#okay I appear to be making a whole second essay in the tags I'M STOPPING NOW

[ruukachoo]

Okay so I need to talk about corru.observer

So I'm just sitting here, minding my own business, poking around on the social media sphere when I see a repost of a post talking about a browser game called corru.observer . "Huh," I say to myself, "a browser game about rummaging through an alien biocomputer? Well, I do like my weird fiction, and a biocomputer sounds intreresting. I'll take a look. It's a browser game, in my experience those are typically pretty short, I can give it a looksee and then get on with my life. How long could it take?"

That, my friends, is what we call hubris.

A week and change later I've binged through everything I possibly can (with the exception of the optional hard archive vein section because I'm terrible at the video games especially when they activate hard mode I still haven't dealt with the hard sections in Deltarune ugh why must they put more plot behind hard sections). I have been left staring at the ceiling muttering about mindcores and thoughtforms and weeping over characters. I've talked Eien's ear off puzzling through the story and my brain is still running several cycles repeatedly trying to suss things out.

What I'm trying to say is this game is GOOD and it's gripped my brain HARD.

Unfortunately I learned that it wasn't finished yet well after I had passed the point of no return (this has been happening to me a lot this year with other media, I can't say I'm fond of this trend--I never did like cliffhangers) so I'm left waiting for the next part to come out and in the meantime I have to get out how amazing this game is and maybe convince some other folks to play it because I need to yell more and theorize and there's only so much I can do on my own.

The non-spoilery review: IT'S GOOD GO PLAY IT.

But seriously, the premise basically boils down to: you're a contractor that's been hired to retrieve info from an alien biocomputer that's been recently salvaged from a wreck at the bottom of the ocean. And then it gets weird.

Actually, to quote a character from much later, this is probably the best tagline for the game: "It will probably only get stranger!"

Aesthetically, the game reminds me a little of Welcome to Night Vale. Writing and humor-wise, it reminds me a little of Undertale. There are some elements that remind me a little of Hatoful Boyfriend shut up it does make sense if you've played through it. It's a game full of nooks and crannies to explore and a whole bushel of questions and mysteries to solve. I realize in hindsight that it pings a lot of the things that also caused me to gravitate towards Steven Universe: compelling and complex characters, tons of mysteries big and small to chew on, and rock solid worldbuilding. I am seriously in love with the worldbuilding here - everything, right down to the reason you hear music and the appearance of the characters, has a reason, and part of the joy of the game for me is just figuring everything out. Media scores major points with me when it becomes apparent that the creators have Thought Through Things.

My only really negative thing to say is that while I love the immersive interface, I would have appreciated a little readme file or an annotation or something to indicate how to save the game. In internet years I'm older than the pyramids and I grew up on point-and-click adventure games where being able to save every five seconds is paramount, and I think I would've had a little less anxiety at the beginning if I knew how to save my progress in case Firefox borked or something (I think the answer is there's import/export file functions under data management I THINK that's what it is).

But yes, overall, really good, loved it, really wanting the next part to come out now.

OKAY NOW SOME OTHER THOUGHTS EXCUSE ME WHILE I DO A BIT OF SCREAMING.

NNNNGH THESE CHARACTERS I LOVE THEM. They are all so good. I love Cavik's eagerness and Tovik's determination, I love how Gakvu and Miltza manage to work together despite their differences, I love Kazki's gentleness and Bozko's protectiveness, I love how Idril is basically the answer to the question "What if Osaka from Azumanga Daioh was a dull engineer?". I think what makes it work so well is that you get a chance to spend some time with them, the Call Team in particular. You see them when times are good and when everything is falling apart. The visual novel format, where a lot of the narration is from Akizet's POV, works super well here. You get not only a chance to see what Akizet thinks of them based on what she knows about them, but you see how her thoughts and opinions of them change over the course of the story, particularly in relation to the collapse arc. It gives them an extra boost of life that I think might not have been possible from a more distant POV. They're allowed to be complex and deep.

And oh Akizet is a multidimensional delight. I love her fondness for orange juice. I love how she is doing her best. I love how she is anxious and overthinks things and it's clear that she is trying to do the right thing, even if there are some pretty clear signs that she isn't always making the best choice. I love how she has regrets and joys and stumbles. I love how she is more competent than she thinks she is. I love how she loves these people. Her scene with Bozko where he's spiraling and she hugs him because it's the only thing she can do is lodged in me, both for how relatable it is when wanting to help someone dealing with trauma and the only thing you can do is be there for them, and because oh Aki, you don't need to be a Tir, you just need to be a friend. You just need to be you.

I feel like the overarching theme of the game is "Everyone is doing the best they can with what they have." Right down to the partial translations of words from the mindspike and the fragmented state of the cyst, everything that happens is coming from a place of working with what you've got. That kinda makes the end of the collapse even more tragic, as it's being made abundantly clear that Akizet did not have all the pieces to deal with Vekoa. All she had was her previous knowledge of what she had seen, and all of that pointed to, in her mind, Vekoa attempting a deception. Although I wonder how much of that is based off of what she saw and what she believed. There's a TON of layers here still to uncover.

And there are SO MANY QUESTIONS. There's the big ones of course ("What happened to Akizet?" "What the heck is the deal with the meteorite anyway?" "What is Velzie hiding?" "Who sent the message to Akizet that set everything in motion?"), although there are some smaller ones that I keep chewing on.

What is Kazki's role in all of this? She was conspicuously absent from the collapse, and it made sense she wouldn't be present based on her role, but I keep wondering if there was more going on with her than is apparent. She had been regularly speaking with a human, but the details of that interaction haven't been made known, so is it possible she has more involvement than we currently know? The fact that Drowning, who holds some of Akizet's memories of Kazki and may look like how Kazki actually looks, is guarding some of the deeper parts of the cyst, suggests a greater role.

What is Velzie anyway? The obvious answer is some sort of thoughtform, but from what? Something I started thinking about recently after looking at some of the transcripts is how Tozik wanted Akizet to share the truth about the meteorite. We assume his message got out at the end, but did it? Is Velzie related to Tozik somehow? On the other hand there's evidence Cavik might have some connection as well. HM.

"OUR" DULL SHIP? WHO IS THIS "OUR"??

How much can Funfriend really be trusted? This one's gotten me into a LOT of knots. Funfriend is trying to repair the cyst and is again, doing the best it can with what it has, but the Council and Jokzi Ozo suggest that maybe it's not what the rest of the cyst wants. Honestly I was starting to get a bit of a Myst vibe, where it feels like we're getting two opposing viewpoints and we're eventually going to have to choose one of them (or perhaps a third as-of-yet-unknown third option). But getting back to Funfriend, it's repairing with what it has to work with and its own memories of Akizet and what happened, so how much of that can be trusted? Are we seeing what actually happened, or are we seeing what Funfriend wants us to see?

What IS that weird dark space in Jokzi Ozo with eyes that look an awful lot like Tovik's?

Will we ever get to have a drink with the orange juice effigy? I'M ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS HERE.

Nngh, in the end all I can do is ponder for right now, but when the next part comes out I will be SO ready. And maybe by then I'll have figured out how to get through the archival vein. PLEASE BSTRD, I NEED MORE PLOT AND LORE. I'M NOT A GAMER, I JUST WANT THE STOOOOOORY!!!