At first I just watched her body, hoping maybe something else would crawl out of it and I would have a new relative.

I've never had a problem with short games, nor do I plan to have in the future. I'm a professional apologist, as long as they even attempt to grab my attention.

So what's the problem? The sickly color schemes and downright putrid visuals the game presents on the store page are exactly what I look forward to, but even this one thing they managed to tarnish beyond the dirtiness of it all.

The premise is simple, and gets to the point quickly. You find out soon enough that your perspective is not one of the heroes, nor is there any heroes in this story to begin with. Soon after you're certain that this perspective is not one of your own- not in the meta sense, but rather, this... thing you control thinks very differently. There's a human aspect to it all, and not in a good way. The way this creature talks and thinks goes beyond our sense of justice or morals, and might as well be the only proof of a God. Impressive, but most of that comes from your sense of terror. Most of the story beats happens as dialogue from the twisted mind of this abomination, written by someone who doesn't really know how to get there. You can blame whatever you want for the modern insensitive reaction to violence, but even putting that aside the murderous mole man doesn't do it justice. The potential is off the charts, and there are occasional streaks of pure madness that are dumbed back around to plummet to the ground. I'd be happy to just read and click forwards at the mad ravings posed as a love story, so I don't appreciate the game trying to hurry up and get its things packed before exploring its own ideas.

I won't take too much thought to comment on the artstyle, as people are privileged to their own opinion. The style changes a lot between segments, and even if it is deliciously awful and rotten in all the ways I was expecting it to, it falls short once the presentation style has been changed multiple times during segments. You can be chaotic and yet have a consistent language in your assets, but I guess that's what you get with AI generated graphics. I'd be lying if I said I was completely against it, as the argument can be made about what we view as disturbing. I'd also be lying if I said it worked here.

The pieces are there, the atmosphere rarely broke, but what is there is very little and very weak. I'd recommend this to someone who is utterly captivated by just the screenshots, as it's not expensive. 20 minutes for a playthrough with little strong essence is just a lot asked. If a couple bucks mean nothing to you though, the DLC is a must-have. Peering through the eyes of an actual human does help build the world a bit, and I'd be more than happy for the dev to try this formula again. There's some esoteric knowledge they seem to hold, and I'd like to see that splattered on a canvas. Preferably by themselves, instead of the machine.