Three Cheers for the Strawman

Writing is dynamic, it is formless, odourless and abstract, it's a skill not guaranteed to improve through practice and in fact you may get worse the harder you try. A writer's weapons are their words and they must use them deftly and in a good order. In my experience, sometimes it's difficult to even write chat messages that feel like they're worth reading. It has been a primal struggle since humanity started pursuing improvement in the art of storytelling, trying to tell stories in more captivating ways, until the formulas have become so well-trodden that innovation is truly difficult to find, and it seems like "there is nothing new under the sun". This story is about a writer. Her name is Juno, Juno Treisse, and she writes stories she wants to tell, not necessarily for others.

The themes of the game span creative frustration, social dysfunction, depression, a downward spiral, green roots, vines and shoots inexplicably growing out of blue islands in a black sea, jealousy about the success of friends, and more. I'll try not to dive much into the nitty-gritty of the characters and specific events, because this game is short, and short games are easy to spoil. But everything else is fair game.

What's the story?
I liked the story a lot. Juno's emotions make themselves physical in this dark world (this first part of the game is too dark. hard to see everything, it's just dark blue on darker blue, and while it is atmospheric, it just means i'm straining my eyes to see the edges of objects), which is obviously not a real place, but instead a surreal manifestation of her inner turmoil. If nothing else, Red_Nova's games have one common streak - they use surreal environments to reflect their character's emotional state, eventually leading to some kind of redemption, the nature of which may differ. From Prayer of the Faithless' sequences in a misty parallel world, to Remnants of Isolation's impossibly architectured halls, to Soul Sunder's physical exploration of the character's personal secrets - the visual representation of unseeable spirituality rendered these games more visceral and tangible. What you see supports the story. This philosophy hints at Red_Nova's gameplay philosophy, which has increasingly seen a slow transition towards Craze-like standing encounters, post-battle heal and nil death penalty. When you die, you simply respawn on the same spot - not without emotional blackmail, mind you. You are taunted upon a win by a haunting "did it actually feel good?" message, and upon a loss you are bombarded with a lament about the pain you've caused the protagonist to go through by dying. These are the sugar to what would otherwise be vanilla game overs and other normal system events you see in RPGs. Stat boosts are tied to personality traits and the character's general journey. There's a sense that gameplay and story want to be glued together as close as possible, like best buds never wanting to leave each others' company.

These battles have their laces tightened and tied around their ankles several times. Since his debut Soul Sunder, there's been evidence of an emphasis on minimalism and paring down battles to their roots. Stripping off all the baubles that give player confusing and meaningless information, pays off. Gone is the information that makes players think it helps them to strategize better, but only to give them what is needed to create strategy to win battles, and no more.

The game's battles aren't without flaws. Especially towards the end, encounters get repetitive - there's about 3 of the same type of encounter on the last map. But at least for the first half, new gameplay mechanics are introduced in each battle. I don't want to ruin the gameplay mechanics, as there lies much joy in the discovery of these mechanics, but only for a short time since this game is brief.

The basis of the game's structure

• Post-battle heal

• No death penalty

• Crystallic nodes representing story tidbits, combined with relevant stat boosts/penalties

• A flat linear structure with minor path branching

• Music continues through the battles, easing the flow between exploration and combat and keeping the atmosphere and tone intact

The game's design philosophies (from how I've read it)

• Try to make battles as strategic as possible with different ways of tackling

• Gameplay and story need to be glued together. Story elements are represented by gameplay changes

• Don't penalize the player for trying or experimenting - but still make it hard to win

• Try different things with combat and game structure to spice things up a little and create flavour

The main character speaks to you as you progress. They unravel their lives. There are the text equivalent of "audio diaries" in the game (they're just snippets of conversation you find scattered throughout the ethereal landscape). Discovering parts of the characters' personalities through these discussions was enlightening in a different way than my direct contact with the protagonist. Both sides of the coin were good - I just wish it went for longer because I was genuinely interested and hooked.

It feels difficult to extract developer from game here. This game is about the creative process, about writing, about struggles of development, it's a peer into Red_Nova, or at least a version of Red_Nova. It'd be a mistake to equate this with Red's personality, but perhaps this is a primal human concern of our nature we should all be aware of, and monitor, and improve, and mull over. Ambition can kill the soul, Macbeth has taught us. But it is not just ambition, but anxiety about one's lack of achievements. Something you know that exists, but you can't shake it. Something you feel was forced upon you, like you didn't have a choice and you were just born with a certain brain. I don't mean this to say that Juno is even especially more bitter than any writer towards the successes of those around her - I mean to say that we should expect to see jealousy as a trait in all of us, peeking out here and there, even in the most innocent and loving of personalities. Sufjan Stevens sings in John Wayne Gacy Jr. about a sad and tragic event that occurred, a kidnap and murder after coercing into lewd acts of several youth in the neighbourhood, in a very sad and touching song, but then in a final refrain, he admits sadly, "But on my best behaviour, I am really just like him. Underneath the floorboards, are the secrets I have hid." This root evil in all of us is something that is brought to the fore. We have to be careful how we are to be, because the potential to do great evil lies in all of us.

Juno expresses feelings of disillusionment with the idea that joy arises when you work together with others... this seems to be a place of loneliness away from cooperation, the place where one feels isolated and unable to work with anyone the way others seem to be able to work with each other - and that is to say, seamlessly and with great happiness and eternally rejuvenating positivity. Instead of being refilled by human interaction, Juno feels drained by them, as if there is willpower to be stolen back, some force of life that is owed to her.

I don't have much complaints about the story writing. The couple I do are as such -- I feel as if writing a story about a writer is a crutch for a writer and can seem overused. As soon as Vincent entered the picture I thought this might be a romantic story between writers, and I felt like this was a bit contrived even if it was a common story. If Red_Nova grabbed this from his autobiographical life, I'm sorry, I in no way mean to belittle your personal romance, it is probably beautiful, if it indeed exists. If it doesn't, that's just as okay.

Some negatives: I wasn't informed whether a save function existed or not, which was sad. The death cycle is too long, and the ringing in the ears got annoying after a while. I get that this is supposed to be hurtful, but any kind of this pain done with repetition got past of the point of bringing a great message through the audio/visuals, to something just frustrating. Butcher's Cleaver itself is overpowered - it will heal you and damage your opponent, but it's an over-useful attack at just 10 power. Battles got way easy towards the end.

Conclusion
In conclusion, Three Cheers is a game with relatively little cheer but a lot of deep, dark introspection. It's well-written and its story supports its gameplay. It has a very interesting character at its centre. I wish it had gone for longer. Balancing could be improved towards the end. It is a very deep philosophical piece, and it is one of the most heart-on-sleeve games I've found on this site.

Three Cheers for the Strawman gets a 4/5 from me.