izigame.me

You can tell the dev(s) who made this game really wanted it to be impactful and emotional, but man was this ever a miss for me. I love games like these, point and click cozy games. But therein lies my issues with this game. When you make a point and click game, whereas there is very little interaction, its totally fine, but it does mean your message/story needs to be super interesting or rich. You need to have something important to say, otherwise the point and clicking gets to be a tad boring very quickly.
This game half of the time, seemed to have nothing to say at all, much less something important. In fact, the message for me was the complete opposite.
I also think the creators of the game meant for it to read like a letter, but it came off feeling long winded and often had unnecessary sentences that felt like they were just there to fluff up the story and add an extra picture to have stuff to click on (maybe to get over that 2 hour mark for steam refunds?). The character would hold up something as inane as an oven mitt and be like "you always loved this oven mitt ever since you baked cookies that one time". It left me resenting the narration as I kept feeling like I wanted to rush through the game to get to whatever point or message the story was struggling to get to.
And OH BOY the message was just...well it was bad. Like really in my humble opinion, it was toxic. Pretty much it was 'if your parent wasn't great, it was probably your fault or their shitty actions were because they wanted what was best for you.
If your parent is strict or overbearing or neglectful, apparently according to this game, you just didn't understand your parent and they are super complex and misunderstood and you didn't understand this because you were a stupid kid busy with childhood and not paying attention. This is a super unhealthy message to people who actually dealt with parents like this (or worse for some of us) growing up or who have a strained relationship with their parent(s).
If you dealt with a neglectful, strict, abusive, or overbearing parent. It was not your fault, nor was it your job as a YOUNG CHILD to live up to your parents or anyone else's expectations. You didn't ask to be born, your parents made that important decision a long time ago for you. And if they weren't supportive, were abusive or hurtful, weren't emotionally available or loving, or just were too busy to 'deal with you' or raise you, that means that they did a piss poor job being a parent. End of story.
It isn't a child's job to EARN a parents respect or praise. And as a parent, expecting a young developing mind to do everything perfectly and to such high standards doesn't create a more successful or better adult, it just breeds confidence issues and fear later on in life. And neglecting or being unavailable to your kid doesn't make them independent, it makes them lonely and not trusting as an adult.
This game would have you listen to a couple of hours (if you rush through) of game play of the main character narrating why the present point in time is completely THEIR FAULT (their words) and how they should have tried harder or looked closer to understand their, to be honest, shitty parent.
Spoilerinos ahead (skip to get to TL;DR if needed):
So the game starts off with the main characters birth. You don't know your name (why this is annoying in a bit), and you're panning the camera around to find a hidden next picture. This is the main mechanic of the game, and though it isn't totally awful, it does get repetitive and often clunky sometimes (also more on this in a bit).
So that's all you need to understand how the game works. Now I'm going to do you the courtesy of respecting your time, something that the devs didn't seem to think was important while creating this game.
Here we go. You ready?
Young girl has parents. Dad's nice, Mom is strict. Girl grows up into teen, Strict mom is strict about all things and is unfun. Nice Dad is super fun. Girl teen applies and gets into college. Dad dies. Everyone super sad. Strict Mom becomes even more unfun. Teenage girl grows into woman, leaves college. Still sad about dead dad. Gets a job, earns living. Much success, owns their own business. Mom dies. Woman sad. Somehow blames HERSELF???? for the mom being a strict and sometimes neglectful overbearing parent?!? Somehow the final message is that SHE (the child into an adult) should have tried MORE to understand her boar of a mother?!? (main character actually says this)
Woman now super success, goes to Japan to understand super sucky mom's past. Keeps only some things from dead moms house to remember the suck-tastic memories of childhood.
the end.
there are some annoying bits in there. Like without you knowing the main characters name you somehow need to solve a puzzle with fridge magnets spelling out their name...yea idk. Or like the main mechanic being super annoying when you are looking for that one 'window' to the next point and click picture and its a small pencil or doorknob or something. In those moments the games momentum is interrupted and the already winded story is paused until you find the one angle or small window it needs to continue talking. And to be honest it's just...awful.
TL;DR
Story was a luke warm 2.5 out of 10
Game Mechanics were 4.5 out of 10
Message was a 0 out of 10 for me
So probably skip this title (or if you are really that curious go watch a play through or something)
and uh...hug your kids or something...I don't know.