goated game. soyjacked at the "line of flight" drop. you guys just don't fw adorno hard enough. crashed before i could see the end

seriously though, i do find myself kinda frustrated at concepts of post-irony/metamodernism/new sincerity or whatever. people are tired of "postmodernity" (something i have my own critiques of, even as i hate jameson for popularising the term but w/e) and feel we can simply move beyond, take a new step forwards, without really understanding what "postmodernism" tried to do; "postmodernism" becomes a mood, a vibe, an era, not anything actualised outside of a vague gesticulation. this game, however, is not a very good look at that. I just wish actually understanding foucault + derrida was required before you read fisher, because I think a look at the deployment of hyper-confessional and overwhelmingly sincere art of the 202X's would be interesting - something not really found here except as a handwave to thoughts and books picked up from crit theory 101.

is this supposed to be funny?? this is serious shit yer talkin abt and you are TERRIFIED of being straightforward abt it. incongruously gripey about "new sincerity"; there is j as much truth in it as there is in this game's clumsy rick and morty ass postmodernism which blatantly advances the aesthetics and presentation of its object of critique. like no matter how many times u wink yer still playing into it except now UR ALSO communicating in teh everpresent deeply commodified internet modality of crude irony WITH A HEALTHY AMT OF blockquotes that assert ive read so many way cool social critics like um mark fisher theodor adorno the list goes on. needless to say bro is deeply undialectical. helps that there is near-zero aesthetic sensitivity so it goes on like blah blah blah blah blah how ab u make something

like yeah stardew valley is reactionary as hell! is this new information?

I've marked this as complete but I genuinely don't know if it was, it just abruptly ended in the lift down to the mines and I don't know if that was intended or a bug... either way I was happy to be done with it. It's incredible how after 10 minutes of playing it, TFH was already overstaying it's welcome.

Tender Frog House insults my intelligence. It's framed as a conversation between developers about to release a 'cozy' game, and discusses the relationship between games as art and games as a product in the capitlist hellscape. And on paper I'm on board with this. The heavy philosophy and politics against the hyper-saccharine presentation, characters and music is quite disarming in a good way.

But the actual content that's delivered here... dear god. Tender Frog House has said everything it has to say within the first 2 minutes, and then just keeps on saying the same thing again and again in progressively flowery ways. It feels like artificial stream-of-consciousness writing penned by someone desperately trying to sound clever. It's bitter, it's cynical, it's patronising, contemptuous and scornful... ugh. I get it, TFH. Capitalism promotes unchallenging art and turns everything into products. There, I said what you said in 9 words; I didn't need any direct quotes from political philosophers that were so long they didn't fit on the screen.

Also the game is hideous. I get the impression that's intentional, but that shade of green burns my fucking retinas, and that music is acid to my soul. Some of the pixel graphics in the overworld look decent, but the lack of effort in the visuals anywhere else makes me assume these are just off-the-shelf stock assets.

So yeah, this is bad. I've spent longer reviewing it than I did playing it at this point and I'm not even mad about that fact because this game pissed me off. One star instead of 0.5 for the juxtaposition between presentation and content being an interesting way to frame something like this. But yeah, don't play this.

doesn't feel like something i can really rate properly since it's effectively just a self-thread on a green background rather than on a blue one or a grey one.

i think as a lot of people here have said, some of the points in here do seem based in a number of senses but it's just disappointing that this experience amounts to being what it is. the brevity of it doesn't exactly help fix the sense of nothing that the piece gives in return for the time it takes to read through. even though some of the things that are said are interesting or agreeable to some extent, they also don't feel as if they're actually articulating much in themselves and don't feel particularly nuanced so much as ranty. quotes from other people substituting for the creator's own thoughts left me more disappointed than curious.

at least maybe this form of presentation is meant to a way of getting the word out more about these ideas since people might be more likely to find this than a random thread on a social media platform...? regardless, as implied above it's all told in a condescending enough way that i'm not sure if people would want to take to it very much at all even if they did find it

edit: I took a look at some of what the creator of this has said about its creation and it turns out it seems it wasn't really intended for the public to find en masse! darn. can't really forgive the presentation nearly as much in that sense, then. eh, whatever.

Making a point in the worst way possible

It's easy to criticize anything and everything, Tender Frog House takes this idea and keeps hammering the nail past the wooden plank, past the floor and past the actual earth itself to the point you actually lose touch what the whole thing was to begin with.

At first, bringing criticisms to the "twee" or the "comfy" genre of games felt like the one thing the creator of the game had going for it in terms of their own ideas until they kept constantly quoting other people and losing the point later on. It just feels like a lot is being said but nothing from the heart or substantial is coming out. I will say you should always have the freedom to speak your mind and have your own opinions on things because that's how passionate discussion about the medium we all love as video games comes to be but it doesn't feel like I learned anything at all with the thirty minutes I spent on this title. All of this while satirizing the games you're criticizing as hell spawn. I got no personal vendetta against the main point since I'm not a fan of the genre being criticized but you need to stand on your own two feet and not rely on quotes that make it feel an AI wrote the whole script for your games because that's how it feels. Soulless and wasting data. I will say I don't inherently completely disagree with some of the points being made but you can put some effort until making those points that isn't just extremely floaty text that makes it hard to read like come on dude, you can't just put the whole fucking paragraph there of what Adorno said and expect me to read it especially when it's cut off like that.

This is also accompanied by a quickly grating midi piano piece and even from a technical side, the game crashed twice with the web version and the downloaded version with having no option but to skip dialogue to get to where I was again. I get having a save feature or some safety net is moot on a game like this but when all there is to the game is clicking a text box, something has got to give.

I'm usually not this negative when it comes to games and especially when it's a single person project, video games are hard to make. It just feels like this game wants to make a point in the most obnoxious and condescending way possible with quotes from people I haven't even heard of until today. It doesn't even narrow in on anything and just veers off the deep end and can easily lose anyone trying to understand what the game is trying to say. Only a deep curiosity will get you to play this game or someone wanting you to experience this "game" and I'd probably just avoid this and play something else. You can either play this or a game of Dota 2 and I hate to say this but I'm preferring the latter.

Posting isn't praxis, and people who have just discovered leftism need to work the notion that it is out of their system in less embarrassing ways than this.

It's way, way, way, way too many words to make the incredibly brave claim that capitalism is bad and influences the art that we make. No fucking shit. Literally any understanding of material reality would dictate that. The only way that you could believe this to be in any way a shocking, revelatory statement is if you are so simultaneously self-important and clueless that you think nobody else has caught on yet. Unfortunately for us, the developer of Tender Frog House fits neatly into both categories.

I always feel a little bad shitting on the people behind the game rather than the final piece itself, but this has earned the ire. What a complete waste of time. Why say in this many bland, empty, boring words what so many other, better pieces of art already have? Do you really, truly believe "comfy" games to be such a damnable, corrupting plague that you need to crusade against them? Are they honestly the true progenitors and perpetrators of the worst aspects of late capitalism, or are you just making broad gestures towards an easy target? Considering how Molochian the gaming space already is at corporate levels, with the constant, unresolved, evidenced accusations of sexual, mental, physical, and fiscal abuse, why make frog games the subject that needs to be tackled? I think most of what you'll see at any of those Comfy Game Showcases seem creatively bankrupt and boring, but to say that they're the agents of Mammon on par with the rest of the industry is silly. Go outside.

Anyway, the only actual proof provided for any of the claims in this game is when Sister Cow says that the only interesting thing about her is the fact that she's mentally ill, and then she immediately pulls a quote from Capitalist Realism.

It is perhaps an all too common occurrence to encounter those who would seek to use the medium of video games as a means of exploring the complex and multifaceted theories of Theodor Adorno, particularly his ideas surrounding aesthetic theory and the ways in which it relates to the perpetuation of neoliberal hegemony. While it is certainly true that video games, like any other cultural form, can be analyzed and interpreted through various theoretical lenses, it is important to recognize that such an approach is ultimately futile, as it fails to take into account the complex and nuanced nature of both video games and Adorno's theories.

To begin with, it is essential to acknowledge the fact that video games are a highly diverse and multifaceted medium, encompassing a wide range of genres, themes, and gameplay mechanics. As such, it is impossible to explore the aesthetic theories of Adorno in any meaningful way through the lens of "wholesome" video games alone, as these games represent only a small fraction of the medium as a whole. To truly understand the ways in which Adorno's ideas might be relevant to the medium of video games, one would need to consider a much broader range of games, including those that might be considered more "edgy" or "provocative" in nature.

Furthermore, it is important to recognize that Adorno's theories, particularly those related to aesthetic theory, are highly complex and nuanced, and cannot be fully understood or appreciated through a superficial analysis of any single cultural form. Adorno's ideas are rooted in a deep and critical engagement with the broader social, cultural, and economic context in which they were developed, and to truly understand their relevance and significance, one must consider these broader contexts as well.

Finally, it is essential to acknowledge the fact that video games, like any other cultural form, are not inherently political or ideological, and that they can be used to convey a wide range of ideas and perspectives. While it is certainly possible to analyze the ways in which video games might reflect or challenge existing power structures and ideologies, it is important to approach this analysis with a critical and nuanced understanding of the context in which the games are produced and consumed. To suggest that the medium of video games can be used as a means of exploring the intricacies of Adorno's aesthetic theory and the ways in which it relates to neoliberal hegemony is to oversimplify and misunderstand both the medium and the theory in question. So, in conclusion, it is ultimately futile to attempt to explore the aesthetic theory behind neoliberal hegemony through the medium of so-called "wholesome" video games, as such an approach fails to take into account the complex and multifaceted nature of both the medium and the theory in question.

Tender Frog House, a game which is described by its creator as "a forum post of a game", is cynical. It's not that it's technically wrong about many of its comments on wholesome games. In fact, its response to wholesome games which view themselves as a unique political statement are incisive in their own way. These aren't wholly original ideas, but they are conveyed with a precision and a bite that calls attention. And they have truth to them. Certainly, being cozy is not a radical act. Those who make this claim are fooling themselves. But Tender Frog House comes off as taking a very broad swing against not just a particular subset of wholesome game creators, but about twee art, and eventually the purpose art itself. And this is where the incisive critique turns into a cynical rat's nest.

Tender Frog House pre-empts my response by refuting the notion that this perspective is cynical, that this is simply a knee-jerk response that defends a conservative mindset. Well, guess what? It is cynical. But it's not cynical for the sake of its perspectives on wholesome games, but rather, its perspective on their ethos. Tender Frog House more or less explicitly states that those who create so-called "wholesome games" are in fact engaging in what amounts to a deeply conservative pastiche which only serves to perpetuate a fascist capitalist society. Further, those who find joy or pleasure in this art or view it as a means of expressing themselves are in fact experiencing a false consciousness which only furthers that fascist capitalist society.

This is an exemplar of cynicism: calling people phony. I refuse this. I refuse to adopt a worldview where people who find and make art that makes them happy is fascist. Tender Frog House seems to find no room for this; either your art is revolutionary praxis, or its reactionary propaganda. Could it simply not be that people make games about cute frogs because it makes them happy? Is that not enough? Why must art only serve the purpose of political action? Art serves many purposes, and just because it performs either an ineffective or maybe even ever-so-slight counteraction does not mean it is not ultimately worthy of being enjoyed. Art acts on us in innumerable ways, in the mind and the body. Not all of these experiences are worth politicizing. That which is anodyne may not cure anything, but that doesn't mean it won't pair well with some wine. As I stated, I think the notion that coziness, sincerity, and self-care are in-and-of-themselves radical is false. But that doesn't mean they aren't worth having.

Moreover, I haven't found supposedly more revolutionary "serious games" to be effective on that front, either. Tender Frog House certainly doesn't inspire me, either as an artist or as a political actor. Maybe I am projecting, but it seems it instructs me to adopt a realpolitik of aesthetics, where I may only offer affordances to or create that which is unequivocally revolutionary. Well, personally? I have found little of that art enjoyable. I have played the Molle Industria games, and others. These games do not invite any transformative thought, and they are incredibly didactic (and frankly, not particularly persuasive). I don't think art is a particularly effective form of praxis, whether it's cozy or cynical. I'm not convinced any of these serious games bring us any closer to a better society than a cute game about frogs.

Let's stop pretending art is a uniquely precious vector for political action. I doubt that line of thinking leads anywhere. But who knows. There is a reason Adorno hated jazz. I think time has proven him wrong. We'll just have to wait for time to pass to see about Tender Frog House.

Short Version: If I ever have to read a visual novel with #00FF00 green as the sole background again, I'm going to strangle something.

Slightly Longer Version: On one hand, everything this game is saying is mostly true, if delivered in a dry manner. Capitalism is a hellscape and the commodification of any and every style or state of being is something to be cognizant of, even (if not especially) when it becomes frightfully untenable to separate capitalist meddling from "earnest expression" (whatever that supposedly means).

I don't think the way to deliver that message is through a stoic diatribe quoting verbose philosophers and using terminology that no-one will understand unless you have the specific knowledge of the author. For how much the text absolutely loves to relish in the (warranted) skepticism of 'new sincerity', it equally eschews any form of accessibility, almost as if to intentionally stifle and out-word any form of questioning that comes from it. I think that there is a good reason people dismiss this as a 'twitter thread visual novel', it presents the same austere and unrelenting tiredness as one to the uninitiated.

TL;DR: Sometimes, dumbing it down is a good thing,

i like to call games such as toem and here comes niko "pseudo saccharine". i also label them as "wife's boyfriend bought me-core". they're (probably) usually made from a place of goodwill, but there's something frustratingly disingenuous and toothless about it nonetheless. kinda like the idea of eating pixy stix for nutritional value

naturally, i'm totally open to making fun of these things

but holy shit - you cannot just assert your message by writing a stilted, overly long discord conversation with yourself and padding it out via long ass philosopher quotes. i've never disagreed more vehemently with something i fully agreed with

Game crashed at the elevator segment, and thank God for that. Never have I seen such a poor excuse for a game in my life, you can barely even call it that. The first minutes are spent preaching that is barely veiled by any form of coherent story or flow. I don't entirely disagree with the game's message, but the way it's presented feels so bitter and condescending that it's hard to wrap my head around. At what point can you call it satire when it's not even being satirical, just vague and harshly critical? Ironically enough, this "game" is sincere, in the fact that it is a seemingly biting criticism of nothing specific. Targeting a whole genre of games while not pointing at any clear names or examples is not a good look, even if your look was terrible already. In conclusion, I made a backloggd account partially because I wanted to talk about this and how much of a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad time I had with it.

An astute criticism of capitalism and "wholesome/cozy" games presented in the most obnoxious way I can imagine.

The looping midi piano music and seasickness-inducing waving font throughout this glorified twitter soapbox truly was the dogshit-flavored icing needed for this horseshit-flavored cake.

My favorite part was when the game crashed.