Gaining Perspective is a text game about extreme weight gain, with a fairly genuine approach to pace, presentation, and darkish themes. The depictions are unapologetically gritty, leaning toward realism even as the player reaches immobility and even well-beyond. Face physical challenges and repercussions, personal sacrifices, and pressing health concerns. Gameplay is turn-based and mostly linear, but also includes random events, budget strategy, and a surprising story with a mysterious twist.
The setup: Itās your 30th birthday. You still remember your late cousin, who met his demise a decade prior. He held out longer than anyone expected during his remarkably one-sided battle with runaway obesity. Now, you notice signs youāre putting on weight in a startlingly similar fashion. Will you resist? Will you face the consequences? Will you have enough time to uncover the entire truth behind your transformation?
I have a few ideas for other events, and even some different endings ā but Iāve stepped back to take a breather now that the project has been out for a bit, and the most egregious bugs have been worked out. No timelines for new content at this time. I appreciate the interest, and glad you enjoyed it.
Hey, no problem with the honest review. The game has a grim premise, and is designed to go in a direction that many may find disconcerting. I was fascinated by some of the eventualities of ultra-extreme obesity, this was a pet project that came of some of those concepts. I fully respect that you chose not to go further with it.
Iām not sure if Iāll be tackling another āinteractiveā story or game any time soon. Iāll probably want to learn a new programming platform before that happens.
lol thanks. Not often you get āworstā, āinsaneā and āgreatā in the same review. XD
Hope you find the other endings. (Let me know if you get stuck). That ābadā end really is supposed to hint that somethingā¦ anything must be better. XD
Iām going to sound rather weird but did you create a scenario where the protag actually went to their 31st birthday party and wasnāt judged for the weight (where it causes an ending) and the game continues after that point?
The reason being is that I remember I did go to a birthday party and read I walked home with some cake in my hand, maybe I am mistaking it for something else.
Also is it possible to reach the 33rd birthday as well, as I did managed (barely though) reach the 32nd birthday, though I did pig out greatly in the first half of the story which made it rather difficult.
I believe I have it set up so that if the protag is more than 500lbs, then goes ahead with the party (or cannot afford to have Paul make excuses to cancel it), then it is always a game-ending event.
There are some slight variations in the text if youāve managed to stay significantly lighter. As for additional birthdays beyond the 31st, I did add a trigger for more birthdays, but didnāt test it extensively. My guess is that it could be nearly impossible to āsafelyā host the party beyond the first year.
Thereās also the issue where Twine bogs down (and history/saves get flaky) if the game runs that many turns.
I got āforced rehabilitationā ending from my first playthrough. Later I started over and managed to avoid forced rehabilitation event but I hadnāt had the nerve to finish playing through the part that came afterwards because the stuff that was described seemed scary & unnerving. A very unique game, 8 out of 10
I canāt seem to access the game anymore, whenever I try, it says site canāt be reached, is this just something on my end or is the game totally inaccessible now?
Hmm. The server seems to be working normally. Iām not going to claim there couldnāt be hiccups since itās hosted behind a residential ISP, but Iād appreciate reports if folks are noticing a continued outage.
1) Reach final weight without enlisting help of Donna. The hint on how to get her on board appears in the Quick Start Guide. This ending is the most brutal and unsatisfying, and lacks some back story elements.
2) Get Donnaās help, but say ānoā during the āGuinness Recordsā event. Still very bitter-sweet.
3) As above, but answer āyesā during the same event. The closest you get to a happy ending. ^_^;
Iām not aware of an easy way to do this, and itās not really needed anyway.
The three main endings are described above. And the ācheatsā menu lets you get to the main branches fairly quickly.
If youād like to guarantee youāve seen all the possible dialog and story passages, Iād suggest using your browsers āview page sourceā option while playing. (Or better yet, āsave asā and open in a text editor that has word-wrapping. This also has the benefit of keeping a copy of the game locally in case the server goes down.) The formatting wonāt necessarily be easy to follow, but all the possible text and message blocks will be buried in there.
