Review: Com__et

There are two types of people in this world: those who know what the title of this game means based off of its premise, and those who think it has something to do with comets. Those in the latter category are probably not versed in queer culture, because Com__et is not the least bit subtle. Anyway, the full title is Comphet, which is short for “Compulsory Heterosexuality.” This term was popularized by Adrienne Rich in her 1980 essay titled “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence,” or at least that’s what the first paragraph on its Wikipedia page says.

“Comphet” is a term meant to challenge the assumption that heterosexuality is the default, and how this assumption creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. After all, if someone is repeatedly told they are something their entire life, and they are shamed and disowned if they think otherwise, then they will most likely repress themselves for their own safety. It’s because of this that you see an increase in people coming out as gay or trans in response to mass social movements—it is safer to do so when they have more support.

If one couldn’t tell, Com__et is a game about this phenomenon, which is expressed in the game’s interface and writing. You take the role of an unnamed female protagonist, and the first route lacks choices. This route is intentionally designed to feel awkward and wrong, complete with grating music and large gaps in text that are erased, so as to rail-road the protagonist into the default heterosexual relationship. This was an interesting way of critiquing the fact that a lot of media has awkward, forced heterosexual romances that are never given the same type of scrutiny that all queer representation receives, regardless of quality.

After the awkward first route, you then get the chance to make your own choices, and the more you challenge the narrative set up in the first route, the more tense the atmosphere becomes. The music starts to become darker and more sinister, and you start to see some of the previously censored text more clearly. That being said, most routes will have a mysterious being kill you if you don’t follow a specific path. In order to avoid this outcome, you need to narrow down the right choices by trial and error until you get the good ending.

Com__et is an interesting premise with a unique concept that will resonate with queer readers. Its biggest weakness, however, is that it is never anything beyond its premise. All routes can be completed in about an hour, and the story is never fleshed out enough to makes these characters feel real enough to make the intended message all that powerful.

There is an issue with a lot of media made with the express purpose of promoting diversity—they simultaneously want people to look past their own preconceived stereotypes of marginalized groups, yet will often create media with characters who are defined by what marginalized group they are a part of. Hell, the MC’s clothing is literally color-coded like the lesbian flag… It’s not exactly subtle.

I do enjoy the visuals, and the music does set the tone quite nicely, to be fair. I overall enjoy the game on a conceptual level and liked what I saw, and the message it promotes is based as hell, but I also wish I could see a more fleshed out version of it.

Com__et has a lot of the same issues that I’ve discussed with meta horror in the past. Games like this deliberately take you out of the narrative of the story for a meta-textual statement on the medium as a whole, where it spends more time going “aren’t I so creative with all this meta commentary” while letting the characters and story flounder.

That being said, Com__et is different from something like Doki Doki Literature Club. For instance, DDLC is intended as a critique of how anime turns mental illness into fetish fuel, but forgets that stigmatizing mental illness is no better than fetishizing it. It succeeds in its message, but said message is kinda bad. Com__et, on the other hand, is meant to critique how compulsory heterosexuality makes fiction feel awkward and poorly written, and it also succeeds in its message.

That being said, one can’t really do more than say “I agree with what this game is saying.” While I have my issues with Doki Doki Literature Club, I have to admit that there was more substance to the story and characters as a whole.

At the end, Com__et does have interesting things to show (and I am looking forward to seeing future projects by @SuperBiasedGary) but it’s still fairly forgettable.

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