Saving John

I don't think I can possibly discuss this without giving away the twist. Word of warning.

Still there? Okay. The twist here is that four of the characters here are the same person. This doesn't become apparent immediately, though there are hints and suggestions. Especially if you end the game with someone other than "Cherie". I don't think the full story can really be appreciated through only a single run-through. Multiple replays and explorations are required in order to get the full thing, to understand who these different personalities really are.

There's John: he's the main guy. Then there is Adam, the abusive alpha male; Sam, the pathetic milquetoast; and Lucretia, the rival to Cherie. Cherie is not one of the alternate personalities: she's John's girlfriend. The story begins with John falling into the water and beginning to drown; Cherie is reaching out to pull him from the water, and the story is told in the form of memories running through John's mind as he struggles to reach her hand.

The multiple threading works wonderfully because of the internal consistency. We have the recurring image of the damaged knuckles: it's mentioned in relation to each of John's three alternate personalities. Lucretia doesn't talk about it, and Sam has no idea what happened; but f we follow a certain thread, we actually see it happen when Adam bangs in a window. And then there is Sam's bowling, which is mentioned as "his thing", yet comes up in other threads, almost as a throwaway comment about John.

There is also the colour coding. Each of the personalities has a different associated colour -- red, orange, and yellow. I don't know that it necessarily means anything, but it's a bit of thematic stitching that helps hold the threads together.

Anyway, it helps that the voices are distinct, and the characterisation sharp. That's a very good thing in a story that's all about different personalities sharing a body.

Now, I don't know how realistic this is, as a picture of a Multiple Personality Disorder. But I enjoyed exploring it.

It's like ... crabcakes at dawn, with a pair of soft-boiled eggs and a jug of orange juice. I have no idea where the crabcakes came from (was there a party last night?) but dang they are delicious.