Strange Gaming Diaries: A NIGHTMARE'S TRIP, by SKY HOUR WORKS

I was immediately drawn to this game by the eccentricity of its art style, the apparent contrast between its mundane and fantastical elements, and the fact that the itch.io blurb promises you the ability to "commit gay crimes". this draw was only solidified by the extremely evocative and delightfully fucked up introduction sequence, in which we meet our protagonist adrien as he's formed out of a nightmare of a child, also referred to as adrien's "conductor". neat stuff!

and visually, this game is an absolute treat. the choice to have most of the background images be processed real-world photos featuring humans lends a strange quality to the whole story, given that there's only one normal human being in the entire game who doesn't even show up until the end. plus, the interface is not only delightfully off-kilter, but features an innovation I'm actually a huge fan of: there's a little adrien portrait that constantly updates its frames throughout narration and conversation! this is a handy little way to ensure the POV character gets plenty of visual characterization while ensuring that he doesn't take up too much screen real estate.

the writing that follows the harrowing introduction sequence is also interesting in that it's very, very mundane! the story is quick to settle into slow-paced everyday storytelling of this character doing his best to enjoy himself and have a normal time of things after being born so unexpectedly, and the writing is charming enough to sell the moment-to-moment shenanigans. the writing has a very online cadence to it in the way I described smile for me as being before—there are lots of typographical subversions that convey a very specific tone to people of my demographic

but, although the technical execution of things is solid enough...I kinda struggle to point to anything that stands out in the story itself? like, we spend a lot of time in adrien's head as he goes from place to place, but the internal narration follows a pretty predictable rhythm before too long. for as short as the game is, I feel like it still spends a little bit too long on things like the minutiae of getting checked in at the airport for how little it uses those details to flesh out the world or establish a narrative arc. maybe it's supposed to be establishing adrien as an anxiety-riddled mess, but if so, it kinda ends up feeling redundant after a little while with how much anxious bumbling adrien gets up to, which kinda made me start glossing over things as I continued along.

this trend of pleasant scenes that are ultimately rather vague in what they contribute to the broader narrative persists throughout the game's entire runtime, with the characters and antics they get up to being plenty fun in the moment, but don't really add to any sense of build-up or point towards anywhere this story is really going. that makes the final few scenes, where adrien actually meets his conductor, a young man named yume, end up not really having the impact it feels like it should. I even recall having a brief double take of "oh wait we're doing an emotionally fraught heart-to-heart now?? is that what this story was supposed to have been about??"

still, the game has a lot going for it despite some slipshod writing, and it's clearly something made with love from stem to stern, which I always respect no matter the end result! the team seems content to try something completely new with every release, featuring an overarching "project natura" that encompasses many of their games in a way that I'm admittedly not very clear about but that definitely at least seems neat! their current big-ticket game, RE: DECEIVED VOICE, seems like it's gonna be a much darker and more overtly mysterious story—given how effective that same kind of writing was in A NIGHTMARE'S TRIP, I plan to give it a look once it releases, and maybe also play its predecessor too...!

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