Content warning: This review contains mentions of domestic violence, child abuse, and homophobia.

Marie’s Room, by like Charlie, is an exploratory short story game. It is free-to-play through Steam, and won an award in the Brazilian Independent Games Festival’s “Impact: Social Matters” category in 2019. Having played this game through, I can say with confidence that the award was very well deserved. Though deliberately short, Marie’s Room is gifted with simple yet beautifully detailed graphics that are immediately evocative and immersive.

Its brevity works well for the story it’s trying to tell. I greatly enjoyed navigating my way through its mystery-laden, surprisingly dark narrative. All the more so as it didn’t feel the need for an abrupt tone change into conventional horror.

The controls in Marie’s Room are very simple and intuitive, though there are moments where movement around the room feels a little sluggish. This drag seems to fade after the early moments of the game, however, becoming fluid and easily navigable.

The details given through the game’s dialogue are both compelling and richly sensual. Dagmar Blommaert is a powerful, striking writer. Her script seamlessly, naturally captures the sensibilities of intense, volatile friendships between teenage girls in the wake of trauma.

It’s a real pity that the voice acting at the beginning comes off as a bit awkward and flat, initially letting down Blommaert’s compelling script. This also gets better as the game continues, though, and strikes the right notes of guilt, anguish, and anger when they’re needed most.

The soundtrack, meanwhile, is stunning. It’s atmospheric and beautiful without being intrusive. I have to give two big thumbs up to Dries Vienne and Simon Alexander for their musical work on this game.

One of the most noticeable things about this game’s story, as it unfolds, is that Kelsey is increasingly evident as an unreliable narrator. This is, in some ways, both a blessing and a curse. It very successfully evokes the inconsistency of 20-year-old memories held by an adult irregularly remembering her traumatizing teenage years. It also offers an intriguing, biased view of the story that is at times almost outright contradicted by the title character’s journal entries.

On the other hand, it means that other elements of the story remain confusing or unclear. This is perhaps deliberately done, but it left me feeling as though I would have to play the game more than once to fully grasp what happened.

Speaking of the story, I do have some complaints; just a couple, but they’re fairly major ones. There are several rather explicit mentions of domestic violence and child abuse throughout the game. These are abruptly dropped in without so much as a warning. Now, I’m not saying that these elements shouldn’t have been included, or shouldn’t be discussed. They made a lot of aspects of the story and of Kelsey’s character make more sense.

Yet there is neither hide nor hair of a disclaimer about this content. One could argue that I’m being oversensitive—”there are no trigger warnings in real life” is a common enough refrain. However, if TV shows can warn their viewers of dark content at the beginning of an episode, it stands to reason video game developers can too.

My other major concern is that there are multiple instances of the game’s titular character waxing poetic about how beautiful Kelsey is. How “connected” she feels to her and how deeply she wants to be her friend. My ears immediately perked up. “Unconventional friendship” in the game’s description made me roll my eyes a little, I’ll admit, but from that point on it got my attention.

The game frequently evokes classism as one of the major tensions in the girls’ friendship, which provides interesting commentary on its own. More than that, though, I was all on board to explore how these tensions were a product of one or both of them being closeted. I looked forward to seeing how the game resolved those issues.

Sadly, it essentially didn’t. The game does leave a fair bit up to interpretation though. If you’re like me, you’ll probably interpret Marie’s Room as queer as you please. Though it swerves into “no homo” toward the end in a fairly major and rather disappointing way. That isn’t new of course, by any means, but for a game I truly, earnestly thought was going there to close the door in my face; I have to admit, that stung.

That being said, I don’t regret playing Marie’s Room. It’s beautiful, evocative, and emotionally challenging. I’d certainly recommend it to people who enjoy this style of slow-paced, exploratory game. Still, to do so without sharing my two major caveats would be to speak in bad faith. If the game won’t provide you with content warnings, I will.

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Marie's Room

7

Score

7.0/10

Pros

• Pretty graphics
• Sensual details and dialogue
• Intuitive controls
• Great soundtrack

Cons

• "No homo"
• Sluggish movement
• Some confusing/unclear story elements
• No content warnings