If Found...

a beautiful game- fascinating intersecting storylines and deeply emotional messaging that felt so raw and personal that i find it hard to believe this is a work of fiction at times. i think it's best played without any pretense so if you somehow are reading reviews for it and have [i]any[/i] interest at all, i really think you should stop right where you are and just play it. also, maggy is my personal favorite character. i love her :) a whole lot of yap and story spoilers below the break. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [spoiler]few things really stomp on my heart the way this game did. everything about the characterization, how people grow apart and change, really speaks to me and my experiences in a way i wasn't expecting. i can't really relate to all of it, but something about queer identity stories like this really dig into humanity and acceptance in a way that i don't think many other genres can. as a recently out trans girl myself, a lot of the harder parts of the story hit that much harder for me. thankfully i've been lucky for the most part with people accepting me, but kasio's struggles with being understood and accepted are still all too relatable and i think they would touch people's hearts even if you can't relate to the trans experience. i think all human beings can empathize with that desire to be accepted by the people who care for us. kasio's experience of her identity and the way she views everyone around her just felt so genuine and heartfelt. the diary entries in the epilogue about her friends and family are all so interesting in how they present the change in their lives from such a short snapshot. i love writing where one character will present their personal point-of-view description of another character, it's a fun way to characterize the both of them. although i think the story and writing are the standout traits of this game, the mechanics of erasing (and later drawing) are such a cool vehicle for the storytelling and i found myself so reluctant to pull that eraser across the page at times, especially when i felt like the words kasio scribbled out were painful to look at. crossed out faces and words in a personal diary is a trope that always pulls on my heartstrings.[/spoiler] i love this game. i hope it reaches more people because it's so beautifully deep and personal, and i think now more than ever the message and the people in this story can speak to us in ways that we really need to hear.