Subserial Network
| Subserial Network | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer(s) | Effigy Softworks |
| Publisher(s) | Effigy Softworks |
| Platform(s) | |
| Release | 2018 |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
Subserial Network is a 2018 video game created by independent developer Effigy Softworks. Upon release, critics praised the game for its facsimile of early online digital spaces, and the exploration of themes around gender identity. The game received an Honorable Mention for the Nuovo Award at the 2024 Independent Games Festival.
Gameplay
[edit]Players assume the role of an agent of CETUS, tasked with locating rogue synthetics who have strayed from their assigned role. Searching through the Meshnet, a facsimile of an early Internet browser, players can read messages and forum posts, and listen to music on a virtual media player.[1]
Development
[edit]Director Mathilde Park, who led the project and writing for the game, stated that the game's themes were shaped by life experiences, including their experience with gender-affirming surgery, and stated the game's premise was to facilitate "understanding" and "empathy".[2] The game was developed in Twine.[3]
Reception
[edit]PC Gamer praised the game's "excellent writing and amazing music", describing the process of "deciphering the enigma of who you are, what you're trying to accomplish, and whether or not it's the right thing to do" as an "absolutely gripping experience".[4] Describing the game as a "gripping snoop-fest that tangles with big ideas", Kotaku praised the game's "interesting" presentation and use of a simulated internet as adding "a lot of weight to the sleuthing" and making the player feel like "a proper cyberpunk detective".[5] Rock Paper Shotgun praised the game as "on form" for the developers' "meta-fictional cyber-scribbling", highlighting the "familiar webscape" of the meshnet and its "whirring world and its community of internet-obsessives", comparing its concepts of digital consciousness to the work of science fiction writer Greg Egan.[6][7] The game also received an Honorable Mention for the Nuovo Award at the 2019 Independent Games Festival.[8][9]
Several critics discussed the game's themes and representation of the science fiction and cyberpunk genres.[10] Discussing the role of sexuality in science fiction, PC Gamer described the game's sequences around androids confronting their identity "affecting" and "haunting, even divorced of subtext".[2] Khee Hoon Chan of Unwinnable praised the game's use of language as "fascinating", discussing how the "mechanical perspective" of the game's android characters subverts players expectations about how those characters understand their bodies, and serves effectively as "an analogy to the transgender experience and gender dysphoria".[11] Developer Bennett Foddy similarly discussed the game's themes of "trans experience, alterity, gender dysphoria, and self-actualization" and how the use of nostalgia created a "undercurrent of loss and disappointment" that "resonated very strongly" with me around the lost optimism of digital spaces.[12]
References
[edit]- ^ Macgregor, Jody (24 September 2018). "Subserial Network is a 1990s internet simulator with android-hunting". PC Gamer. Retrieved 15 June 2025.
- ^ a b Macgregor, Jody (5 August 2018). "Sexuality and gender in science fiction games". PC Gamer. Retrieved 15 June 2025.
- ^ Evans-Thirlwell, Edwin (27 September 2018). "Saving punk from Cyberpunk". Eurogamer. Retrieved 15 June 2025.
- ^ Davenport, James (29 December 2018). "17 games from 2018 you might've missed". PC Gamer. Retrieved 15 June 2025.
- ^ Alexandra, Heather (19 September 2018). "A Cyberpunk Detective Game About Finding Rogue Androids". Kotaku. Retrieved 15 June 2025.
- ^ Cox, Matt (19 September 2018). "Investigate a post-human revolution in Subserial Network". Rock Paper Shotgun. Retrieved 15 June 2025.
- ^ Caldwell, Brendan (14 May 2018). "Subserial Network is a realm where rebellious robots revel in rubbish websites". Rock Paper Shotgun. Retrieved 15 June 2025.
- ^ Independent Games Festival (19 March 2019). "Independent Games Festival Finalists & Winners". Independent Games Festival. Retrieved 15 June 2025.
- ^ Fogel, Stefanie (3 January 2019). "'Return of the Obra Dinn' Leads IGF Awards Nominees". Variety. Retrieved 15 June 2025.
- ^ Cole, Yussef (July 2018). "Finding the Future within Vestiges of the Past". Capsule Crit. Archived from the original on 11 July 2018. Retrieved 15 June 2025.
- ^ Chan, Khee Hoon (19 December 2018). "The Contradiction of Language in Subserial Network". Unwinnable. Retrieved 15 June 2025.
- ^ Foddy, Bennett (30 June 2018). "Subserial Network". That’s Not Fun. Retrieved 15 June 2025.