Some of the best writing in games today
Analogue: A Hate Storysnuck up on the world behind and ended up becoming an international sensation. DeveloperChristine Lovehad been crafting these kinds of interactive narrative games for a while, butAnaloguetook her to a whole other level. It was even translated in Korean. Not bad for a one-woman operation.
No doubt encouraged by her success, Love is currently at work on aHate Plus ~Mute’s Golden Days~, the official sequel toA Hate Story. The game will be bigger, feature more narrative, and will use your save files from the firstHateto to affect the events in the sequel. We’ve also got the exclusive world from Love herself that “it’s going to be even darker thanAnaloguewas, issomewhatinspired by its namesakeLovePlus, that *Mute may or may not die, and that it features the AIs reading over your shoulder as a mechanic.”
One of my favorite thing aboutA Hate Storywas it’s ability to mess with my emotional reality, blurring the line between the “real” feelings and experiences and their virtual equivalents. To know that Love is working breach that line even further has me feeling very curious. Not virtually curious. Really curious. At least, I think it’s real curiosity. It’s hard to say for sure what’s real once Love gets in your brain.
