They took this game off the market to monetize the fuck out of it, make it function less, add some of the worst stages I've ever seen in my life, and not change anything about some of the most bullshit characters in the game. How the fuck were you testing ranked all throughout the first release but then it's STILL not here at launch. How do you take away game modes to add the most bullshit mobile game ass fuckery I've ever seen? Player First, I hope you crash and burn, you and WB.

At least the character interactions are cool, and I like some of these characters ig.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'd literally rather play Sticker Star. Does this really constitute as a game? 'Cause if it does, we've bridged the argument gap about what a game can and can't be. Visual Novels are not games? Nah, you haven't played Drowning in Problems yet (not that I thought VN's weren't games, they certainly are). You think a certain game is bad? Compare it to this, does the game in question do literally anything more than this game does? If it does, then congratulations, that game is now better all thanks to Drowning in Problems. The only problem I'm drowning in is this being classified as a "game".

There is literally no gameplay outside of clicking, no music, nothing,. Just text that is so arbitrary and trying to convey some semblance of a narrative, or reflection of humanity, or even attempt a self-reflection unto oneself is laughable at best, and an outright insult at worst. What offends me most is how the game wastes your time so brazenly, it doesn't even try to hide it, as if to reinforce whatever this "game" is trying to say. It becomes hilarious then that by doing so, the message is lost on me, and I felt like I lost valuable time of my life I could be doing something else I enjoy. If that's the point of the game, at least make it interesting or endearing in some fashion, this is just pure laziness and utterly soulless, nothing of value to be gained, everything to be lost.

You might make the argument that some games like point and click adventures, as well as visual novels I mentioned earlier, or something like cookie clicker could fall under the same category as this game. With no "real" gameplay as I described it. The main difference to me is that those games have other contributing factors to make the gameplay significant in some manner, such as visual novels allowing you to make choices. Point and click adventure games also have this, player agency, consequences, rewards, branching paths, and branching story. Even Cookie Clicker for just being a "clicking" game has a lot more going on than you expect compared to Drowning in Problems. I want to make my perspective crystal clear when I make a statement like "this shouldn't be considered a game". Because I genuinely believe that, but I'd be more than happy to delve deeper into the topic should someone ask me. Regardless, I do not consider this to be a game.

Thank you all for reading! Next review, something of far more substance and positivity! Until next time.

(Note: I am just putting a general content warning here as I feel that is the right thing to do.)

Everything this game tries to tell you is all wrong.

And yes, it is a game. When I was really young, I had a passion to try and make an adventure game and I used this really awful little program called TADS to make a demo for something called Gates to Purgatory. I only coded a starting area, some basic puzzles and interactions, and an "ending." After that I never touched it again. You can still view the TIGsource thread for it and even play it. (Don't play it.) It's nothing but a bunch of nonsense text, but I still consider it a work of art; a work of creativity. We can argue at length about the intrinsic qualities of art, what constitutes art, what constitutes specific types of art. Entire schools of philosophy discussing these intangibles but in the end its easiest to default to broad interpretations.

Maybe there is no real art to either my game or Notch's, but there is "passion"; in Drowning in Problems there is a passion to appear extremely profound, a passion to sound smarter than everyone else, a passion to express how much of a tortured soul you are. Notch released this in 2014, the same year he jumped ship from Mojang and the creation that had made him a literal millionaire. The game's thesis boiled down to the absolute futility of life and death- baby's first rumination on nihilism. Nothing matters, what's the point?

I went through this exact same conversation with myself well into my mid-20s, dealing with the worst depression of my life. Two inpatient stays, many medical leaves, some broken hearts (I guess it would be 3 on Drowning's meter). I don't look back at this as a deficiency, but I learned from it and grew from it. Notch was 35 years old and rich as hell, and two years later he decided to double down on his prejudices towards the others he felt had somehow wronged him. Going into social media tirades and projecting his own extreme self-hatred on people much more at risk than he is. Notch can pay for therapy. The entire groups of people he chose to antagonize and target, a lot of them cannot. He never learned or grew from Drowning in Problems, he just channeled it into cruelty. This is one of the major problems with adults who choose to be defeatist and nihilist; when all that discontent and dissatisfaction gets funneled through the pipeline of hatred.

You get +Body at the start of this game... there are people who are born into this world without a fully functioning body, or mind. People who can never walk, talk, see. What does Notch propose here? That they have even less in their inventory were we to gamify their existences? There are people born with nothing. Born without any of the comforts or conveniences that you and I share, who still choose to greet each day with courage and strength. People in Gaza are drowning in more than just self-pity and yet they continue to resist in the face of overwhelming death and despair. If nothing matters, what's the point of them doing what they are doing?

Life is worth much, much more than Notch implies it to be. You do not need to be told that what you do doesn't matter. Your actions will affect people no matter what. This tantrum of his could come from the most sincere place of extreme depression and that would not change anything about how fundamentally wrong it is. When I was depressed, I didn't go around telling other people they didn't matter. I felt that about myself, but it was all a product of extreme self-hatred. I knew even then how irresponsible it was to extrapolate my own psychosis and apply it uncritically to everyone else. With the benefit of hindsight, it just feels like Notch is trying to absolve himself of the consequences of having to exist in a world that is always going to be "political" in the way he didn't want it to be.

Just like Notch himself, Drowning in Problems is trash, and as such, belongs to the dustbin of history.