don’t take it personally, babe, it just ain’t your story (which I am going to have to abbreviate as DTIPB) is a new game from the writer/game-designer Christine Love. She is best known for the adventure game Digital: A Love Story which was praised for its storytelling, but less so for its mechanics. DTIPB changes the format into more of a ‘Digital Novel’ with a branching storyline and provocative content. Is the jump to a less interactive medium a failed risk, or a move in the right direction?
You play as Rook, a two-time divorced middle aged “hottie”, and the new homeroom teacher to a prestigious private high school. While the story proceeds from the perspective of Rook and initially the player, it is soon made clear that you have very little control over what Rook does or says. The majority of the game is just observing the story unfold with the occasional decision for the player to make. These choices can range from picking someone in class to answer a question to deciding whether to commit acts of pedophilia. The script itself is sometimes eerily similar to what teenagers actually sound like, with some very deliberate characterization. You even find one student addressing her classmates and even Rook as “bro” or the “bro-est of bros”. This characterization makes the students more unique and eventually more memorable.
The few decisions can be difficult to make.
The story does not restrain itself as far as content goes. Rook is constantly faced with situations involving love, hate, suicide, homosexuality, bullying, and voyeurism. As the player, it can be frustrating not having complete control over Rook. It makes for a story where the player can feel helpless and frustrated. This does, however, motivate the player to think carefully about the few situations where they can make a decision. It is in those few moments, where you have to take your hands off the mouse and keyboard to think about the consequences of each decision, where DTIPB truly shines. In the end, DTIPB makes you think, and you can’t say that about many other games.
DTIPB has a straightforward design and gameplay that relies on its story to provide most of the entertainment. For most of the game you just click anywhere on the screen to continue the story. After a while of clicking though, you notice a semi-annoying sound popping up and a small notification icon flashing on the top right corner of your screen. This notification is coming from your computer and more specifically the portal to your AmieConnect, or a futuristic Facebook clone. What is special about your AmieConnect account is that you can see everything your students post; both public and private. As a teacher Rook is given this privilege for the sole purpose of stopping cyber-bullying. After only a bit of gameplay, you find that it just ends up being used to follow the teenage drama that is going on outside the students’ studies. Reading the students’ personal messages and conversations becomes an addicting affair, where the player can lose track of what is going on in the real world because you are so involved with the online conversations.
AmieConnect is your portal to your student's personal lives.
Your computer also comes with a mail client and a portal to the website 12Channel, which is a futuristic 4Chan clone and mimics the format of the website while maintaining the style of the “anonymous” users. The only times you seem to be able to actually read the website is when you are about to go to your office (usually when a student asked for a meeting). The game also requires you to read it at these times, not allowing you to move on until you have read the thread which is suddenly available. This makes the website feel a lot less dynamic and more of a scripted sort of article the game requires you to read. Even when you are required to read a single thread of 12Channel, it doesn’t seem to add to the story at all. 12Channel doesn’t degrade from the experience, but seems like a wasted opportunity.
All the school drama and privacy-invading occurs in a primarily anime-esque world. Each of the few settings are only distinguished by a background drawing. In order to help the player know who is talking, every character has a few drawn sprites of themselves that don‘t add much to the narrative next to a change in facial expression. The UI is clean and convincingly futuristic with sharp edges and transparencies where appropriate. The drawings of the characters are for the most part high quality but DTIPB falls short at the moments where there are fullscreen drawings. These are supposed to highlight more important moments of the story and while they may help present the scene, they lack the sharpness of the character sprites and seem unfinished.
DTIPB appears to be more of a novel than a game, but the few interactive moments and the integration of AmieConnect come together to help you feel like the decisions are yours. The anime aesthetic may put off some people but does help make the few characters memorable and distinguishable. Ultimately, the only reason you will never want to turn this game off is because of the story. If you have been looking for a game that makes you think instead of just trying to keep your attention, don’t take it personally, babe, might just be the game you’ve been looking for.
don’t take it personally, babe, it just ain’t your story is available for free for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS at the author’s website.
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