I'm always on the lookout for games that tackle themes of living with real-world religions. The Shivah caught my eye a few years ago for this very reason - I'm Christian, but I can just as easily appreciate a story about an Orthodox Rabbi trying to make sense of himself and his faith in modern day. I actually read through a Let's Play of the game years ago, so this playthrough was mostly a formality (though I was happy to play through it during Passover - maybe not a holiday I normally celebrate, but it felt appropriate).

I think there are two types of stories trying to emerge out of The Shivah. The primary story is a gritty noir murder mystery, looking at Judaism through a shattered lens and trying to find a way of being true to the old teachings in a shifting world. This is a theme that resonates with me considerably, even though I obviously live a very different experience from Rabbi Stone. It's an excellent story, and I like watching Rabbi Stone try to make amends with the Indian woman he refused to marry into his congregation as he investigates her husband's murder.

There is also comic relief throughout. For the most part, this is all hidden away as easter eggs (wait, is that really the right analogy to use...?), in stuff like the computer program with all the Rabbi jokes. I also quite like this, as I do the ability to answer questions with Rabbinical Responses (a term that has stuck with me since first reading the LP as a concise way of saying "answering a question with a question"). To an outsider learning of these things, this feels like an illustrative mechanical expression of Judaism. The particular highlight is the final confrontation, which tributes Monkey Island's "Insult-Swordfighting" with the perhaps equally silly "Rabbinical Fisticuffs". A great capstone to the experience.

...this is all to say, I like all the constituent parts of this story quite a bit. However, whereas they ultimately work together, the contrast is obvious. It's a bit like a satisfactory welding job involving two obviously different metals. You can see or feel for yourself that there are two different bases, but a single fused object of respectable integrity has been produced. Does it matter if the texture of the metal shifts? If it works it works; I suppose it's up to the player to comment upon it. For me, it's good enough that I like it all, but it is a bit distracting.

One thing I didn't pick up on in the LP is the voice acting. This might be a consequence of reading the LP years before playing the game, but Rabbi Zelig definitely had a different voice in my head than he did in-game. I liked everyone else well enough, though.

The Shivah is a quite strong little game. I don't know that it answers all the questions it advances - I don't know that it can do so, really - but it's a title that very much got me thinking, and still gets me thinking. Very much worth the playthrough.

The most detectively detective game I've ever detected. No hand-holding, no markers, no prompts that you're on the right track – you don't know you've solved the puzzle until you've actually solved the puzzle. Shivah benefits from its unique perspective – you play as a New York rabbi overseeing a floundering synagogue. You have the option of giving a “Rabbinical Response” to most characters (which amusingly amounts to a rhetorical counter-question). But the game almost undoes itself with a ridiculous climax ala Assassin's Creed II – a bout of clerical fisticuffs.