Stand Up / Stay Silent

First, a tange of literally no value in this review: it was driving me nuts why I seemed so familiar with the title of this one only to discover it was clearly its own thing, and eventually I figured it out–I was thinking of the extremely similar name of the webcomic, Stand Still / Stay Silent. Aha, I thought. I should really go back and read more than the first two pages sometime. That’s, uh, really all there is to that tangent. Moving on.

I found the game much shorter than its thirty-minute estimate, unless replaying it is expected as part of the canonical experience, and I suspect it is. Generally, I really don’t know how I feel about this one. Primarily, the only two choices are to “Stand Up” or…yeah, you guessed it. And the impetus of the game is a cause I strongly support.

Mostly though, I’m chewing over the implementation of this game’s core idea in my head. Choose to help from the start, and [spoilers!

….go play it first.]

you join the greater cause, which is nice to see, and nothing bad happens to you or your comrades. And this feels like an oversimplification. Our protagonist and his significant other are clearly privileged, yes, and the game claims itself to be a fable, yes, so some degree of compression is expected, but still…it portrays a very hopeful ending wherein you are saved by the hand of the very woman you supported at the beginning. I’m down for a hopeful ending with the people taking shit into their own hands (and I could use that ending, tbh), but since the game itself is also, and truly, a call to arms…I don’t know. I don’t know how I feel about that ending where nothing bad happens. People get their shit fucked. People make sacrifices. Fascist pigs in riot gear aren’t going to play by the rules. Reality is…messy. Should the game have acknowledged that? I don’t know. But its idealized ending is gleaming propaganda–and is that an issue? Again, I don’t know. Honest.

What I do take issue with to some degree is one of the other endings.

You can choose to stay silent at the beginning, and the woman in the bougie restaurant gets arrested. Then, if you join the cause after mulling it over (and the game criticizes your lack of empathy, and then implies the only reason you’d join the protest is because you’re worried about your SO, but okay)…you still get a bad ending! Which basically amounts to, “Oof, if only you’d joined up from the start, but now it’s too late!”

Is that really the message you wanna convey about this, of all things? “You missed your boat, now it’s definitely too late”? Realistically, even if you missed your first opportunity to make a difference–even if you missed your first fifteen–the moment you decide to help, to go out and protest, to put your money where it’s needed or use your privilege to shore up defenses for the most vulnerable, it makes a difference. It helps. It’s not too late to help, and help is still needed, actively, now. And for a game whose goal is to recruit, I think it sorely missed the mark here.

As a game, like I said, I dunno, but I will say the passages were solidly written.

At the end of the game, along with a clear message–Black Lives Matter–a comprehensive list of resources are provided to inform oneself and get involved. Regardless of the quality of this piece as a game, that list, and this game’s entry into the competition, are action. I respect that.

Nothing else to say here, really. Black Lives Matter.