A (very late) post-mortem.

I don't do a ton of work in twine, but I think it's a great program for those "I gotta just bust out this idea real quick" projects. This was one of those sorts of things, I think I spent a total of three days working on it. It's called get one final twist in baby you do it better than anyone else. I named it in part because I liked the way it sounded and it seemed to fit with the type of story I was telling, and also because I like giving projects names that are way too long. I think it makes them sound like a Midwest emo anthem or something. Anyway, it's about a text conversation with your former partner a year after a messy breakup.

As far as my projects have gone, this is one that I have broadly positive, if slightly mixed feelings about a year out from release. I still stand by it as an expression of the struggle that comes with breaking ties with an abuser who just won't leave no matter how clear you make your feelings. It's unpolished and will stay that way, though I did give it a quick editing pass and update before posting this I don't really think that every game in my catalogue needs to be perfectly marketable or even broadly appealing. Some of them are just gonna be weird little side projects I did because they interested me at the time, not because I'm trying to make money.

One of the worries I had while working on it was that people would read way too far into the story and assume that it was, in fact, an autobiographical story, that I was recounting something that literally happened to me. This was why I didn't promote it on any other socials when I posted it on my itch.io page. I didn't link it on my Discord, my Facebook, or my Twitter, I just sort of let it out into the world like a message in a bottle. If people found it, then great, if not, it didn't matter because I made it for me more than anyone else.

So, yeah, it's not based on real events. Sort of. I did leave an abusive relationship at one point in my life. I did feel significant stress from the fact that my former partner still felt they had ownership over me, even though I had moved on with my life, moved to a different city, and was in a committed relationship with someone else. But the game I made to deal with that feeling wasn't going to be a one-to-one recreation of that drama because that felt gross to me. It was too much like that ongoing meme where a (usually male) musician goes through a breakup and writes a lo-fi indie EP about their side of the story.

What I wanted was, instead, to channel those frustrations into something more universal, sanding off the more personal touches and experiences and replacing them with elements I felt the average player could more closely relate to. Also, I made sure to keep it somewhat queer, such as the detail that the (male) ex is angry that the player is "hiding" their (female) partner from him. Biphobia is something I want to explore more in future works, but here I wanted to keep it as an unspoken but present undercurrent to the story.

It didn't ever go too far in terms of plays or downloads, but as stated above that was never the intent. This isn't the sort of thing that goes viral and I'm happy with that. I made it mostly as a form of self-expression and as a way to reach out to people feeling similar things. The small number of responses and reviews I got tell me that I succeeded, so I'm happy for that. If you've played it and it touched something in you, I'm glad. If you're reading this and you give it a try, I hope you can enjoy it as well for the short experience it is.