all the way to the end. Meaning when the protagonist had a subsequent shift I was also behind.
Stephen King (or was it Alan Moore?) famously said something to the effect of “Horror is seeing your neighbor dismembered through your bedroom window. Terror is when the killer notices you.” There’s gotta be an empathy/sympathy analog to that idea that seems relevant here. While I admire the precise pacing effect of the work, the killer did not see me, leaving me at a remove.
Played: 10/13/22
Playtime: 15 min, finished
Artistic/Technical rankings: Mechanical/Mostly Seamless
Would Play Again? No, experience seems complete
Artistic scale: Bouncy, Mechanical, Sparks of Joy, Engaging, Transcendent
Technical scale: Unplayable, Intrusive, Notable (Bugginess), Mostly Seamless, Seamless