Istanbul, Texas

Istanbul, Texas

released on Oct 08, 2015

Istanbul, Texas

released on Oct 08, 2015

Istanbul, Texas is a music centric tale of destruction, regret and repair. A man returns to his burnt down and emptied record store, drunk and alone. Drift through the record stacks left behind in Donny's Discount Dungeon, switching your soundtrack as you stumble through breathless thoughts of past and present.


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Its an interesting game to be sure, a lot of personality is conveyed through the music, interactions with the old record store and general emotional state of the owner's seeming descent into despair after moving countries to create a failing business.

Even though its not super mechanics focused, I like how the aimless wandering tearing down stacks of records followed by going back to them to put them all back together perfectly mirrors the journey of the protagonist in their back and forth between hopelessness and seemingly a sliver of either hope or wishful self delusion.

I'm not sure how much I love the style of text and exposition working essentially like silent cinema "intertitles", I can see it being deliberately jarring and interrupting the action on purpose to convey the sheer erratic nature of the meltdown, but idk it still felt a bit... inelegant?

All that aside, "Welcome to America, the land of probability" line goes hard so it gets my approval for whatever its worth.