With Those We Love Alive

"Porpentine Charity Heartscape's games and curation have contributed to the popularity of the accessible game design software Twine." "Porpentine's With Those We Love Alive is a Twine game that invites the reader to become physically involved through marking up their own body with symbols throughout play. As a Twine game, the work relies primarily on text and audio along with backgrounds of shifting colors to draw the player into a disturbing science fiction landscape. The game opens with a level of customization that invites the player to become connected and even embedded into the game, choosing their month of birth, element, and eye color. As the player becomes a servant to a monstrous larval queen, the stage is set for a dystopia of dream-like and vivid yet mundane violence. After playing, the reader has a tangible record of their own choices and identity beliefs in the drawings on one's skin." -- From Electronic Literature Collection, Volume 3