Oh, also another small thing I was confused about. It seemed a bit rude of Kesh that he just assumed Queenie is a female and started using she/her pronouns. I expected there to be a point where he'd find out what gender this sansik actually is, and being like "oops sorry" or "oh, relieved I got it right!" It just felt a bit odd that the reader never actually finds out if Queenie is okay with being called a girl or not.
Bunni89
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A really interesting concept and engaging story, but it felt a bit rushed in places. I want to make it clear before I start with my criticisms that I did deeply enjoy the story! So a section covering my favourite parts:
I'm a non-binary person myself and I'm deeply invested in stories that use monsters and body horror to deliver a trans-positive message. Everything about the worldbuilding of the sansik was excellent, I especially liked small details like how the translator-types speak with their chest not their throat. This felt reminiscent of how crickets make their "singing" by rubbing their legs together, and other unusual bug communication. The unusual syntax of their speech was also fascinating, I found Queenie so adorable with that "larva is too unformed to walk yet?" moment! The descriptions of all of the body horror were also really well done, delivering angst when they needed to, and at other times being beautiful and symbolic of Kesh's growing freedom and sense of self. The scene with the grubs was also really effective at going from "aww maybe they're not all bad- OH GOD THEYRE KILLING THEIR OWN BABIES- oh wait those weren't real babies". It definitely helped to get into the hero's head as he didn't know whether to trust the bugs yet. Overall I just felt like I wanted a whole book about it, yknow? The sansik society! I wish the story gave more time to the growing familial bond between Kesh and Queenie, instead of her only being a part of the story at the very beginning and end.
That brings me on to: my critiques and suggestions.
It was hard to get engaged in the lead's attachment to Aster as his best friend when we'd never actually seen any of his normal life in the human colony with her. This also hurt the drama of his transformation into a wasp, the lack of setup of the status quo meant no frame of reference for it being shaken up. The actions of the human scientists also made very little sense, if they knew he was a wasp child all along and were keeping him as an experiment, why wasn't he guarded or secured in any way? Why was it so easy for the bullies to kidnap and abandon him in the wasteland? And why did the scientists show no interest whatsoever in recovering him and refuse all the sansik's offers to bargain? He's their important test subject, right? It also felt bizarre how easily they gave up and let the sansik take him. It was just "you can't take him, he's a Big Dangerous Girl Wasp!" "Actually he's trans" "aww shit, guess we can't do anything to stop you now. Let's go home guys". It made sense as a reason why the sansik would accept him, but not why the humans would let them do that.
A lot of the other parts of the book felt similar, like we were skipping ahead big chunks of time mid paragraph, or not fully going into each plot point. The biggest problem is that it's a great story but there isn't enough of it. If you would ever consider making a longer length sequel to this, I want to say I'd definitely be interested!
I also found the morality a little weird involving the wasps. It felt fundementally strange that this story about a kid finding out he was a wasp would involve his found family with an entirely separate species of sentient bugs, and the wasps are treated as always evil both by the humans and the sansik. Even he himself has no guilt whatsoever over killing a wasp?? I was baffled why he wouldn't attempt to communicate with it, or why the story was acting as if they aren't sentient. What makes him special so that he's the only one who retains his sentience after transforming? I feel it should have been explained. Or we should have actually had a plotline about the wasps not actually being evil, and perhaps him serving as a bridge to make peace between them and the sansik. Honestly I just kept going back to the scene about the grub-mimics and feeling increasingly sad for them as we learned our hero is basically the exact same thing. Do the sansik just continue killing every child that gets infected by the wasps? Is Kesh the only exception? Why? And why is he just fine with this?
Also, just personally from my trans perspective, it felt that the parts about that weren't explored very much. I left the book uncertain what exactly happened. Whether it meant that Kesh himself was always a trans man, whether he was biologically female but the scientists raised him as a man and didn't tell him for some reason, or if it meant his human form was male but when he turned into a wasp his body transitioned between the sexes? Regardless of what happened, it was still good to see a positive trans or trans metaphorical character, and how the reveal of his biological sex wasn't a negative, it was the thing that saved his life in the end!
I hope that my comment doesn't come off as too rude, I just really enjoyed the book but felt it had some missed potential. I felt confused why there weren't any comments at all on this page yet, when it's a really interesting story! So I wanted to give the best fleshed out review I could manage. Thank you for writing this, and thank you for contributing to the helping Palestine bundle!
Oh awesome thank you! I assumed there was no way to win the dialogue with Karen at the beginning cos it seemed like one of those obligatory game starting cutscenes that always goes the same way haha. That's a neat way to hide an ending!
And oh that's how you unlock dates! I was having trouble figuring out which places unlock which other places. I got the anime and the cat ones so now thanks to your help I have them all phew! Gonna try and play some more and hope I can get a better ending!
Its really impressive you made a game with his many endings during a game jam! But I'm finding it really impossible to get any of them. I can never seen to raise her affection enough to avoid the bad end and whenever I try and romance the other girl instead Kuku just murders me, even if I never did anything to hint to her I was interested so it makes no sense she's acting like I'm cheating when we're just friends. Would it be possible to post a guide or maybe hints on what the requirements are for each ending?
Also confused what to do to get the other two cat type endings cos whatever I do after she adopts the cat I always seem to just get cat cafe.
I really loved this, it was great how it metaphorically relates SO MUCH to the current experience so many people have with long distance relationships during lockdown.
But it's also great wish fullfillment for how I wish we could all really go on magical imaginary walks to the beach together, or share the taste of food through the phone!
And then it was SO relateable how Marjoram's magic backfiring if she overuses it is a metaphor for anxiety from pushing yourself too hard to like.. act normal, and pretend you aren't stressed, when really its okay to be vunerable and the people who love you will understand.
I especially liked that there's two different endings but neither of them is a bad end. It's just "you pushed yourself too hard and had a panic attack, but get comforted and learn its okay to take a break when you need it" or "you realize you're beyond your limits before the panic attack happens, and take a break when you need it, and your girlfriend is proud of you" They both end on the same uplifting note! Even if you fail, it isn't the end of the world, and she won't stop loving you!
So yeah this was a super awesome heartwarming little game and I love it loads, and I'm cheering on these adorable characters and their adorable love!!
The only small suggestion I have is that maybe somewhere in the game it can say how many endings there are, so you know when youve got them all? I know it says on the itchio description that there are two but whoops I didn't read that before playing so I was wondering if I missed an ending. (Since theres no bad endings lol , I thought I missed it!)
That was so AMAZING!
I loved all the creative speculative fiction aspect, like the worldbuilding of how Iris deals with mimicking a physical form she's not used to. That was really intriguing and helped so much to get inside her head!
And I loved that the 'moral' of the whole thing was that nobody is really 'perfect', and that even if you love somebody more than anything else it's not healthy to idolize them as if you're worthless and they never feel pain ever. It really hit me right in the heart when Iris opened up to Lily at the end, yknow? God that was SO GOOD!
Kind of random additional comment: am I just being silly to get a bit of transgender headcanons here? I don't know if I'm imposing my own experiences onto this, but to me it felt like Iris didn't have any big traditional magic reason to hate her 'true name', it just wasn't her 'true name' even though it was what she was born with. And maybe that was intentionally meant to be relateable to trans people, or maybe it was just a coicnidence, but it added even more reasons why this story hit me so hard in the emotions. it was just really well made! Thank you so much for this great little slice of an intriguing romance, and I'd love to see more adventures of this amazing couple in the future!