Player Comments on True Life

DISCLAIMER: The intro to this review will be a bit long, so to summarize it and give you a TLDR: Read it. Sterling City stories good. Two thumbs up. Each story different from last.

You can skip the intro if you’d like and go to the overall story review, which is further down. Now on to the review!

INTRODUCTION

Although I was first introduced to Ninja’s work through his grimdark fantasy piece, “Heavenspire”, I found myself soon gravitating towards his more modern stories afterwards. They are truly captivating in every sense of the word, holding your attention hostage and leaving you spellbound by the end. Sterling City, Sterling Suburbs, Rockstar, Degenerate, and True Life: all set in Sterling City, and all equally fantastic. Each story comes alive with the rough and gritty nature of Sterling City, while offering a different perspective on the city through the lens of a unique main character with different lived experiences and personality than the last.

So naturally I was really excited to read True Life. Honestly Ninja, you could make a Sterling City miniseries, and have each story be episodes, it would be a breakout hit. Maybe even each major path/storyline within each story be its own episode, after fleshing it out and adding some more details of course. Taken as a whole, the viewer would truly appreciate the fascinatingly grim city you built, that’s a composite of several dynamic and hard-boiled cities such as New York, Detroit, Chicago, Baltimore, New Orleans, yet unlike any individual city in particular.

And True Life certainly lives up to the hype. Because each Sterling City story is so good, there’s so much pressure on Ninja to innovate and reinvent each time he writes a Sterling story, because in the wrong hands there’s only so much you can do with stereotypical tropes of noir fiction before it gets boring. Fortunately for us, Ninja is constantly doing crazy shit, with fantastically diverse and versatile writing, making each story its own gem, different from the last yet matching in quality. It’s almost as if he’s looking at his readers gushing over his latest work and then saying, “Oh you thought the last one was the best thing I could write, huh? Well watch me TOP THAT, you haven’t seen nothing yet son.” But I digress.

I think I’m on my last Sterling City story, and I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t kind of sad to leave the world of Sterling City behind. By last story of course, I mean the last story I read, as I still have yet to review Degenerate even though I read that one before True Life. I mean, throughout the weeks I’ve read Sterling City stories, the city as a whole has sort of grown on me. I got the chance to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes, see things through a completely alien perspective, that changes each time morphing into someone new yet just as fresh and cool as the last. In these stories, you not only choose between different actions, but also get a minute by minute play by play rendition of the character’s thoughts that really grounds the story and makes it feel much more real, as if I’m really that person, if only for an hour.

More than just moseying through the story and picking random choices, these stories compelled me to go through all the various plots and subplots, diving deep into the minutiae in order to get a full appreciation for the story. So I’m going to miss Sterling a lot, but fortunately, True Life was a fantastic high note to end on.

TRUE LIFE REVIEW

True Life is a very unique story to be featured in the “Love and Dating” category. Much like another great story featured in this category, “Private Game for Natalie”, this story takes a traditional love story and turns it on its head. In this case, the story does this by starting with a sentence where a character admits to the gruesome murder of his wife. It’s shocking, intriguing, and leaves the reader instantly wanting more. For a first sentence hook, it can’t get much better than that.

True Life is essentially a conversation. It may be just a conversation, but it’s the most important conversation of your character’s life(ok, i might be overstating it a tad, but it’s still important!), one that has the potential to decide the trajectory of his career for better or worse. In this game, you play as a reporter for the Sterling Press. You’re interviewing a high profile murder case, a wealthy investment banker who murdered his wife in cold blood. Naturally there’s a lot of interest in this case, a man with no priors and a seemingly perfect life suddenly snapping and murdering his wife is odd to say the least. So all the news outlets have swarmed over this big story, but till now he’s refused to give the full true story to any of the outlets. Until now that is. Well, if you play your cards right.

It’s a bold move to write a story that centers around a conversation, where the main character has to carefully probe and delicately extract the full and complete information he is seeking. In a sense, the story isn’t really about the reporter, he is merely the vehicle for the real main character, the investment banker who murdered his wife. The story follows this main track, with offshoots depending on whether you make the wrong choices. In that sense, it’s relatively linear, but the mini branches are interesting enough to read through, although depressing since ultimately, you didn’t achieve your goal and the murderer refused to give you the story.

The story, therefore, was ultimately a game of social maneuvering, of being clever enough to indulge the man. You don’t see a lot of games on here that deal with the subtle and social intricacies of interacting with a murderer and trying to understand/empathize with him enough to the point that he would feel comfortable sharing his story. In that sense, the story touches on a very underrated aspect of police procedurals and crime fiction: bonding with the criminal. Mr.Richardson knows he’s got the scoop of a lifetime, and therefore holds it over the MC’s head, milking it for all its worth.

Mr.Richardson is a very fantastic character that’s very beautifully written. In contrast to the main character, who’s only a mirror to reflect off of and enhance Mr.Richardson, Richardson is a very 3 dimensional character. He’s remarkably intelligent and thinks in a very analytical and logical way. He sees the world and the people around him in numbers, thinking of how he can exploit them or get them to do what he wants. As an investment banker, this skill has afforded him well, and that skill paid off in his pursuit of love. He even demonstrates his skills in an entertaining episode where he sets a bait and predicts the Sheriff's response to a T in a chilling display of his intelligence. He also tests the main character by having him give a secret for a secret; by forcing the main character to share a little about his own love story, Mr.Richardson is testing to see whether the narrator would genuinely care about what he’s about to say, or he’s just another opportunist chasing a hot story that’ll be completely bungled and misrepresented in the actual article.

Of course, it may seem like I’m gassing up Mr.Richardson, praising him to high heavens but like any other person, he has flaws. To put it bluntly, he’s a long-winded egoist blowhard with an overinflated sense of his own intelligence and insight, forcing the narrator to constantly play ball yet there’s a kernel of truth and insight in what he says. Of course, even though his meandering constantly frustrates the narrator, it’s entertaining and interesting enough on a writing level that it hooks you with every word. I should reiterate, the writing is great on a literary level, it’s only long-winded in a story sense because as a reporter, the main character wants a succinct account that he could write about, so he must manage his own frustrations and show patience to get the ultimate payoff that makes it all worth it.

Also, beneath the carefully constructed facade Mr.Richardson puts on is a more unhinged man, as evidenced by his reaction to the narrator repeatedly saying “Yes” to the question, “Did it end on good terms?”. I liked that truncated ending, it sheds some more light on the character. The short endings added to the game-feel, of trying to play Mr.Richardson’s game and socially maneuver through this conversation to get to the end.

Another interesting character was the Sheriff. Although he’s a minor character that only shows up briefly in the story, he is sort of the audience insert, interjecting in between and gasping at all the right places, and giving us the perspective of an older more conservative man listening to the sordid love affair of a younger man. Opposite worlds, yet to an extent the story still resonates with the Sheriff because of its fundamentally human nature, and this dichotomy was beautifully written by Ninja as it shows up as a recurring theme throughout the story.

He meets his wife in a diner, where she’s the waitress serving him and his work buddies. From here the love and dating aspect comes into play, as we see in great detail what exactly drew Mr.Richardson to Beth. Beth is all about living the true life, almost to a fault as we will see later. But for now, her desire to live life to the fullest, and truly experience life draws Mr.Richardson to her. It also breaks down his walls, as previously he was analyzing and performatively trying to manipulate things so she falls in love with him, but then he falls hopelessly in love.

It wasn’t written cornily or sappily, rather the love affair was written with a startling amount of realism. I love how authentic Mr.Richardson’s feelings were described. We get a glimpse of the duality of Mr.Richardson’s character as he displays some rare vulnerability by describing his feelings in great detail. On one hand, he is a cynical closed-off banker who’s seen all there is in the world and is very aloof and withdrawn, but once he starts to open up, he describes Beth as being a girl who would have ballads and heartfelt messages written about her.

Needless to say, narratively it was very satisfying as the mystery slowly unfolded, with each piece to the puzzle being added as Mr.Richardson dropped another detail that slowly completed the whole picture. By the time I got to the end and finally understood the reason why Mr.Richardson murdered his wife, it felt complete, yet very depressing. By getting us to actually care about this character, Ninja manages to humanize a murder and give us a glimpse into his mind. Even though killing someone for being depressed is a very fucked up line of thinking, we couldn’t help but feel sympathy and sorrow for the main character for experiencing love and bliss so pure that he was on cloud nine, only to be brought down by reality.

In a sense, even though Beth was the one who craved true life so much that when she couldn’t have it, she contemplated suicide, Mr.Richardson is equally a slave to true life. For him, each and every special moment with Beth was true life, and when she was going through a tough time, he lashed out. And he finally felt alive again for a brief moment when he murdered his wife, because he felt like he was finally releasing her from the confines of life that’s not true. Even though he’s charismatic enough to get us fooled into sympathizing with him, at the end of the day, what he did was horrible. In that sense, the story was fantastic as humanizing a villain and really fleshing out his story in such a great way. It was masterful pacing, giving us enough to keep going, yet letting the puzzle slowly piece itself together and really making you work for the final reveal.

I thought the side path with Rose was interesting. It really touched on the ephemeral nature of true life; how just when you think you caught it in the palm of your hands, it slips away like a phantom, leaving you in the dust, vainly waiting for it to come back with outstretched hands and grasping fingers. At first glance, Rose seems like the perfect match for Mr.Richardson. I particularly loved the way Ninja described the writing process here, linking the command a person has over their writing to the command a person has over their thoughts. The aspect of writing showcasing us at our best, most insightful, since we can spend as much time as we want revising and editing what we write was a good observation. So how much or little time you take says a lot about who you are. Rose was someone who chose each word carefully, so Mr.Richardson really liked that about her. Only to find out that in spoken word, she was the exact opposite, which killed the attraction Mr.Richardson had for her. On some level, I think this is an interesting observation on the illusory nature of True Life, just when you think you found it, it turns out that not all that glitters is gold. It mirrors the main path in a way and shows that Mr.Richardson will forever chase this feeling without ever finding it.

OVERALL TAKEAWAY - 8/8

The story was incredibly thought-provoking, philosophical and cerebral, leaving you dumbstruck at the end of it, wondering about whether you are living true life right now and to what lengths you’d go for a chance at true life. True life is so unquantifiable, so abstract, yet we all know what it means on a fundamental level. This story truly touched at a core facet of humanity, the need to truly feel alive, going beyond the day to day malaise for an experience that’s truly special. Of course, the inherent irony is that in order for something to be special, it inherently must be rare, so some people spend their lives chasing the ever-fleeting impossible feeling of constantly feeling alive. And like in this story, some people are even willing to kill for it.

Well, dang! This is the first of Ninja’s stories I have read, and I see now that I have done myself a great disservice in waiting this long. This story is certainly not what I expected it to be, and that greatly enhanced my experience. After reading it, the title is brilliant.

I would have to say that this story feels extremely close to literature grade stuff. It feels like something I used to find reading the stories in a literature textbook that were never assigned. The story is about as modern as any I have read on this site so far. When I say “modern,” I don’t just mean the setting either. This story feels extremely twenty first century, but in a cutting edge, original kind of way both in plot and language.

Most stories focus of the hopes and potential of a person, whether good or bad, and build from there. This does something else entirely. This is actually a very complex story thematically, and I’m afraid that I will not do it justice, but it seems to me that the theme is that of struggling against one’s nature. It’s this that humanizes all the characters, yet their natures are much different than one would expect. They’re not people exactly, but “types” of people. Each one is a lesson to be learned.

Whether it was intended or not, though I rather expect it was, the story is littered with existential musings and leaves one deep in thought.

All in all, I definitely recommend this story.

SPOILERS

Every character was a work of brilliance. I enjoyed them all, so I’ll just analyze the key players and demonstrate what I liked about them.

Andrew Richards is the focus of this story. That’s not to say that the protagonist is not characterized. The protagonist is handled brilliantly, but one could almost say that Andrew Richards is the story. Andrew Richards is a murderer, and he murdered his wife no less. It seems that this story has captured something of the zeitgeist in America at least (maybe more countries, I wouldn’t know). The amount of true crime entertainment is a testament to that. I wouldn’t want to say that the story being about a murderer is quite what makes the story so impactful though. It’s a field trip through the mind of a coherent maniac. Thus, it seems to become a story that creates a sense that any one of us could become murders given the right quirks in the right settings.

Andrew Richard’s reminded me of Phileas Fogg in Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days. Every habit is calculated with a care for efficiency. He is also written as an extremely intelligent and calculating character while still holding on to a human, obsessive side. Taking advantage of his characterization is his lover and foil, Beth.

Beth is sick of life going on the same way day after day and is always looking for something new. This is when I really was able to see that the story was much deeper than I was prepared for. I’m not sure whether Ninja intended this or not, but he demonstrated and defied Kierkegaard’s three stages of life. Beth really wanted a meaning in life, and at first, found it is experiences. Søren Kierkegaard would have said that she was in the aesthetic stage and because of my familiarity with Kierkegaard’s work, I guessed the next stage would be either the ethical, or the religious. As made sense with Beth’s character, she did not visit the cerebral ethical stage, but moved to the more experiential religious stage and became a Catholic.

Of course, were this a Kierkegaardian story, it would have ended here, but instead, she continues longing for a high. The religious stage did not cure her despair, but made it even more poignant. Of course, Heaven was the greatest “high.” I won’t go on summarizing, but I will say that Beth’s attitude, assuming Andrew Richard’s is a reliable narrator, was certainly a plot twist that took me by complete surprise.

An then there’s Rosie. I don’t have much to say about her. She was certainly tragic, and also reminded me of all the times I’ve heard or read about women crushing on serial killers or terrorists. Of course, this kind of woman probably isn’t as common as portrayed on the media, but Rosie, her suicide, and the guard’s attitude were all too real.

The protagonist is an interesting character. He almost reminded me of a kind of hard boiled detective. He’s seen a lot and has a sort of street smart way about him. Most of the story features him matching wits with Mr. Richards, and he holds his own easily. In contrast with several other characters, he seems to be an anchor of unspiritual realism, with a kind of sensual edge. He’s not worried about metaphysics, but what’s here and now, like getting his job done.

The writing of the story itself is beautiful. It’s modern without being immature or unrefined. That’s an extremely hard balance to achieve, so color me extremely impressed. There are a few typos and a couple of words don’t have spaces between them, but they don’t detract from the story. The voice of the writer (or the inner voice of the protagonist) comes through beautifully. It’s not just the dialogue, but every sentence of prose lacks a punch.

I also loved the way the story was structured. The interview was great, sustained interpersonal conflict and drove the story. I also like how every branch contributes to the theme. The murder, Rosie, the girl from the bar. They all feature characters trying to escape themselves or their circumstances, but failing.

In summation,the story took a piece of my soul and forced me to examine it. 8/8

Dear Ninjapitka, really romance? Romance? As the biggest hater and consumer of romance stories I really detested the fact that I had to read another story of that cursed corner again thanks to you. I thought I finally was done with it, read very steaming pile of gushy sparkly badly written high school prom games and every "muh girlfriend died and now I'm sad, woe is me" story. Well this game is actually neither, so I was really pleasantly surprised.

True Life actually feels more like a part of a noir detective series than a typical romance story. In the limited descriptions, the reader could easily parse the grimy nature of the setting; the constant mentions of smoke, the weird bleeping thermostat, the bars Andrew often mentions or the drugs. In fact, the romance is not even really shown in person.

Everything about her and their relationship is told by Andrew, her former husband via an interrogation room. So everything he says about her should probably be taken with a heavy hint of skepticism. Throughout the whole story the reader is left to question how much of the truth he's telling to us. For example: did Beth really want to commit suicide? Was she really a drug junky like Andrew said she was? Did Andrew kill Beth as a form of mercy or was it more like a fight looking at their rather tumultuous relationship. The fact that there's not really a second source to fall back on, plus the fact that Andrew REALLY LIKES TO FRIGGIN RAMBLE ABOUT NOTHING makes the truth even harder to parse out.

So I also have to say that I'm a bit jealous that you pulled this kind of concept off better than me hahah. Darn, the emphasis on dialogue, the minimal descriptions and the fact that the basically the whole game takes place in one place with Andrew (not you) being the key narrator. You did this concept so well that I'm not even angry at you. With all these elements together, the whole atmosphere feels very cramped and tense even though all that these fellas do is talk. The fact that we also have so few characters, means that the whole experience feels very intimate.

Now onto route 2 (ha, you thought I was done, sikes), route 2 is a lot shorter and mainly features Julie, A girl you literally meet one second and have a one night stand a second later. Oh yeah, Julie is kind of bland, but that doesn't really matter. This is kind of a short branch and not very noteworthy IF IT'S YOUR FIRST PLAYTHROUGH. What gives this branch meaning, is when you discover in the Andrew route that this protagonist had this relationship with Tiffany and it seems like it didn't work out well. Basically, it is heavily implied that our resident writer is still not over Tiff which is really great and subtle characterization hehe.

All in all, if you want some noir flavoured interrogation scènes and well written dialogue, check this story out. This has my recommendation.

Are you trying to get a featured story-game in every category? Because that just isn’t fair. You've already taken my spot on grim-dark fantasy, and this story-game has too much descriptive writing and branching, and many ways for you to read a unique ending, that I cannot rate it lower than what I feel it is worth, which is like a really good rating.

Why? Because Ninja has made a game that's a bit different than the ones I've read from him that have dark fantasy elements and magical things happening. No, True Life is a story that's realistic and grounded enough for what I think many that read it can see happening to someone on this earth. Be it someone they know personally, or even just some passing acquaintance.

This is a story where the individuals are very flawed and human, but that kind of thing makes for some of the best mature kind of stories. I think history has done more than show us that a statement like that isn’t one that has not a trace of validity to it.

Wow, this comment has become kind of a tangent. So I'm just going to settle my thoughts with saying to anyone that may find their eyes roaming on the page that has this story-game, and if you're able to get a glance of my comment and perhaps read a sentence of it or two..

Read this. It's another work from one of the most talented writers on this website. It will be well worth your time.

super well written and interesting concept! i wish there was an ending where we could get with drew though; it felt like it kept hunting at that what with all the discussion of homosexuality and us getting jealous over rose but i'm pretty sure i found all the endings and that was impossible

I have a problem

that was awesome

Short but interesting and all

dumb

Having read a few of these stories now I can say pretty confidently that ninjapitka is one of the best authors on the site, as far as their writing goes. But I'm always left wishing for more choices and interactivity. The more linear style is not a detriment to shorter stories like this one though, this is just a fascinating character study I'd recommend to anyone.

rlly boring. no action.

Did not like

Loved it :) This story was short and sweet. Good imagery as per usual. I n e e d more. When’s part 2 coming out?

I will say that this is a pretty linear game, but the story you hear from the murderer is so involving that I can't mark it down for that, 8/8.

I thought that the main story was an overall good one, I can diffidently see how this is a seven out of eight in the maturity level, my favorite character in this was Julie. I didn't to a part where she has a backstory but what I did read was a very interesting and down to earth person who I liked listening to. the overall way that the story was introduced was very seamless and how it just started with the action was very interesting. the language in this story was very literate and I enjoyed when the characters talked to each other because is was so enthralling. if you are the type of reader who likes to listen to poetic interesting writing then this is the one for you.

I only needed to read three words of the description, and I wad sold.