Heavily inspired by the short story “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, The world had been sad since Tuesday is a fantastic exploration of society and human nature when presented with new phenomenon.
Arthur C Clarke notoriously stated that “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”. However, one thing that Clarke didn’t take into consideration is human skepticism. When society is presented with new things, they can react in a whole variety of ways, but a common one is gawking disbelief; Poking things with sticks, throwing rocks, and calling names.
Much like the short story which inspired it, The world had been sad since Tuesday‘s angel is treated as a freakshow attraction. Kids gather to call it names. Religious figures appear to denounce it. Bored travellers come to gawp and stare at it. Undeniably, when humans are scared or met with the unusual, we are at our worst.
I highly recommend both playing the game and reading the inspiration. An obscene amount of care has gone into both, and there’s been so much adapted into the Bitsy version that they are inseparable. Both are incredibly well structured, and the role that we play in the game belongs as much as the family in the story. Plucking feathers from the ground and tossing crabs into the ocean brings both pieces together perfectly. While both carry slightly different meanings, they fit together like jigsaw pieces.
The world had been sad since Tuesday is available now on itch.io.
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