I've never played a visual novel before, but I was expecting something far less interactive than Analogue: A Hate Story. Before I started playing, I knew the basic premise: search through the logs of a long-missing spaceship, and find out what happened to the crew. Fortunately, it would seem that my idea of what the game might be was formed from the driest possible description.
The journal entries and letters that make up most of the game's text are sorted and presented to you by a pair of AIs, both of whom add a great layer of characterisation to the main story. The opening in which the player and the first AI, *Hyun-ae, work through some interface quirks together is a neat way of building a bond, and it got me immediately engaged.
Once you get to the meat of the investigation, it feels like flipping through an old diary with a friend. Most of the log entries can be shown to the currently active AI, and they'll share some thoughts and opinions with you, often unlocking more documents in the process.
The more you learn about the society that formed on board the ship, the more the cracks start to appear and you see the injustices that ultimately led to the event that wiped out the ship's population. At that point, with a perfect sense of timing, the game presents you the option of speaking with the other AI, *Mute. Suddenly, everything wrong with the former inhabitants is personified in this one character. She revels in the misery on display, and takes salacious delight in picking through the private lives of the crew. As she reveals more "unsent letters", I feel distinctly grubby. My reading partner had been replaced with a tabloid journalist.
Of course, this game is too well written to leave it at that. As the nature of *Mute becomes apparent, we understand what she was built to do and the ideas she was made to reinforce. This is certainly not a story of moral absolutes; no one is virtuous, no one gets away clean.
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