An earnest attempt at simulating early-00s internet communities that nails the presentation but stumbles in developing a world outside the fraught interpersonal drama of its four-piece cast. The first half is a goofy high-school comedy that excels at small moments in online relationships (doing a virtual new years toast is an early highlight), and only occasionally gets bogged down by overwritten fantasy fics. There is little sense of an internet beyond your AIM window and the blogs of your friends, but the limited focus works when your character's only concern is roleplaying and understanding new acronyms.

The second half, however, goes hard into relationship drama, LGBTQ+ identities, and eating disorders, little of which is handled well and some is actively distasteful. There's clearly a desire to wrestle with the contradictions and confusions so many isolated and/or marginalized teens feel, but neither the systems nor narrative offer the space to actually speak to those experiences in meaningful ways.

As time accelerates in the second half and there are fewer and fewer interactions with individual characters, the game lurches towards a "good" ending that actively undoes the game's emotional arc. I really enjoy Terranova's conceit, but watching it bulldoze its characters for the sake of a more dramatic and "meaningful" end left a gross taste in my mouth.