Assessment
I started with Depression Quest, but since I have clinical depression and general anxiety, it was too relatable to me. Especially when I tried to convince the main character's mom that there was something wrong with the main character and all she said was that I needed to try harder. That was too real and similar to my own experiencess. I started to get anxious about it and stopped playing it in order to play Horse Master instead.
Horse Master was very... strange to me. Strange in the way like when you read Junji Ito for the first time. It was this weird futuristic ritual of making weird horses. By the way, I won and became a Horse Master. But what does that even mean? My character is now missing a finger and I'm still not sure what being a Horse Master even entails. A lot of the writing was very visceral and strange in the sense that we would not be raising a horse in this way at all.
I was compelled to keep going though, because I enjoy these kind of creepy and subtly strange (well, not so subtly) things. I'm a fan of horror like Junji Ito's works, some of Stephen King's works, etc etc. What compelled me to keep going was my love of this kind of writing. Just creepy enough, based off something that should be familiar to us but is now totally rendered in a foreign and strange way. Kind of like the book 1984. At the end too, the main character hits us with the fact that this was his father's dream, but that maybe it wasn't his own dream. That also strikes me, because of the fact that in my culture (Chinese), many parents want their children to be successful and wealthy scientists or programmers or engineers or lawyers--careers that make a lot of money. But have they ever thought that it was not what their children actually dreamed of?
I could see this story being adapted into a video game--a non-text based game. Much like Viscera Cleanup Detail, I could see this being like a simulator for horse training. Except, you expect actual horse training and you end up with this weird scifi abomination of horse "mastering" instead. I don't think the actual story itself needs much changing, just the medium of how it's told. Much of it could be adapted easily into a more interactive game like format. Having to feed your horse, inject nutrients, try to stimulate your horse, figuring out the macro for the best growth for your horse. If not like Viscera Cleanup Detail, it could also be like Papers Please or any other number of more interactive simulators, even like Princess Maker.
Horse Master was very... strange to me. Strange in the way like when you read Junji Ito for the first time. It was this weird futuristic ritual of making weird horses. By the way, I won and became a Horse Master. But what does that even mean? My character is now missing a finger and I'm still not sure what being a Horse Master even entails. A lot of the writing was very visceral and strange in the sense that we would not be raising a horse in this way at all.
I was compelled to keep going though, because I enjoy these kind of creepy and subtly strange (well, not so subtly) things. I'm a fan of horror like Junji Ito's works, some of Stephen King's works, etc etc. What compelled me to keep going was my love of this kind of writing. Just creepy enough, based off something that should be familiar to us but is now totally rendered in a foreign and strange way. Kind of like the book 1984. At the end too, the main character hits us with the fact that this was his father's dream, but that maybe it wasn't his own dream. That also strikes me, because of the fact that in my culture (Chinese), many parents want their children to be successful and wealthy scientists or programmers or engineers or lawyers--careers that make a lot of money. But have they ever thought that it was not what their children actually dreamed of?
I could see this story being adapted into a video game--a non-text based game. Much like Viscera Cleanup Detail, I could see this being like a simulator for horse training. Except, you expect actual horse training and you end up with this weird scifi abomination of horse "mastering" instead. I don't think the actual story itself needs much changing, just the medium of how it's told. Much of it could be adapted easily into a more interactive game like format. Having to feed your horse, inject nutrients, try to stimulate your horse, figuring out the macro for the best growth for your horse. If not like Viscera Cleanup Detail, it could also be like Papers Please or any other number of more interactive simulators, even like Princess Maker.
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