This review contains spoilers

I thought I'd been spoiled going in by knowing it was a trans-focused game, but the end revealing that she was still male-presenting in real life was an incredibly good writing choice. I'm just an ally, but I thought it did a pretty good job with the trans themes, aside from a small hangup with the self harm aspect. A part of me is in genuine disbelief that Swery made this.
Gameplay wise, it could be better. It falls for a lot of the pitfalls in this type of puzzle platformer game, where it takes longer than usual to actually solve the puzzle once you've seen the solution because of all the movement you have to do. It's not helped by this game's unique self harm mechanic, which I am again rather conflicted on. I think the puzzles involving it are usually creative, but 1. it slows down gameplay, 2. kinda feels like misery porn sometimes? and 3. feels.... weird in conjunction with the rest of the game's themes. These are all ultimately minor hangups, which combined only manage to drop the game from a 5 to a 4.5. As for other parts of the gameplay, I like the extra donut puzzles and the text messages that come with them. I think the texts are a really good way of 1. breaking up pacing and 2. just characterizing JJ and her situation in general. They were a key part of my enjoyment of the game all throughout.

Great game overall. I could easily see this resonating strongly with people both in and out of the trans community.

Reviewed on Oct 16, 2022


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