We open to a black-screen prologue that seems surprisingly distinct in what it shows and what it conceals: A wants to do something that would cause others to look for A, and B thinks this is a bad idea, but is not insistent on it, and so helps A out of "love."
We then transition to our two protagonists, Michaela and Leah bantering. The banter here worked for me: the dialogue has a languid naturalness, the setup for the banter is natural (justifying bad movie night), the characters are allowed to react to each other (Leah stepping outside the banter to offer serious advice and Michaela catching Leah on hypocrisy), and the jokes have just enough of an edge to them to show that the two are friends. For an astute player, Leah's personality will start to come in focus here: Leah is sharp-witted, sarcastic, and a linear thinker, whose weapons of choice when talking with Michaela are scrutiny and clear speech. At this stage, Michaela's personality remains cloudy, apart from the vague sense that she enjoys playing the fool.
We return to the bad movie night conversation, which ends shortly and turns to the curious fact that Leah buys Michaela's groceries. Michaela appears to feel guilty about the arrangement, asks Leah if she can go, and Leah says no, it wouldn't be that interesting. Leah seems a bit too forceful here, but it's easy enough to let the matter go, as Leah probably shouldn't feel guilty, and grocery shopping really isn't interesting, anyways. Up to this point, my experience has gone almost exactly as it should for this story to work.
It's at this point that my experience deviates from the ideal. Michaela jokes about how she wants to take over the world, but it falls flat for me. The wit, reactions, sense of friendship and naturalness that makes the previous jokes work for me are gone. It feels like Michaela is looking for chances to be off-beat, which I just don't find funny. She's trying too hard. Still, it's only one joke.
Those who have spent time with GD will recognize something about that line. "I'm planning world domination!" is a favorite joke of his. What a coincidence that it should appear here. Or not. These "GD-isms" recur throughout the case.
Michaela next asks Leah for advice on a story she's writing. The resulting dialogue sounds awkward from the characters. First, synopsis: Michaela has the strange idea that the only reason for writing a sad end is unwarranted cynicism. Leah tries to rebut this by saying that sometimes a happy ending is out of place, and what the writer wants for an ending is "good enough," but Michaela disapproves of the idea for some reason she never states.
Michaela and Leah just sound weak when giving these lines. When Michaela talks, it doesn't feel like she's making a statement, but just saying that she likes positivity. If you stop to think about Michaela's statement, you quickly find it wrong. She says the only reason people write sad endings is because of unwarranted cynicism, but I can think of three counterexamples off the top of my head. When Leah tries to argue against it, she is cagey enough to say "I don't think you have the right mindset" and "Just something to think about" while emphasizing what she isn't saying, rather than simply pointing out Michaela's silliness. It feels like we're just supposed to "appreciate" that Michaela likes positivity but Leah has some good points. This feels strange coming out of the mouth of Michaela, who shows no other tendencies to such a smokescreen of positivity, and Leah, whose timidity here is jarring against her personality during the banter.
(I’ll add that since this kind of dialogue didn’t occur anywhere else in the story, it may well be that their reactions here actually are typical, but I couldn’t pick up on it. I was a bit confused by this scene’s inclusion. Was it trying to be just banter, or contain some random semi-serious conversations too? I also wish that it either showed more character and rapport form our two protagonists, or this kind of dialogue was more common in the case.)
The game transitions into another GD-ism, butler banter. For me, the joke is too contrived to be funny, and that sets the tone for how I respond to the rest of these "Michaela is just spouting random nonsense and Leah is playing the straight man to it" jokes. About 50 frames later, "hype" for bad movie night got a smile out of me, but that's about it.
We take a small breather, as Leah leaves, and Michaela tries to work on her story before going to bed and mentions her "memory troubles". The story scene works decently as a transition, and the memory troubles succeed in raising tension without drawing too much attention from elsewhere, but I am not interested in Michaela's writing project. It's at this point that I notice that my sense of these two characters has stagnated since the bad movie night banter ended. My sense of Leah has sharpened some but hasn't grown, and I’m more certain that Michaela isn’t as silly as she seems, but that’s all. This is to be expected: the story section didn't do anything for characterization, and that just leaves the banter, which is not characterization. Fair enough.
We now return to the opening prologue, where we now learn that B is Leah. We don't linger there, but immediately turn to banter with Leah. The initial banter falls flat for me for the usual reasons, but Leah's threat to throw cold water on Michaela when she was literally asking for it works! Leah's reaction to it is entertaining, it arises naturally from the preceding dialogue, and seeing somebody caught in their words like that is usually funny.
Next, Leah asks Michaela if she can use her phone to call her own parents. Leah is forceful with her no, and this causes a new problem: it is now so clear that something is wrong with the entire situation and Leah's actions in particular that I start suspecting some "trick" from Leah. I am now on-guard during her dialogue, rather than in a relaxed enough state to enjoy the "random conversations that don't really go anywhere." Comedy that I haven't liked so far becomes even harder to enjoy after this part. If this was at the beginning, the "common sense that you've kept hidden from me for so long" joke might have worked. Placed where it is, it doesn't for me.
Then Michaela presents a partial transcript of the previous day's conversation with Leah as the product of her writing. I took this to be a sign of memory loss, which made me color the remaining scenes in a much darker light. Now that I know that was completely incorrect, this is just another segue into jokes that don’t get much of a laugh of me. There might be something half-serious when Michaela and Leah are discussing Michaela's writing, but because Michaela seems to be going with the "memoir about her" idea, I'm not sure how much of this I can take seriously. The only joke in the resulting lineup of "Doing something completely random for no apparent reason" that comes close to working is when Leah offers/threatens to eat Michaela's hair, trapping her in own words again.
After another decent but not particularly strong transition through Michaela's failed attempts at writing, we enter another dream sequence and so transition into the second half of the story.
Before continuing, I need to discuss the effectiveness of the story's characterization strategy. The primary characterization purpose of the banter-laden first half is to endear the characters to the player, both for the point of the story to work and to give the second half emotional weight. The main way that GD chooses to accomplish this is the comedy. If the comedy fails, like it did for me, that endearment likely won't happen. And even if the comedy works, Leah's behavior by now is suspicious enough that a reader may well suspect Leah of something and so be less than enthusiastic about this friendship. And even if a player likes the comedy or isn't suspicious of Leah, given the lack of other characterization, I can very easily see readers just not emotionally attaching to characters over banter. This trio of disliking the comedy, suspicion about Leah, and little predisposition to emotionally attach with characters over jokes hit me hard. The story gambles everything it has on the assumption that by this point, the reader cares not only about the individual friends but also that they remain friends, and for me, this gamble was a terrible one.
We now see the unredacted conversation from the beginning. Surprisingly, adding A's lines back in doesn't change the meaning much, and unsurprisingly, A is Michaela. Well, when we only have two characters, that's to be expected. Because the only twist in this section was rather easy to predict, the scene didn't have much direct impact on me. The indirect impact is also stunted. Michaela's questioning herself comes across as leading to something interesting, but not interesting itself. The questions that she's asking herself now, the rest of us have seen for a bit now.
In the next scene, Leah comes in, and Michaela tries to get an answer out of her. For a character-driven scene, this scene is surprisingly uncommunicative about the characters. Michaela wants to know what happened and Leah doesn't want her to know due to some prior promise. Given the setup we already have, it's generic.
We hint at something interesting at "I know you're right. I know I'm in the wrong. I just don't want you to go through any more pain" but aren't given much elaboration. Leah inner monologues about how mysterious the line is, and then Michaela comes to her decision point. Let's go down the branches!
BRANCH 1: "I should drop it." - Tragic
Michaela drops the matter. After some uneventful "tensions dropping" dialogue, Michaela forgets her name and then goes back to sleep. Leah leaves, distraught at the deterioriation of Michaela's memory, resolved to "be there" for Michaela, and angry at herself over not telling Leah before her memory faded. While she feels her motivation for wanting to "be there" for Michaela now is selfish, her other motivations remain cloudy.
There is clearly something here, but this ending is hard to interpret without the benefit of the other branches. I invite the reader who decrypts my cipher later in the review to fill in the blanks; it's well worth doing!
BRANCH 2: "I need to know the truth."
Michaela asks Leah for the truth, and Leah relents, though still conflicted, feeling that this should have happened earlier, but that she is giving up too easily. Michaela points out her isolation and what Leah does as her caretaker, and Leah starts explaining that this was a self-imposed exile to escape from something-or-other, but then changes topic. Leah asks Michaela if she really has forgotten the reason, and Michaela admits that she has not.
This is the point where things go very wrong. For me, this happened:
I have no idea how to reconcile Michaela's inner monologue with this new revelation. Because of this, Michaela and Leah's motivations are inscrutable, and the following parts just seems horribly generic. No real harm was done, and now that they're honest with each other, everything is fine. I read the showcase and find that Leah was trying to tell herself there wasn't a problem to avoid a confrontation. As I read the trial script a few more times to write up the QA review, I realize that even that explanation isn't convincing. She never puts up a fight to these lies she tells herself, and given how spontaneously she comes up with them, she'd have to believe them. But if she still knows they're not right, how do I interpret her wanting to call her parents? She was telling herself she didn't remember the past but she did, so she tried to reconnect with the past because... she remembered and thought it was good? No, that's contradictory. She had forgotten? Just as contradictory.
What was supposed to happen is a major spoiler that I only figured out after a lot of talking to GD. Even if you've already played the case, it may still be a spoiler for you. Because I can't nest spoilers, I've encrypted it with a Vignere cipher using the key: PRISONERDILEMMA. Use an online Vignere decrypter to read it.
bzkzorpr kid fqqn apqfu gs yhzdixr sd jpw qnr bhma pkunv kw dsnl, rql tr tqr bzvv, bbx cbqyk fa ltrp ochpu nqwp fte uiqwbqwylx! ljfqr p wmo abrkka, xmotatci vspmuhl es bdeivvv hb lrym qsdsoikmf hui gdae, wa xepy vg zbrxhz see fo lfzjm glrw bsme iah r jsr vhvd. id xtus vfmk ca, rfw wypk potj uaquevoi cimxiov bzs fici-mimxq ih dicwak yhzdixr mxjmjoopv, ece wtq ih zv lcb hvhx hmft twv tas gs xhb zyf. uf hym srzmkv bz amztxeo gig, wyh plw fa asdql huek vpp haqs gvuwaoii wpp tmet, lyquv npjr upeze twrb kvr lrv bz epyii kw dmvrx ww wimt fdi bzs yejw npa yaniya, ovvgy uqdoe qnszvy hui wuqprpehxg. bzs brcb azpgfide azs pee wptrw af xj bg qbrmlvni tqrhvtx huek wpp aadls fclgvhv gqor'f qxxjb, tig mk lay'x saicx dwfl avot. treqri jmdt-ysrwptrs. yepeezwyi, dlkseqxa'h gtsb uej einorurtu kgacpvwmwc. xqaw, jmwwak kkwdi yqmdig lfbysomd, szxy vvbk abvv zwcvuqd pswmh glv hnqiofs dw bzs fici-qdsxmtxfv sbq klltec mnojk pwf esch qy mf, nui za steezg bsef m cdenjcaxrwqzr iula cmsr gs dlkseqxa iigabt xf "jw tx mxocv," ezwpl zv mieofln npsh flv zid xdkicx bg deimhve. aq takv i kwgyrwqzr itegv jghu sw wppq wzol kpag vw r eio mpqa, qlb sfr gfqdtroqd iyil oac rwbpqbf td xml chx fi qe auxl peowf glv rbsid fo iym hcvrk rn mvqmkxeo lvr jilmyhetie.
kpag npcred ye fo jelwffxrql pedxiti tabrw rql pzqzth zv s qbqgomeixk ntn tauux:
dlkseqxa pjsabt xf jw rvaoegp azcctzqo lrp fo rrtd vrv gdzprfe? dtjxwfnxv dbeiybth kw ysg slw wq xtq sxkcshvse zqelagt p twftesewiemaz. ltrp kolmej vz xa noiy wx huid? hyfexxy svahseekh iexqypij bg oiszg kzrrdockilwbr. dlkseqxa xevwf zsertzkgunv rjgig lfz asi paehe'b jszidemc lqd ppimfhf? lron zj uf wpj pwf gvplvr xa oocmqfqr lvuappr eht imszyc urmdr'f, taaw wx wg arv ppv bxaceqfu usn ww lww xepy eahuslw zlmeunv ymj ghwglktsze, bjk uggg sw wpp mzzeg dwfcysxxm, elq bagka ovrvv vpp xqxlh ymjgrpw wplx itai jpw'g qszqo tw fqrgzjds nru wplx tqr twngfgw kr tti fa htiawzs eih wypk yazzvy vrv drzp eimrt fn zcj qlfp elue aac pmfgw, zv zphmottu.
qf cglvu ezvpe, eptp gt glv wez xtunzj bzs brcb elc fa ktvx lvr jilmyhetie rtajr mj ww xewq htiawzs qzvmcenxe pel hseqzw azqq atwvz zoeq kr ppv rditel.
The story concept is brilliant, but none of the things that made it brilliant came out in the story. I pored over the script, and I can't find any lines that clue towards that interpretation, short of extrapolating really far from Leah admitting that she hadn't really forgotten.
Not only does the story suffer from not having its best aspect on display, but there are more garden variety problems from hiding the places where those elements would normally come on. Michaela and Leah's revelations are emotionally weightless given how they say they are feeling bad, but how quickly they reassure each other and bounce back. Michaela can say "punch me and I'd probably feel better," but Leah just says "I'm not angry," and the conversation keeps on moving as if Michaela hadn't said anything. Easier said than felt. There is little sense that any actual harm has been done or was at risk of being done. Even when Michaela and Leah apologize to each other about what happened, they are far more likely to use the language of "this was a bad idea" than "I have done some badness to you." When they slip into the latter is right when the problem of being too quick to reassure each other is most prominent. Instead, we get a generic and saccharine "D'aww, they really do care about each other!" This really doesn't work if you haven't been endeared to these characters already, as I wasn't.
The line about "the dorkiest smile" could have worked, but I was too busy trying to figure out what happened and where the emotional weight of the scene was for me to smile.
The ensuing scene is low tension, as the two are relieved that the friendship is intact, but the tension I recognized was so low prior to this that the relief doesn't transfer to the player. If the tension that was there was better conveyed, this could have been excellent.
Michaela agrees to resume normal life, and Leah promises to help, but in the first moment of genuine self-doubt for this entire scene, Leah considers breaking off the friendship, saying she doesn't deserve to be Leah's friend after what she did. While a good idea, the execution falls flat because the wrongness that Leah is guilty of hasn't been clear.
BRANCH 2A: - Bittersweet
In this path, Michaela agrees, but wants to still remember her. Leah elaborates that she's mainly angry at herself for what she's done. Her thoughts still in a jumble, Michaela regrets the ending but remains happy she and Leah were friends.
BRANCH 2B: - Happy
In this path, Michaela disagrees, saying that both of them are to blame, and as she doesn't want the friendship to end, talk about "deserving" is beside the point. Leah admires Michaela's speech and changes her mind. The two reaffirm their bad movie night plans. Optimistic for the future, the two leave the room.
Unfortunately, the characters haven't been supported well enough here for me to feel different between the two end routes. This ending could have been great if they were, but that support is absolutely crucial, and for me, it didn't happen.
The story ends there.
