Good idea, and one that should really hit home.
The experience felt tightly scripted to me, and if that’s the design, I think picking from offered replies would work better than typing freely - writing my own words kept making me test whether the game cared what I said, and it mostly doesn’t. A set of choices would carry the same weight without that doubt. (The reaction to my typo was a lovely detail, though.)
Nice work on the atmosphere.
Thank you, this is the most useful comment I could have hoped for. That doubt you describe, "does it care what I said?", is exactly what the game is about, and the answer is no. There's no AI answering in the background. It's a fixed script, and the script is a textbook of manipulation techniques used by narcissistic parents. You can't win: it's rigged from the first line, because that's how living with a narcissist works. Choices would have made it feel fair. I wanted it to feel like talking to someone who isn't listening. But you're right that players can't tell "rigged on purpose" from "broken", and that's on me for not signposting it. Glad the typo reaction landed. Thank you for playing.
