Watch Me Jump

[got_quiet]

Name: Watch Me Jump
Status: Complete
Site: https://jeremygable.itch.io/watchmejump
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: F/F ... kinda, but not a romance
Description: A story about a basketball celeb fucking up



This is a game that was adapted from a screenplay, which I believe is the first time I've ever written those words. As such, its strengths are in the writing and its weaknesses are in the game design.

 

My first impression of this game was not great. For one, it immediately felt a little pretentious because every instance of the game title is "Watch Me Jump, by Jeremy Gable" I don't know who Jeremy Gable is but he seems to really want me to know it was he that made this game. Considering that I'm used to a norm where even when a game has a single dev they use a pseud or studio name this pinged me as odd. Next was the art. The art is kind of remarkable in the sense that it takes me back to the MSDOS days when you had 5 pixels to work with. If there's any game genre that can forgo art assets its interactive fiction, but on top of this mspaint aesthetic the itch.io game page lists one of the selling points as "featuring completely original artwork." So, what I'm saying here is that as I installed this game I was prepared for a complete mess.

But it wasn't terrible. The writing is good, which should be expected from something produced by someone who advertises the fact that they are an award winning playwright. Your character is Audra Bee Mills, the best player in the WNBA and also kind of an absolute shithead. You make decisions that don't just qualify as bad but kinda criminal and react to the fallout by continuing to be a mess. The dialog, which is all the text is, is snappy, and the other characters are interesting enough, but honestly I would have enjoyed reading this more as a script, because as a game it was a little frustrating.

The thing is, while you are given many dialog choices none of them seem to have any effect on any part of the plot, and the game has no save system so you can't go back easily to see if there was any real difference between being "honest" or "mean." The fallout basically has to happen because the trigger action of the whole thing happens outside of the control of the player, and the four acts are structured in such a way that require the situation to get worse and worse. And again, there were cases where a choice may have seemed significant, but I have no way of confirming that without going back and replaying an hour's worth of game. You also can't speed up the text scroll which is agonizing for someone like me, who reads quickly. Clearly the dev wanted control of the pacing, because again, this is a play transferred into a game, but what works for a play doesn't always work for a game.

You also play someone who simply cannot stop being an ass. As in, it's not possible for the story to exist as it does without you making the wrong choices constantly, so you're not allowed to make good ones as a general rule. As a player this is kind of frustrating because interactive fiction is one of those genres that really invites players to take ownership of the decisions they make, and when you suggest that someone has a choice and then turn around and ensure that those decisions are bad, it feels kind of shitty. This is very different from reading a script or watching a play, where the relationship between reader/viewer and character is more remote.

 

I wonder if this is best categorized as a kinetic novel, despite the presence of choices and a little mspaint avatar that you move around on occasion. I think if you enjoy kinetic novels and don't really need IF to adapt to your choices this is a good, snippy story that doesn't waste your time. But I think that as a story it should have remained a play. It probably is a good one.