[Suzerain of Sheol]

Can you elaborate on what you meant about Undertale? I don't think I ever got into it enough beyond just playing the routes to have seen whatever it is you're referring to.

But anyway, the ARG stuff is really gripping, obviously, and adds a whole extra level of discomfort and intrigue to the game, but I'm mostly suspending judgment on whether it was a worthwhile addition until its determined whether Dan Salvado is lying about his next game having nothing to do with Project Libitina or not. It seems like the foundation was laid a little too thoroughly for it to just be creepy easter eggs, and if it doesn't go anywhere it'll be fairly disappointing retrospectively.

I have a million things I could say about the game itself, and I have no idea where to even start. I love pretty much every aspect of it, but the parts the specifically shine the most to me are:

1.) Manipulation of and prediction of the player's assumptions about the nature of the game and how it is played. Any time it preempts use of the menus is just amazing to me, in context.

2.) The metanarrative space the story creates where the experiential plot of the game exists in some nebulous feedback loop of the player's own interactions with the fiction, creating an experience unique to everyone who gets the chance to go through it.

3.) The insidious layers of the game's horror. From the trigger warning that doubles as an incitement to profound anxiety over the innocuous act 1 to the way Sayori's death is quickly fading in my mind as a representation of a brutally horrific tragedy that is all too real for a lot of unfortunate people... into something more like witnessing an eldritch event that destroys the sanity of the viewer. The horrific audio cues in that scene and the breakdown of the diegetic reality of the VN setting make me feel this weird flavor of existential dread that has me thinking the true trigger warning should have been for people who are vulnerable to de-realization and delusion. It's appalling, and I love it.

I also like to entertain the analytical lens of everything post-suicide being the visualized nervous breakdown of a teenage boy having his life utterly ruined beyond repair by one of the most awful things any human can experience. I don't think it totally works on that level, but it's definitely interesting to me.

4.) Can we just talk about the way this game has conditioned me to suffer paranoia at tempo shifts or sudden silence in digital audio? My phone popped up a low battery warning yesterday that interrupted my music and I felt my heart start hammering.

It might sound like I was really traumatized by this game but I absolutely love it. The fact that a piece of art/fiction can have this effect is amazing to me. The catharsis this game spawns is just brilliant.

And none of the above is even getting into analyzing the characters, where there is obviously mountains of material to delve into, but I've probably rambled enough for now. :P

Oh wait, just one more point. As I'm sure you're aware from our previous conversations, Coda ( or anyone who's read them), I introspect on subjects like free will, self-consciousness, AI, etc quite a bit, so Monika is just a treasure trove of analysis for me.

I really dislike when anyone dismisses this game as cheap shock value relying on gimmicky meta-scares. While those are obviously what it's best known for, there is just so, so, SO much more going on here. I don't personally know of any other form of fiction that has created this kind of relationship with its reader/player, but I'd love to hear about it if it exists, cause DDLC feels like a revelation to the art of storytelling (and story-receiving!) to me.