This is quite possibly the absolute best game I've ever played. Not because of its gameplay (which is, quite frankly, almost inexistent), and not because it has a grandiosely convoluted story (the plot IS driven by a murder mystery, but it's not an especially complicated one), and it's not because absolutely every last character is wonderfully characterised (only the main character gets rich characterisation).
No, instead, I love it because it's such a breath of fresh air in the industry. The game is, to my amateur eyes, the most feminist game I've ever played. The main character is a woman, who is married to another woman, and everyone important around her (with the exception of her chauffeur) is a woman as well. There are only two male characters in the game. One is the main character's father, who is mentioned in passing a couple of times and never appears in the game. The other is the aforementioned chauffeur, who plays a distinctly secondary part to everyone else.
The game has nothing to do with the areas that the media stereotypically limits women to, instead, the plot is something you could pull from any crime show or suspense movie: the main character is a ruthless, cut-throat businesswoman who, after a car crash, is left with locked-in syndrome (the inability to move voluntary muscles), and she deduces that one of the people she's close to is a murderer. The entire point of the game is to try and find out who the murderer is, and who to trust. Before you can do that, however, the main character has to reminisce about the events that led to the car crash, and in so doing, we find out about her and her relationship with the people around her.
In my experience, it is very difficult to balance on the blade's edge that is "the flawed but sympathetic character". Too many flaws and the character is unlikeable. Too much sympathy and we stray into Mary Sue territory. This game actually manages to make the main character a horribly flawed person while still maintaining audience sympathy (to explain how this is achieved would be getting into spoilers territory).
The writing is adequate-to-good throughout most of the game, but really shines in a couple of scenes. There's one scene that really gave me pause (and I'm the kind of player who blazes through a game without stopping to appreciate anything). I won't spoil it too much, but pay attention to what the memory of our main character sharing a drink with her aged mother tells us about her.
The game has multiple endings, so it offers replayable value (especially by saving smartly), and I think you need to see all the endings to get a clear view of the plot (this may be a plus or a minus, depending on what you think about fragmented plots). The aesthetic style of the game is very minimalistic, and the music choices are clever if a bit simplistic.
For me, this is a firm addition to the "games as art" repertoire and to the "games that don't pander to the straight white male demographic" list.
If this intrigued you, I leave you with the link to the place where you can download it:
http://luckyspecialgames.com/
