Play This: Vespertines
Play This is a place for me to tell you about games or game demos that I love and want everyone to play! Right. Now.
Vespertines is an urban fantasy/romance interactive fiction about demons and found family. You play as a human working at a bar for demons, getting to know your customers and collecting their stories. Play the demo!
What first attracted me to this game as I browsed through the interactive fiction tag on itch was the banner art. It's dynamic--the color palette is sumptuous, excellent composition, killer style and a person engaging in the oft-taboo act of smoking. (I adore cigarettes, aesthetically and actually. If they didn't destroy my meatsack I'd engage them like a hobby. Fictional characters aren't burdened meatsacks. Smoke 'em if ya got 'em!)
"But Laurie," the fictional audience in my head says. "Isn't this a text-based IF game? What does great art have to do with anything?" And to that I tip my sunglasses down my nose, light a fictional cigarette and say, "Vibes."
This game has a great start, setting the player in a clear time and place that guides, but does not stifle, the imagination. You play as a fully customizable PC on the run from a nebulous past. Details unfold in this story gently and enticingly, inviting you to invest more of your imagination in exchange for a rich story. A fair trade.
"Skyscrapers loom like cold cliffs around you, riddled with fluorescence, hemming you in and stealing real-estate from the stars." *chef kiss*
This was the first IF game I played that allowed for gender-selectable ROs. I wasn't sure how I felt about the concept at first--I worried that it would affect the authenticity of the characters if they weren't written with a specific gender lens in mind. Then, the more I thought about my thoughts, it seemed like they were generated by some old, baked-in terfy nonsense from my conservative upbringing. The customization empowers the player to have more control over their experience of the narrative and further invest themselves in the story. That's a positive for everyone.
Vespertines allows for what I think of as "personality tone" for the playable character. There's a couple of binary gauges to help give you a sense of the mechanics being checked in-game. I'm really enjoying these games that let me play as a softer, more vulnerable character. When I was younger, all I wanted were characters that were bad-ass, take on the world, chew their problems and spit them at their enemies type of heroes. I wanted to play as someone confident and disgustingly capable because I wanted to believe I could be those things. Lately, I find myself drawn to characters that have space to feel, that are frightened because the world is frightening, that can cry and still face the challenge ahead of them because I want to believe I can be those things. And I love Vespertines because in my heart there's a frightened girl waiting for the monsters to save her from humanity.
(Edit: I forgot to talk about another thing I loved. I got to be a vegetarian in the game. <3 Little ties to my real life add such specialness to a game)
Chapter One is available now and the game is actively being developed. Play the demo and tell me how much you love it! There are some content warnings for the game--please treat yourself with care if you choose to engage. Thank you for letting me ramble about a thing I love 🥰