Необычные рисованные приключения с нестандартными сюжетными решениями или механиками уже стали своеобразной «фишкой» разработчиков Юго-Восточной Азии. В прошлый раз мы восхищались филиппинским проектом Until Them с концепцией временной петли, но в этот раз речь пойдет о более приземлённой истории про признание утраты и поиски нового смысла.
Among the bravest risks a game can take is making you play an arsehole. Afterlove EP's Rama isn't an arsehole, but he's getting there. He's a grieving indie rockstar who has fallen into self-neglect and hermitude - a gloom-sodden, guitar-cradling burden on friends who believe in and care for him, despite it all. As the player of this visual novel with a pinch of rhythm game, you are essentially one of those long-suffering friends. Your job is to help Rama escape his own labyrinth of bereavement, self-pity and tortured creativity. Your ally and enemy in this is Cinta, Rama's dead girlfriend, who is now a persistent voice in his head. She's his better self, sometimes, and at others, the voice of anguish and fear dragging him deeper into purgatory.
I like Afterlove EP's deft writing, and enjoy its splendid and specific recreation of 21st century Jakarta. I also feel for developers Pikselnesia, who have made a game about grief while processing the loss of their own creative director, Coffee Talk creator Mohammad Fahmi. But I do not much like being Rama's friend, at this particular moment in his life. And by extension, I did not enjoy a lot of Afterlove EP, much as I admire it.