# “Coming Out Simulator” Review

2017 – 06 – 02 with ♥ from Froge
Synopsis

Release date: 2014 – 06 – 30.
Developers: Nicky Case
Licence: Public Domain.
Download: https://ncase.itch.io/coming-out-simulator-2014

Verdict: 4/5 stars. To all those queers and queeresses and to all else beyond: you will find great solace in knowing there is someone like you.

## Introduction

It’s been, what, five weeks since I’ve actually played an indie game, and here I am in the big slump wondering what in the world I’m going to do with no material two hours before deadline. Writing about something you know is easy; an opinion is just unraveling the scroll of your mind, or whatever hackneyed analogy I can make for thinking. It’s talking about something else that’s the issue. You gotta use “evidence”, because otherwise you’ll be called a “liar” and damage your “reputation” in the “civil courts”.

Under such circumstances I need something short, and something simple enough where I don’t need to think too hard about it. So a visual novel about the developer’s hyper – conservative Asian parents while coming out to them is sure to wash over me like it was nothing. I hope I don’t violate some arbitrary review standard by saying I’ve seen this before, when I was thirteen, the same year that Encase Dot Me made the inexplicably popular Colon The Game Colon Comma, which them’st’ve also made when they’re’am thirteen. Of course I was an idiot for not realising I was bisexual at the time, silly me for having the novel stick out in my mind for years after, I wonder why?

I worry that such novels are praised by people who don’t understand what it’s like to have a controversial existence, and so mindlessly say they’re a good thing, as if something that fits their agenda of not seeming discriminatory is considered to be automatically worthy of a recommendation. Of course, I don’t have any such agenda, and so remain the only reviewer unbiased in — “This game is dedicated to the public domain.”

Five stars.

## Let’s Begin by Reading

Coming Out Simulator is about Nicky Case and their Sans – Serif Place and how bloody awful it is to be gay, or at least half – gay. You happen to play as them, before they traitorously abandoned Canada and worked for Satan — it makes sense in context. Before that we learn their parents are the type of people you would be looking for an excuse to get the heck away from at your earliest convenience, and I can’t make any more assumptions that, because I’m certain it would piss the author off.

As the name implies, you happen to come out to them, or at least in my readthrough due to me not having any time for this “replayability” meme. You are then lucky to not be beaten, only abused, in the grand tradition of “it could be worse”. At the end the author tells you the truth about what actually happened, as this is indeed a game based on a filthy lie, or as the author says, “half – truths”.

Listen, I don’t need to be here. If you’re already intrigued by the title, you’re intrigued enough to read this work. It’s GitHub page has its pull feature blatantly abused to express how people cried at it. Myself, I enjoy these types of choice – driven novels. It provides the white – knuckle thrill of picking the most practical options, and the cringe of thinking about whether it will happen to you. Unless you’re straight, of course. Privileged bastards, though unlucky in that they will never want to snog themselves, nor feel the pleasures of the flesh in their entirety.

## Conclusion

It’s irresponsible of me to rate somebody else’s life story, to say I did not find it as fascinating as I could have, or to not have experienced the same visceral thrill as some people have, or even to say I am simply the type of person to sly – talk my way out of any situation and so feel an almost foolhardy level of confidence when reading this work. I instead rate the fundamentals, and they are there.

The directing is solid; I liked how the cat’s meow provides a bit of a heart – punch. It is only slightly thematically inappropriate, as I continue to find the sentence – starting – with – lowercase trend personally annoying and distracting from the serious message. Sometimes we are given choices based on information we do not know. But it is what it is; if I am forced to rate based on how much something is deserved to be seen, then this is a fair rating, in the absence of being forced to explain the star system yet again.

I will not accuse anybody who recommends this book to do so out of manipulation or peer pressure; it is a good one. It is simple and gets its message across, and also made me feel a little startled. The developer is certified based for having freed their good work under the evil copyright regime, though loses good boy points for retweeting from “The Oatmeal”. Don’t think I let that one slip by, Nicky.

Those of you who feel diffident about reading this experience, I recommend losing such diffidence and diving into it head – first. You are certain to learn something from it; a work that teaches is a worthy work, indeed.

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