I've always heard this is a super good game and I finally started playing it and I enjoyed the first little bit (heavily eyerolling at the, uh, "evil soviet" aesthetics), but that was ok, not enough to ruin it for me.
And then the day rolled around when you have to use a scanner on people. It's basically a creepier version of the TSA body scanners, and I must say I'm really not into that. Also, and this could have just been RNG, but all except one of the people I was supposed to scan were women, and I found that a bit off-putting, honestly. But anyway, I finished the day, and was like, well, maybe I'll get used to this, it's only a game, these aren't real people I'm creeping on.
But then, the next day, the second person to come up to my window "looked like a man", but their passport said their sex was female. Now on an earlier day, I had gotten a violation for mismatched sex marker, which should have been a hint I was going to be in for a bad time later.
Well, the bad time was here, because I decided to flag the sex marker discrepancy, and wouldn't you know it, the option to scan them came up. So I guess I get to decide on whether someone's sex marker is correct based on their genitals.
I quit the game right then and there. I'd like to ask all of you whether you've played it, and whether it's worth pushing through this very serious discomfort I feel. I'm a little worried that all the "tough moral choices" are just going to feel contrived and shitty, what with the "evil soviet" aesthetic and the pretty massive oversight on gender. Not to mention we've already an as introduction to a plot about a brothel, which I'm kind of also not into, unless it's done well, but at this point, I don't trust the game to do it well.
So what do you think? Anyone played it? Is it actually worth playing?
I have no idea what perspective the author was taking when creating it, so this is not a defense, but I got the impression in several circumstances that the game was trying to make you choose between the safe choice (following the state regulations) and the risky but potentially rewarding choice (allowing dissidents / guy with the fucking crayon passport / people not matching their assigned gender identity) to pass through. I never made it that far, but I know the game has several alternate endings depending on some of these choices.
after doing some reading:
It does appear this mechanic specifically is something they put no thought into, which kind of sucks. You just get to be the gender police on top of everything else with no canonical payoff for subverting the established gender norms, while there are canonical results for subverting a handful of other protocols.