Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Y U NO MENTION THAT [GAME X] IS OUT RPS?

COS WE HAV LIKE A MILLION TINGS 2 PLAY N POST ABOUT RAEDER K?

But: it is well worth observing Fortune Summoners – the latest release from Recettear and Chantelise Westernisers Carpe Fulgur – and Analogue: A Hate Story – the latest from Digital: A Love Story and Don’t Take It Personally dev Christine Love – both went on sale this week. Both are games that at least part of the Hivemind is very interested in, and we will be presenting some manner of opinion about them as soon as we can. We have not forgotten them. It’s just that we’ve been paid $3 million each by Eactisoft to only ever write about their releases and ignore all that indie stuff.

Around a year after the fascinating, sinister but divisive saga of schooling, sex, duplicity and privacy infringement that was Don’t Take It Personally Babe, It Just Ain’t Your Story, Christine Love is to release a fully-fledged sequel to her breakthrough game Digital: A Love Story. It’s called Analogue: A Hate Story but despite the inverted title aesthetically it has more in common with Don’t Take It Personally. It’s a semi-non-linear visual novel concerning mystery, transhumanism, traditional marriage, loneliness, and cosplay. Both building on and diverging from the Chan-fuelled ideas that informed her earlier work, then, plus, from its description, there’s a vague air of System Shock to it…
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The next game from Christine Love, creator of remarkable 2010 adventure game Digital: A Love Story, was released a few days ago. It’s another adventure of sorts, but more specifically it’s a visual novel with heightened interactivity. Here’s how it made me feel.

I know next to nothing about visual novels, I don’t know anything about anime, I’m only passingly familiar with 4Chan, I’ve never been a high school teacher, I haven’t had to wrestle with coming out and I’ve never been seduced by someone half my age. Clearly, I am completely unqualified to write about Don’t Take It Personally, Babe, It Just Ain’t Your Story. Fortunately, the universality of its theme and its observations means I feel completely qualified anyway. I know what it is to feel like someone’s kicked me straight in the heart. For all the otaku trappings, that’s what Christine Love’s latest is really about.
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I’m going to have a whole lot more to say about this later in the week, but it is only right to point your ocular organs its way while I finish playing it and arranging my thoughts. The wonderfully-titled ‘Don’t take it personally, babe, it just ain’t your story‘ is the next (free) game from Christine Love, who you may know from the best adventure game of 2010, Digital: A Love Story. I’ve only played an hour or so, but already it’s lodged expertly in my head and won’t get out.
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Attention-getting top line: right now, I can’t think of a better love story in the western medium.
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