I Write Games Not Tragedies is a narrative-driven rhythm game about an emo kid going through life, battling with addiction, and growing up.
There seems to be a narrative game for every story, but I have not played many games that bring to life the high school story of an emo kid coming into their own. This title is a narrative rhythm game all about Ash, someone who is making sense of being a teenager, crashing out, and exploring music.
This game goes through a character’s lifetime, allowing you to follow and shape Ash’s journey from being a teenager in the early 2000s to becoming an elder emo in the 2020s. It follows major life events like battling with addiction and talking to his crush. It’s a lifetime of growing up, being cringe, making friends, and possibly letting some go along the way.
A lot of what brings Ash comfort is music (which I feel is a very relatable teenager thing). I Write Games Not Tragedies does have rhythm elements, where you need to tap buttons in time with lyrics coming down the screen, giving you more of a focus on the songs that Ash is feeling and listening too. There are even moments where the game requires you to scream out into a microphone, giving you a score based on how devoted you are to it. This screaming, especially at a public event (I got the chance to play the game at Good Game Dev Festival) that I played it at, made me feel just as cringe as Ash does, which I found very funny in retrospect.
I Write Games Not Tragedies does have a mix of cringe and sentimental moments. You can almost feel the awkwardness dripping off of Ash, who isn’t quite an adult and isn’t quite a child, but somewhere in between during his adolescence. I only got to play a shorter demo of the game, but found myself relating to the anxiety Ash had and that sort of over-thinking that teenagers do.
I Write Games Not Tragedies is available now on Steam.
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