The liberation

A room under the roofs, with lime-coated walls. An iron basin on the floor. Clothes on a chair...

The liberation is a short hyperlink fiction game done with the Twine-Engine (the developer told me that the game was made with Texture-Writer – interesting!).

The story is about a revolutionary who is sitting in an embassy, isolated from the outside and cut from his comrades since many years. He is pining to walk, and if it is for the last time, on the nearby street, knowing that this would be his certain death. Sitting in his chamber, he is about to write a last and incisive letter. What is it about, and what will he do? Any further word would be a word too much.

The game is text only, and the writing is absolutely pristine; tense, with a good and pointed language. The interface uses a special drag & drop quirk that works out quite well here: it fits the tone and atmosphere, and gives a certain feel of both lethargy and gravitas. The freedom of choice that feels reduced for the protagonist is paired in the players freedom to control the events that happen within the game – but in the end, the supposed restrictions are broken – this game offers us its own answer to the question how free the individual really is.

A single run will take less than thirty minutes. The game offers different outcomes, and I recommend to check them all out. Nothing more to say, really. The liberation is a short, very good game.