Playing Every Game in the Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality
PEGBRJE: ‘Cosmonaut’ and ‘Meeting in the Flesh’
Well today is going to be short…
Cosmonaut is a space adventure game by Apprentice Soft. Unfortunately that is all I can say about it. As of posting this, the game cannot be played; it does not recognize the user’s current Java version, attempts to download the latest Java, and then fails to do so creating a loop of… well, nothingness. It also no longer has its Google Play store page.
If I ever see an update on it being playable, I will come back and edit this section — until then, we shall just have to be patient.
Meeting in the Flesh is a horror dating sim and visual novel by ‘inkEthic’, an indie team comprised of the duo inktrashing and cacoethic (hence the name). Using their complimentary passions of strangely terrifying things and narratives, players will step in to a strange world and possibly romance things even stranger.
Players will follow a simple salt carrier named Vil who lives within a massive city full of what we may consider ‘unsettling creatures’. The world is organically infused with humanoids and non-humanoids alike, where the buildings themselves may be more alive than the people.
Everyone survives off of salt, a precious commodity that requires hunters to discover and processing plants to manufacture. This is where Vil comes in. By running deliveries, Vil helps everyone get their salt so that they can survive or treat themselves (depending on the salt type). It is here that the player learns about the intricacies that make up this world, but more importantly it is also on this route that Vil encounters three possible partners.
Yiestol is the first to be met, and is the community overlook — a position in which he enters a pod and utilizes a massive building of eyes and spires to ensure that the city remains safe.
Next is the rambunctious Brattan, a salt scout and bipedal dog who is way too excited about everything all the time.
Finally there is Nyargh, the bee shop owner and the only romanceable ‘non-humanoid’. He is a mass of tentacles and mouths. Nyargh is stoic, which may have lead to why he is surrounded by so many strange rumors.
At first, the three routes focus on what makes each of the three characters different from one another, but it becomes clear quite quickly that they each have their own issues and dynamics for what is considered ‘romance’. After all, Brattan is the closest to a human even considering our protagonist Vil; players do not get to see who they are playing as until much later in the game, but know that Vil can gallop and has raw flesh on their face.
The point here is that a relationship and the dynamics of what constitutes a relationship vary greatly between the three. It is only by exploring each of their routes that the player can understand who they are as individuals and connect with them on a deeper level.
Make no mistake, however, that content warning at the beginning is not to be taken lightly. The visuals should have been an indicator, but Meeting in the Flesh does an uncomfortably fantastic job at describing Vil’s surroundings with serious detail. This world is full of ‘monsters’ and flesh, with liquids of all kinds being described from all of the places. Some relationships are much more intimate than one might expect, and there is a very specific one that makes the player question what it means to be an individual and how relationships change a person — especially when they cause radical change.
I don’t want to spoil the game by going in to much detail because there are many who would greatly enjoy this style of wholesome relationship building with possibly terrifying entities. Just know that I went down the Yiestol route, and while I feel like I should have seen it coming, that didn’t stop the mild shock.
If this aesthetic is one that you enjoy, or you are a self proclaimed ‘monster lover’ that has been very upset with the vanilla monsters of the dating world, Meeting in the Flesh brings all of the unsettling visuals and descriptions that you could want. Even without the above desire to love monsters, I couldn’t help but get drawn in to the strangely fascinating world where salt and flesh were commodities of the highest quality, especially when brought together with punishment salt. No I will not explain that. The lore just sucks you in, and makes you realize that stripping away the visuals reveals a charming, even downright wholesome exchange between multiple people just trying to live their life the best they can.
It’s a terrifying blend of fear and wholesomeness, if that makes sense, and one that many will enjoy. Just make sure this is your thing first, OK? Especially before you turn on the ‘adult’ mode.
