Secret Little Haven (2018)

This game is a huge nostalgia bomb. It really reminds you of how many shared life experiences we have, because it just totally captures the experience that I had being on internet fandoms back when I first got on the internet like ~20 years ago. The fan forums filled with badly written fan faction from 10-year olds, trying to start drawing fan art by doing sketches on napkins, having all sorts of awkward emoticon-filled conversations on instant messaging when you didn't have enough social tact yet to actually treat people maturely. I guess what I'm trying to say is the game very much made me feel like "Oh, damn, I'm not unique huh" but in a good way.

The story telling is well done, the world building of creating the fake anime and fan boards for it and how you get to know what the show is about through reading discussions and fan forum was cool. The characters are all uniquely developed and relatable. Some of the themes are a little bit heavy-handed at times, occasionally stretching a little bit beyond what I found believable, and sort of happening in a very convenient way to be able to tell a whole story in a couple hours. But I didn't mind too much. I have various thoughts about the main character's journey which are probably not suited for a casual off-hand review, but I thought the game did a great job at making you relate with it and it definitely helps expand my perspective.

It's making me think a lot about what I was like back in those days and how I've lost a lot of the innocence and positivity I had back then, and what that means about myself...

I liked the ending, but I am a fan of cheesy endings where everything works out through the power of love and friendship. In particular I liked pinksquirrel's roleplaying session - I could tell during the final day as you had final conversations with everyone, that they were saving her for last - and that final story beat is pulled off perfectly, her coming in to finish the roleplay story after the final confrontation was just a really good, uh, I dunno, catharsis and totally brought me to tears after everything.

Overall, would recommend to anyone who is into text-based narrative games,early 2000s internet nostalgia, and/or journeys of self-discovery.

This is the perfect kind of game that can only come out of the indie scene and I'd like to play more of. It's short, sweet and deeply personal. It spoke to me in many different levels.

I really like the overall message and the presentation. It made me smile at the dumb jokes and it made me positively squirm at all those egregious examples of toxic masculinity. It also made me write 400 words of fanfiction about an imaginary show I knew nothing about.

I recommend not only playing the game but also reading the comments on its frontpage. Understandably, quite a lot are from trans or otherwise gender-non-conforming people and it's lovely seeing how touched they are by this game and how their experiences mirror (or not) the main protagonist's.

So, yeah. As this writing, it's part of Itch.io's bundle for racial justice so there's no excuse not to get it.