This is such a wonderful game!!! It’s so thoughtfully designed and well-written. The dialogue feels incredibly real and every element of the UI made me so nostalgic for when I was little and the Internet was my primary source of comfort. The use of IMs as a narrative device is so clever: there’s so much anxiety in sending off a message and being forced to wait for a reply and it really puts he player in Alex‘s shoes. I’m so glad I tried this.
I just finished playing this game for the past two hours and it's honestly one of the best games i've played in years. i thought the storylines and characters were all written so well and done beautifully. i totally relate to alex to questioning their identity and not knowing that it was a thing. i got to the part where it was day 4? where you talk to the dad then he takes away your internet privileges but i can't seem to get past that part. i really enjoyed the game but i wish i could figure out how to get past this part and finish the game.
I don't want to spoil you, but I've struggled too so: here's an help ! First open the terminal and type : ls /Alex/Applications
And then you try to open the M.Net_Chat.play using the techniques that Laguna teached you (./Alex/Applications/[App_Chat.play])
Then she will explain to you how to go further.
If yo don't figure out the password, keep exploring using the same techniques, but if you still don't figure it out : ALEX is the first password and then you'll see \(^-^)/
I don't know what to say besides that I loved this game. I don't know of any other game which would encourage me to write 500 words of fanfic about a fictional show I know nothing about. But I did it; I don't know if it had any gameplay consequence, but it had an emotional one.
This game was so beautiful. It was really like reliving my own childhood. I had the same types of internet friends that i also shared my creations with, I had the same speech(writing) patterns as Alex and some other charas...There's too many things too count. It all felt so familiar...so very familiar. It almost makes me cry. And there was always one option in every dialogue option selection that was exactly like what i would say, do, and behave like back then.... that alex that i created through my choices was exactly me, and..it. it was something so special. it felt like living the times that i loved so dearly, that were so very special, and that are long gone, again. thank you.
Yo, this 'os' is super bugged - try opening two chat windows
I also closed the game & reopened it, & lost all my progress - is there a 'save game' button? I couldn't find one!
arrrrgh, i think there's another bug? I was just talking to jenni, & then a message from 'John' popped up, but when I clicked on his name there were no messages, it just said they're all archived?
When I try to close & re-open the message viewer, it opens two windows! one of which is my 'current' chats, the other is all the chats 'rewound' to the start?
Super frustrating b/c i loved the game so far, really nice atmosphere, really like this 'kind' of game, where you get thrust into someone else's life and get to figure out who they are & what their relationships are by browsing their messages & forum posts.
i first found this as a part of the amazing BLM bundle, and ofc brought it, because it meant i was supporting an amazing cause and also getting lots of amazing indie games from it. i found this one while i was surfing the games i had gotten, and it REALLY piqued my interest. i finished it a couple hours ago, and it so amazing made. there are so many paths to select, great life lessons of accepting yourself for who you are and i loved forming friendships with the many people in the game;
please buy it.
it is 1000% worth your money, and an AMAZING project. <3
brilliant amazing game. nothing for me to say that hasn't been said before it is awesome
one thing that puzzles me tho are the "secret" .sit archives in the game's directory, trying to use stuffit expander tells me that they're password protected. maybe i missed something in game? brain cells go brrrrr
I saw this recommended.. I dunno, I think on Twitter? By a friend, at any rate. When I saw it in The Bundle (you know the one), I knew it would be the first game I installed and played.
This game knows right where to punch. Not just in 'the feels,' but in the past. Right in the suppurating heart of the childhood that never felt *quite* right. Alex's experiences aren't an exact mirror of my own, but there was an immediate and recognisable authenticity to them. It got me right in my gay heart... and I'm only just coming to terms with the fact I have one of those to begin with.
If you're trans or non-binary, or even just had Gender Feelings at one point on your life.. or even if you haven't, but you want a glimpse into it, you should play this game.
I'm gonna go cry now, because Fiction Dad keeps calling me the wrong name :(
No joke, this is one of the best games I've ever played, I love every single aspect of it (except the terminal XP) I HIGHLY recommend it to anyone who is considering it,I'd also highly recommend that you go in completely blind for the greatest experience. I really hope there can be some kind of sequel in the future.
I Loved the game! This is one of the only games thats had me in tears! I almost never play a game straight through but I did with this one. I loved it I related so much to so many different aspects of it. Even being ftm i could fully relate to how she was feeling.
Saw this recommended on the bundle, and have loved it so far! Encountered a bug that's stopping me from progressing, though.
MINOR SPOILERS:
I get to the part where Jenni(?) says "It's not like anyone's going to stop you, right?" and get a (1) notification from John, but when I open that log, it's empty. D: Excited to finish it though, hopefully I can get it to work!
I loved this so much! It really did remind me of early internet days and exploring yourself as a teen. I'm NB and I remember feeling that same sort of "wait, you can do that?" that Alex experiences. Her interactions with her father were also eerily familiar, and just. Amazing work. <3
just want to chime in and say that this game really resonated with me and helped make me feel unafraid about being myself, i will always hold this game to the highest regard, it's a must-play, and honestly it's one of my favourite works of trans art in general. victoria deserves all the roses she can get. <3
thank you so much for this game <3 i wish i could more eloquently put into words how well this captures the feelings of being young and trans and trying to figure yourself out. this game is one of those things that is going to stick with me for a very long time.
I also wanted to say, that I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought and even though I'm too young to know the Internet from 20 years ago, I still enjoyed every aspect of the Game. A bit annoying was figuring out the passwords. But yeah, thanks for making this AMAZING game, it really touched my heart.
okok so i finished the game after puzzling my way through the terminal commands (i'm... less computer literate than i thought i was, lmao) and i'm here to share some thoughts!
so first and foremost: i am SO impressed with this game. alex is such a real, heartwarming character, and as a trans man myself i relate to her experiences of discovering herself. seeing creative projects that talk about the trans experience fills my heart, and this game nearly made me cry.
something laguna said--"people who aren't like us straight-up just don't think about that shit"--is in sentiment identical to the tumblr post that made me realize i was trans (something like "cis people don't wonder if they're trans) so seeing that in-game felt really true & real.
and [SPOILERS] my most favorite part of SLH was the "is here for you" messages on the last day. that was really what nearly brought me to tears. it just filled me with so much happiness.
thank you for making this game! it means so much to me. thank you.
There are some other things I forgot to mention yesterday (and couldn't edit my post in time due to my computer breaking), so I thought I'd make an addendum post. I find it almost surreal how much this game lines up with my real-life experiences. If it weren't for the fact that he's divorced, John would've been a 1:1 direct parallel to my own real-life father, in ways I needn't explain. It made the scenes he forced poor Alex to talk to him and him alone (as well as his crazy obsessions with her) hit pretty close to home for me, which likely seriously heightened how much this game sucker-punched me in the feels. ^^; Even when he wasn't actually talking to her, seeing his bright red eye perpetually spying on Alex while she's having fun felt rather unnerving.
[Spoilers ahead!]
Even other situations in the game felt so trippy in how much it parallels to my situation - him forcing a blocker onto Alex's computer (mirroring my own father installing a similar blocker of his own on mine), Alex using the computer's Terminal utilizing the programming tricks Laguna taught her earlier on (mirroring my closest friend, skillful programmer that they are, helping me utilize Windows Terminal tricks to bypass my own father's blocker), and losing several friendships in one fell swoop due to poor wording choices from Alex due to the stress she had over the situation (mirroring me doing the exact same thing in 2017). Besides the aforementioned divorce thing, and how not all of Alex's friends map 1:1 to my own history, the only irony is that certain names of certain characters do not entirely match my life - were you to swap them in just the right way, I'd seriously feel like you had been spying on my life since the day I was born and decided to make a game about my life to try and reach out to me Matrix-style, or you were like my future self or some shit XD
This game will always hold a special place in my heart because of how deeply relatable it is for me. I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel my mind telling me I should ironically tell my dad to play this game simply so he could experience how it's like to be in my shoes when he yells at me, but deep inside I know that he'd either just entirely miss the point of the game or why I'd ask him to play it in first place, or just get mad at me for having played a "queer game" and quickly connect the dots as for my secretive gender identity. Sigh, ah well, sorry for rambling, I just kinda wanted to get this off of my chest ever since I finished the game. Regardless, thank you for having made this, Victoria - sincerely. I loved this game.
I've never played a visual novel type game before and I think I've peaked with the first one! I love love LOVE the interface and the whole premise is so clever. It took me back to the early days of the public internet and how sacred the communities were. I got so involved with each characters and my heart genuinely froze whenever I saw a message from John. The ending made me bawl like a baby. Such a wonderful gem of a game :)
This was beautifully painful. Thank you so much for making it. I'm not quite able to put my love of this game into words, but just know that it is a lot.
I don't think I'll ever be able to properly put into words what this game means to me. I was just checking out what games there were in the bundle I had just bought when I saw this game, and immediately noticed "trans girl" in the description. To no one's surprise, as any trans egg thirsty for trans content would, I installed the game as fast as I (and my computer) could manage.
And here I am, a few hours later, still gaping, laughing, crying, and feeling another thousand or so emotions I can't even name. Just about everything about this game - the visuals, the music, the writing, the way it completely and shamelessly got under my skin and abused it to the fullest potential leaves me in awe. Seeing Alex's journey of self-discovery in striking parallel to my own was both heartwarming and painful. Seeing the game's mechanics and my expectations of them blow up in my face to really put me into the mindset of a parental abuse victim was heartbreaking but extremely real. This game reminded me that I have a really long way to go until I can completely affirm that I'm living my best life and that I'm happy, but that, in the end...
I'll figure it out.
I could never thank you enough for this experience.
This is an amazing game. The story is interesting, emotional and a huge trans mood. The gameplay's really fun, it's nice being able to just explore the various apps and forums.
I played this for an hour and enjoyed every second! The main character reminds me a lot of how I used to be lol. But when I tried to quit and then continue playing later it started me from the beginning of the game? is there no save system?
I really did just sit in my room and cry for four hours! This was so cute and sweet,,, This game hit me harder than any other game I've ever played. Thank you for such a wonderful game!
such a wonderful game and experience, even as someone who was born 2 years after this game takes place, i still related to alex immensely,,, that feeling of ease and safety when you're talking with your friends and doing girly things is all too familiar.
also i have to say the music in this game is also spectacular and enhances the experience even more, it's amazing!! i'm going to be thinking about this game for a very long time, thank you <3
Oh, wow. I'd been meaning to play this game for a while, and finally got it through the bundle and...... wow. I'm transmasculine, and the game takes place like a month before I was born, but the way it hits on so many of my specific experiences is incredible. The game is so immersive and I truly felt every moment as if it were happening to me. The warm, happy moments, but also the fear. John's presence is just so effectively terrifying - the way his eye is boring into you as you go about your business... I couldn't let my guard down; every day I felt like I was just waiting for the moment he would come online and everything would fall apart the second you feel at ease (the fact that some of the dialogue was so, so painfully familiar to me certainly helped make it scarier). Anyway I'm gushing but I can't get over how effective and beautiful this game is. I just finished a few minutes ago and I was sobbing - scared tears and happy tears. I'm so glad I finally played this game, I'm so glad it exists. <3
I got this game and it was a joy to play! I couldn't put it down, I loved reading Alex's journey and self discovery. On a side note, does anyone know where to get the walpapers? I'd like to use them for my actual computer!
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This is such a wonderful game!!! It’s so thoughtfully designed and well-written. The dialogue feels incredibly real and every element of the UI made me so nostalgic for when I was little and the Internet was my primary source of comfort. The use of IMs as a narrative device is so clever: there’s so much anxiety in sending off a message and being forced to wait for a reply and it really puts he player in Alex‘s shoes. I’m so glad I tried this.
I just finished playing this game for the past two hours and it's honestly one of the best games i've played in years. i thought the storylines and characters were all written so well and done beautifully. i totally relate to alex to questioning their identity and not knowing that it was a thing. i got to the part where it was day 4? where you talk to the dad then he takes away your internet privileges but i can't seem to get past that part. i really enjoyed the game but i wish i could figure out how to get past this part and finish the game.
I don't want to spoil you, but I've struggled too so: here's an help !
First open the terminal and type : ls /Alex/Applications
And then you try to open the M.Net_Chat.play using the techniques that Laguna teached you (./Alex/Applications/[App_Chat.play])
Then she will explain to you how to go further.
If yo don't figure out the password, keep exploring using the same techniques, but if you still don't figure it out : ALEX is the first password and then you'll see \(^-^)/
I don't know what to say besides that I loved this game. I don't know of any other game which would encourage me to write 500 words of fanfic about a fictional show I know nothing about. But I did it; I don't know if it had any gameplay consequence, but it had an emotional one.
This game was so beautiful. It was really like reliving my own childhood. I had the same types of internet friends that i also shared my creations with, I had the same speech(writing) patterns as Alex and some other charas...There's too many things too count. It all felt so familiar...so very familiar. It almost makes me cry. And there was always one option in every dialogue option selection that was exactly like what i would say, do, and behave like back then.... that alex that i created through my choices was exactly me, and..it. it was something so special. it felt like living the times that i loved so dearly, that were so very special, and that are long gone, again. thank you.
Yo, this 'os' is super bugged - try opening two chat windows
I also closed the game & reopened it, & lost all my progress - is there a 'save game' button? I couldn't find one!
arrrrgh, i think there's another bug? I was just talking to jenni, & then a message from 'John' popped up, but when I clicked on his name there were no messages, it just said they're all archived?
When I try to close & re-open the message viewer, it opens two windows! one of which is my 'current' chats, the other is all the chats 'rewound' to the start?
Super frustrating b/c i loved the game so far, really nice atmosphere, really like this 'kind' of game, where you get thrust into someone else's life and get to figure out who they are & what their relationships are by browsing their messages & forum posts.
oh my god. where do i start?
i first found this as a part of the amazing BLM bundle, and ofc brought it, because it meant i was supporting an amazing cause and also getting lots of amazing indie games from it. i found this one while i was surfing the games i had gotten, and it REALLY piqued my interest. i finished it a couple hours ago, and it so amazing made. there are so many paths to select, great life lessons of accepting yourself for who you are and i loved forming friendships with the many people in the game;
please buy it.
it is 1000% worth your money, and an AMAZING project. <3
-natpat ^u^
brilliant amazing game. nothing for me to say that hasn't been said before it is awesome
one thing that puzzles me tho are the "secret" .sit archives in the game's directory, trying to use stuffit expander tells me that they're password protected. maybe i missed something in game? brain cells go brrrrr
I saw this recommended.. I dunno, I think on Twitter? By a friend, at any rate. When I saw it in The Bundle (you know the one), I knew it would be the first game I installed and played.
This game knows right where to punch. Not just in 'the feels,' but in the past. Right in the suppurating heart of the childhood that never felt *quite* right. Alex's experiences aren't an exact mirror of my own, but there was an immediate and recognisable authenticity to them. It got me right in my gay heart... and I'm only just coming to terms with the fact I have one of those to begin with.
If you're trans or non-binary, or even just had Gender Feelings at one point on your life.. or even if you haven't, but you want a glimpse into it, you should play this game.
I'm gonna go cry now, because Fiction Dad keeps calling me the wrong name :(
an OUTSTANDING story and INCREDIBLE experience!!!!!!! what a great way to spend a good few hours!! :D
Wonderful game. Thank you so much.
I stayed up till 12:31 and played this in one sitting.I would put this with games like Oneshot and Celeste in how highly I would recommend them.
No joke, this is one of the best games I've ever played, I love every single aspect of it (except the terminal XP) I HIGHLY recommend it to anyone who is considering it,I'd also highly recommend that you go in completely blind for the greatest experience. I really hope there can be some kind of sequel in the future.
I Loved the game! This is one of the only games thats had me in tears! I almost never play a game straight through but I did with this one. I loved it I related so much to so many different aspects of it. Even being ftm i could fully relate to how she was feeling.
This game is beautiful and amazing, i loved this experience.
Saw this recommended on the bundle, and have loved it so far! Encountered a bug that's stopping me from progressing, though.
MINOR SPOILERS:
I get to the part where Jenni(?) says "It's not like anyone's going to stop you, right?" and get a (1) notification from John, but when I open that log, it's empty. D: Excited to finish it though, hopefully I can get it to work!
A friend of mine recently got me this game in a bundle, I haven't finished it but... thank you. So much. This game is amazing.
from, a young trans girl
those scenes with the dad really just struck some fear deep within me that I don't think I've ever felt before it was crazy
anyway get this game especially if you're trans like me it's good
“LS”, not “IS” :P
I loved this so much! It really did remind me of early internet days and exploring yourself as a teen. I'm NB and I remember feeling that same sort of "wait, you can do that?" that Alex experiences. Her interactions with her father were also eerily familiar, and just. Amazing work. <3
Hey I found a bug, um when you click the chat option too many times it opens two chats and you cant finish the day until you finish both chats.
Otherwise the game is amazing I love it so much
just want to chime in and say that this game really resonated with me and helped make me feel unafraid about being myself, i will always hold this game to the highest regard, it's a must-play, and honestly it's one of my favourite works of trans art in general. victoria deserves all the roses she can get. <3
thank you so much for this game <3 i wish i could more eloquently put into words how well this captures the feelings of being young and trans and trying to figure yourself out. this game is one of those things that is going to stick with me for a very long time.
Thank you so much for this game! It really resonated with me!
I also wanted to say, that I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought and even though I'm too young to know the Internet from 20 years ago, I still enjoyed every aspect of the Game. A bit annoying was figuring out the passwords. But yeah, thanks for making this AMAZING game, it really touched my heart.
okok so i finished the game after puzzling my way through the terminal commands (i'm... less computer literate than i thought i was, lmao) and i'm here to share some thoughts!
so first and foremost: i am SO impressed with this game. alex is such a real, heartwarming character, and as a trans man myself i relate to her experiences of discovering herself. seeing creative projects that talk about the trans experience fills my heart, and this game nearly made me cry.
something laguna said--"people who aren't like us straight-up just don't think about that shit"--is in sentiment identical to the tumblr post that made me realize i was trans (something like "cis people don't wonder if they're trans) so seeing that in-game felt really true & real.
and [SPOILERS] my most favorite part of SLH was the "is here for you" messages on the last day. that was really what nearly brought me to tears. it just filled me with so much happiness.
thank you for making this game! it means so much to me. thank you.
There are some other things I forgot to mention yesterday (and couldn't edit my post in time due to my computer breaking), so I thought I'd make an addendum post. I find it almost surreal how much this game lines up with my real-life experiences. If it weren't for the fact that he's divorced, John would've been a 1:1 direct parallel to my own real-life father, in ways I needn't explain. It made the scenes he forced poor Alex to talk to him and him alone (as well as his crazy obsessions with her) hit pretty close to home for me, which likely seriously heightened how much this game sucker-punched me in the feels. ^^; Even when he wasn't actually talking to her, seeing his bright red eye perpetually spying on Alex while she's having fun felt rather unnerving.
[Spoilers ahead!]
Even other situations in the game felt so trippy in how much it parallels to my situation - him forcing a blocker onto Alex's computer (mirroring my own father installing a similar blocker of his own on mine), Alex using the computer's Terminal utilizing the programming tricks Laguna taught her earlier on (mirroring my closest friend, skillful programmer that they are, helping me utilize Windows Terminal tricks to bypass my own father's blocker), and losing several friendships in one fell swoop due to poor wording choices from Alex due to the stress she had over the situation (mirroring me doing the exact same thing in 2017). Besides the aforementioned divorce thing, and how not all of Alex's friends map 1:1 to my own history, the only irony is that certain names of certain characters do not entirely match my life - were you to swap them in just the right way, I'd seriously feel like you had been spying on my life since the day I was born and decided to make a game about my life to try and reach out to me Matrix-style, or you were like my future self or some shit XD
This game will always hold a special place in my heart because of how deeply relatable it is for me. I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel my mind telling me I should ironically tell my dad to play this game simply so he could experience how it's like to be in my shoes when he yells at me, but deep inside I know that he'd either just entirely miss the point of the game or why I'd ask him to play it in first place, or just get mad at me for having played a "queer game" and quickly connect the dots as for my secretive gender identity. Sigh, ah well, sorry for rambling, I just kinda wanted to get this off of my chest ever since I finished the game. Regardless, thank you for having made this, Victoria - sincerely. I loved this game.
I've never played a visual novel type game before and I think I've peaked with the first one! I love love LOVE the interface and the whole premise is so clever. It took me back to the early days of the public internet and how sacred the communities were. I got so involved with each characters and my heart genuinely froze whenever I saw a message from John. The ending made me bawl like a baby. Such a wonderful gem of a game :)
This was beautifully painful. Thank you so much for making it. I'm not quite able to put my love of this game into words, but just know that it is a lot.
I don't think I'll ever be able to properly put into words what this game means to me. I was just checking out what games there were in the bundle I had just bought when I saw this game, and immediately noticed "trans girl" in the description. To no one's surprise, as any trans egg thirsty for trans content would, I installed the game as fast as I (and my computer) could manage.
And here I am, a few hours later, still gaping, laughing, crying, and feeling another thousand or so emotions I can't even name. Just about everything about this game - the visuals, the music, the writing, the way it completely and shamelessly got under my skin and abused it to the fullest potential leaves me in awe. Seeing Alex's journey of self-discovery in striking parallel to my own was both heartwarming and painful. Seeing the game's mechanics and my expectations of them blow up in my face to really put me into the mindset of a parental abuse victim was heartbreaking but extremely real. This game reminded me that I have a really long way to go until I can completely affirm that I'm living my best life and that I'm happy, but that, in the end...
I'll figure it out.
I could never thank you enough for this experience.
This is an amazing game. The story is interesting, emotional and a huge trans mood. The gameplay's really fun, it's nice being able to just explore the various apps and forums.
I played this for an hour and enjoyed every second! The main character reminds me a lot of how I used to be lol. But when I tried to quit and then continue playing later it started me from the beginning of the game? is there no save system?
to my knowledge, the game only saves when you log out at the end of a day.
weird, thats what I did. I quit right after reaching the end of the first day. I guess ill try again later
I really did just sit in my room and cry for four hours! This was so cute and sweet,,, This game hit me harder than any other game I've ever played. Thank you for such a wonderful game!
I love this game with all my heart, to whoever reads this, please play it
such a wonderful game and experience, even as someone who was born 2 years after this game takes place, i still related to alex immensely,,, that feeling of ease and safety when you're talking with your friends and doing girly things is all too familiar.
also i have to say the music in this game is also spectacular and enhances the experience even more, it's amazing!! i'm going to be thinking about this game for a very long time, thank you <3
Oh, wow. I'd been meaning to play this game for a while, and finally got it through the bundle and...... wow. I'm transmasculine, and the game takes place like a month before I was born, but the way it hits on so many of my specific experiences is incredible. The game is so immersive and I truly felt every moment as if it were happening to me. The warm, happy moments, but also the fear. John's presence is just so effectively terrifying - the way his eye is boring into you as you go about your business... I couldn't let my guard down; every day I felt like I was just waiting for the moment he would come online and everything would fall apart the second you feel at ease (the fact that some of the dialogue was so, so painfully familiar to me certainly helped make it scarier). Anyway I'm gushing but I can't get over how effective and beautiful this game is. I just finished a few minutes ago and I was sobbing - scared tears and happy tears. I'm so glad I finally played this game, I'm so glad it exists. <3
As a trans girl, I found this game relatable and incredibly well written.
I really wanted to play this game, it sounds right up my alley, but it makes my screen go black and flash on and off :(
I got this game and it was a joy to play! I couldn't put it down, I loved reading Alex's journey and self discovery. On a side note, does anyone know where to get the walpapers? I'd like to use them for my actual computer!