IFComp 2023
Sometimes I feel like my reviews are mostly confessions that I didn't “get” someone's art. :sweat: That might be appropriate to “Gestures Towards Divinity,” a meditation on the art of Francis Bacon, an influential 20th century painter who I know nothing about.
I was a little lost at the start of the piece; I jumped into and out of paintings a few times before realizing I was supposed to talk to the subjects, and then I wasn't sure what to talk about; I was probably three dozen commands in when I finally reached for the help text, which explained how important ASK, TELL and especially TOPICS would be. My bad for not catching this sooner, it's not like these are unusual commands. After that it was off to the races.
There's some subtlety here in convincing characters to open up to you, by raising topics in the right order. I was bad at this - I'm pretty sure I locked myself out of important interactions with the Barista (even though I apologized, and even though I got the achievement for exhausting the conversation). And with Dyer's corpse I looped through topics a few times (which the story deftly acknowledged in dialogue) to get through his defenses.
Interviewing Dyer at two points in his life centered Dyer's relationship with Bacon in my experience of the story. It certainly didn't paint Bacon in a good light, and I was sympathetic with the Barista when she described the disappointment of discovering an artist you admired has done terrible things. Maybe this is part of why I don't think GTD did much to illuminate my understanding of Bacon's work. Looking up the triptychs after the fact, I still bounce off of them. If anything, I'm less interested in Bacon and his work after learning a bit about the themes I'm likely to find by digging deeper. Was that the intent?
Skimming other folks' experiences with GTD, it also seems like I missed a lot of content. Someone mentioned there's a character who is a fan of Bacon's work, but I didn't have that conversation so I bet that significantly changed my overall impression. I only got half of the achievements. I exhausted conversations with the Fury, Dyer, the Corpse, and (I think) with the Barista. I never figured out how to wake up the Guard, or get water for the plant, and I never saw the self-portrait. I thought to check the walkthrough, but it was 404ing for me. (EDIT: If this happens to you, refresh your ifcomp.org page! It's fixed!) So it's also likely I've failed to engage with the whole work.
When I visit an art museum, there's a small fraction of works that just grab me, and another small fraction that I find compelling once I read placards and understand its context. But the majority of it doesn't especially speak to me. Sometimes that changes later. I don't doubt GTD belongs in the museum, and I admire the ambition, but today I read the placard and moved on.