Review - That Sinister Self (Twine)
Author - Astrid Dalmady
Anyone who has ever been in high school knows that the community is divided into two categories - those who are popular and those who aren't. 'That Sinister Self', a new horror game released in Twine, captures this scenario with great detail. It brings us into those who aren't happy with what they look like at school, which is something many wouldn't have thought about if they were happy with how their appearance.
The game starts out with a girl feeling a little nervous about her first day at high school. Then, the horror element pops out of nowhere: Upon looking at a mirror to check on your appearance, the expression on your face smiles with a sinister grin, looking right back at you. Then, it disappears.
That horrifying reflection continues to haunt the protagonist continuously throughout the game,
altering normal actions. It is indeed unsettling, but didn't give me much of an effect other than the slight shiver. This could be caused by the way the prose is written during the reflection phrases. The writing can actually be inadvertently amusing. Imagine seeing your reflection holding a knife while you are holding a stick. Most people will probably snicker at seeing that. Well, some people would.
A unique effect is the upside-down words that appear below sentences, representing the description of reflections in the mirror. The changes in the reflection are written in blood red. Outside of those unique text stylings, That Sinister Self looks like your everyday Twine game, with white words printed on a gray background.
The game specifies there are three endings. There is no rewind button, so when my first playthrough gave me a bad ending, I was not motivated to replay from the beginning to find a better one.
As I’m a guy in high school, this game should have hit home with me. The game IS about high school students, right? Unfortunately, I did not empathize with the main character in the
story.. That Sinister Self lacks the pure emotion and feeling in its prose that would have made me care about the girl and the issues that she was facing. Instead, the focus seems to be about showing how desperate certain people are to make themselves known in the world, and how they cannot live without friends. This feeling caused me anger and frustration, instead of disturbing me as the author might have intended
That Sinister Self does shows the bottom society of a community, and can invoke
feelings of infuriation.. I'm glad that my life isn't like the main character’s life.
Summary: That Sinister Self reveals the darker side of teenagers well, but uninspired prose lowers the effect of horror.
Verdict: 7/10
