Queers In Love At The End of the World
By Anna Anthropy
You have simple options: “hold her”, “tell her”, “kiss her”. What else is there to do, when the world is ending? But the game is on a timer— you have ten seconds to read and respond before the world ends. Regardless of what you choose, the story has the same outcome. It’s the end of the world, after all.
The entire game is written in Twine, a bare-bones engine for making text based games. It uses the default font. It changes no colors. The only image in the game appears in the afterword. This sets a backdrop— everything else in the world has fallen away. There is only you, your lover, and the moments between you.
The timer is not standard, but that is essentially the only element that sets it apart from a visual standpoint. It captures, perfectly, the desperation and hunger of loving on a limited timespan.
Image Credit: AnnaAnthropy, inspired by @barelyreal on Tumblr
Reader Comments for The New York Times’ “Homestyle Spaghetti Carbonara” Recipe
By Tom Levin
You may be intimately familiar with this story already. You know how it is. You’re making dinner, but want to try something different, so you hastily turn to Google to find what you can make with your limited pantry. You scroll past the inevitable, rambling prelude— probably something about a late grandmother— but wait! The beginning chunk is not as long as you expected! You’ve gone too far! You’ve made it to no-mans land: the comment section.
This is the premise of Levin’s story. It’s a satire, but only just. It had me smiling, but with an underlying current of “oh no, I’ve seen this before” and “yes, this is exactly how it is”. It devolves, as internet discussions are wont to do.
I came out of this with the idea to add bacon and apple to grilled cheese. But at what point does a sandwich stop being grilled cheese?
Image Credit: Tom Levin on Medium
Ghosts
by Vauhini Vara
This is a story about grief, and how grief is understood. What is expected of us when we grieve, and how what happens can subvert that. It is also about the inevitable things that come up when we grieve.
Vara knows what happened after her sister’s death. She starts from the beginning, and then leaves the rest up to GPT-3. Then, she begins again— this time, going a little further. The parts written by her are true. The parts written by GPT-3, she states explicitly, contain “inconsistency and untruths”.
This is the intention. We learn the truth, but slowly, clouded by fabrications.
Image credit: Jesse Zhang
With Those We Love Alive
by Porpentine
This game left a semi-permanent mark on me physically. Sharpie is difficult to wash off of skin, after all. It also left a permanent mark on my understanding of how far boundaries could be pushed in media.
This is a piece of interactive media that asks you to engage. Draw on yourself with sharpie when instructed. Breathe in and out. Do the same things every day, to see what changes (often very little). Or, you can choose to disengage, get the story as quickly as possible. . . take in the garden, but miss the flowers.
There is so much here. It communicates an experience that I wasn’t sure could be communicated.
Image credit: @Violettallll on Pinterest