Don't mind me, I'm just bawling my eyes out over the squeak of a toy...

Captivating... no... rather, terrifyingly captivating, yes, I think that's the better term, the one I'd use to describe A Hint of Purple. Such a profoundly personal and deeply saddening tale that grabbed and didn’t let me go until the very last words was said, and one that in spite of its brevity manages to say so much and making some really smart decisions in the process.

One thing is to take player interactivity, the thing that characterizes the videogame medium as a whole, and use it against the player itself to make feel powerless, and another thing is to extrapolate it to this setting, this terrible and terrifying situation to be in, one in which it you cannot move nor speak, being at the mercy of those around you and the memories of the past, haunting you in your dreams, which is at least better than the coldness of nothingness. It doesn’t matter what you say or choose to express, nobody knows it and nobody can react. Not even the void pays mind to your words. It puts you in the shoes of Maya, it makes you feel the same pain and anguish without fully really knowing her, and it makes you value the little snippets of the outside beyond the hospital room, to value getting to see a new beautifully painted new portrait, and getting to know that person whether it’s through memories or revelations; but also fearing when seeing something inhumane, barely distinguishable, to abstract to be familiar. There’s only one voice who can hear you and to whom you can tall back, but it’s not a really amicable correspondence, and it merely exist to remarks Maya’s struggles and insecurity, to torture her even more in this nightmare. It’s all beautifully narrated, all wonderfully shown to the point of uncomfortably; Maya is a prisoner of her own body, and you are too, and your hopes of improvement is only met with coldness.

Is between those moments of anguish, those small interactions with Kai and their own struggles, and the flashbacks that showcase more of them two and their relationship, that gives meaning to the unfinished portraits and explores Maya’s character even more, those moments are what make A Hint of Purple so special as much as the oppressive nature of everything surrounding it. The anxiety and calmness take turns with one another, or maybe it would be more correct to say that they dance with one another, sometimes blending, and is in those explorations of pain, of fear and self-discovery in which the humanity is seen, where the voice is quite and there’s only room for smiling or tearing up, maybe even both at the same time. Nobody really wins in this story, and some struggles go unheard for everyone but you, some characters not even getting the beginning of being heard of that they yearn for; but it’s a story about changing, about the pass, about the present, about hearing and seeing, a story of love and art indeed, but for ones self as well as for others.

Even in the final moments of the game, even with Maya gets a moment of respite despite all, nothing truly ends. Life moves on, and the last inkling of information we get is that hopefully, for the better. Curious, isn’t it? In a game in which you can’t really do anything or even be heard, the connection you can feel with it is enormous.

Beautiful in every way, and the amazing collection of tracks doesn’t do anything but help its case even more; a look into a sad reality, one that feels both afar and close, one that I don’t feel ashamed of tearing up over it.