Venus Meets Venus -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Author(s): kaleidofish Genre: Slice of life Language: en First Publication Date: 2014-10-01 License: Freeware Rating: 3.5 (based on 27 ratings) ABOUT THE STORY Two women meet in a bar. This is not a love story. (Mature content warning.) EXTERNAL LINKS Play Online EDITORIAL REVIEWS Emily Short's Interactive Storytelling > Venus Meets Venus is a largely linear Twine story about a romantic and > sexual relationship (though it is very clear on not being a love story). I > read it through to the end. These Heterogenous Tasks > ‘This is not a love story,’ begins Venus Meets Venus (kaleidofish), > continuing this year’s trend of Twine games that start out by unconvincingly > defining themselves. I will grant, I suppose, that ‘love story’ might be > taken by some people as something more specific than ‘a story centrally > involving love’ (I’m obviously committed to similar positions re: > ‘interactive fiction’), but I still can’t help reading this as a rhetorical > denial. The XYZZY Awards Xyzzymposium 2014: Gabriel Murray on Best Story > Venus Meets Venus is written in second-person present tense, like many > games, though it asserts itself to be “a chronicle of all your past > fuck-ups.” For the most part, it sticks to conventional spelling and > grammar, though sometimes it drops to lowercase to denote drunkenness or > emotional desperation. The tense choice is interesting, given this: > presumably the story is a pained play-by-play of the narrator’s relationship > with Macy, her romantic interest, told in present tense because she > experiences her mistakes over and over again in present tense. If you keep > this in mind while you read, the experience is even more painful, because > what’s going to happen is prefigured. Inhabiting the mind of a person who’s > beating themselves up over past mistakes over and over in lifelike detail is > very different from inhabiting the mind of a person who’s living their > mistakes in the present. The effect is compelling from the get-go. Renga in Blue > I find dividing interactive fiction into “choice-based” and “parser-based” a > little troublesome, in part because there are other options for an interface > (like Ice-Bound or 18 Cadence) but also because point and click games can > reflect different gameplay styles: the inventory-and-puzzles of The > Contortionist inhabit a different universe than the strategy choices of > Begscape. Half-Life 2 and Portal are considered to be in entirely different > genres even if they are both first person using the same engine. Anya Johanna DeNiro Building the Player-Character: A Case Study through 4 Interactive Fiction Games > And, right, much of the choice in Venus Meets Venus is taken away from the > player. Which makes sense because of her ambivalence towards commitment. > What makes this so bracing is that the courtship between a cis woman and a > trans woman, with its back and forth — the coupling and later uncoupling — > doesn’t have a clear throughline about what Lynn wants. Lynn wants to get on > the rollercoaster. She doesn’t like choosing, and we are signaled right from > the beginning that this is going to go badly. The linearity of the story, > then, is largely a match with Lynn’s own psyche. Some Strange Circus Circus Reviews - Venus Meets Venus > Venus Meets Venus follows a disillusioned college girl named Lynn who > struggles through studies and sleeps around at the local bar. One night, she > meets a girl named Macy and finds herself oddly drawn to her. Her attraction > doesn't go away when Macy reveals that she's transgender, but it does > complicate things, as this is a culture with which Lynn has no experience. > That plus alcoholism plus standard relationship issues breeds a whole bunch > of problems for the new couple. And, after all, the game warns you that this > isn't a love story.