Last night I spent way too long just staring at a pixelated window across the street. The telescope mechanic, it's basically a loading screen with jiggle physics, but somehow I couldn't stop. You're this doctor guy in New York, fresh start, fancy clinic, and the first thing the game hands you is a way to spy on neighbors. My first thought was "really?" My second thought was "is that her yoga instructor?"

The whole thing runs on choices that feel like they matter until they don't. There's this one scene with your coworker, a doctor girlfriend type, where you can either be professional or lean into the creep factor. I picked the creepy option because obviously, and the game just... moved on? Like nothing happened. Next day she's smiling at me in the break room. I kept waiting for consequences that never came. But then twenty minutes later some random patient interaction triggered a whole subplot I didn't see coming. The writing's like that, inconsistent but occasionally grabs you.

It's a visual novel with various endings apparently, though I've only found two so far and one of them was just the game bugging out on a loading screen. For a browser game the file size is ridiculous, takes forever to load compressed jpgs that still look like they were run through a microwave. The Patreon version probably looks better, that's what the popup said anyway. The French translation option made me laugh for some reason. There's this one neighbor character who's barely in it but her two scenes are burned into my brain, something about the way the camera moves. Or doesn't move. It just sits there, and you sit there, and nothing happens, and it's somehow the most affecting part of the whole thing. I don't know what that says about me or the game. Probably both.