This expectation is present no matter what game is being played. The medium of video games imply a sense of agency and importance. The player’s story is about having no control over anything at all. Presentable Liberty is an amazing game because you can do absolutely nothing. So what makes this a good *game*? How do it’s mechanics lend to the story being told? If the letters were the only compelling thing to offer in the game, it probably would have done much better as a short story.

Sure, everything is sad and lonely in the prison cell, the world outside sucks just as much apparently, but this is a video game.

Most people are dead or perish soon after “play” is selected, but everyone, including the player, suffers. The player is engaged by being established as important in the eyes of the people outside through these letters. The narrative is presented to you in letters, written to you by the various friends, acquaintances, and enemies of our main character, and that’ really it. No agency is present in this game besides the choice of whether or not to read the letters or play your provided “P.E.P.” games. Presentable Liberty, a game by user Wertpol on GameJolt, is what is more of an anti-game than anything else. Your existence is paramount to the survival of everyone you are in contact with. Letter upon letter from all of these people enter your room through a small opening under your door, and the world outside is laid out in print, rather than experienced. The steel door blocks you from being a part of the outside world. Smiley hasn’t written you in quite some time, and he’s supposed to be keeping you happy, isn’t he? Your palms are a little sweaty, however, because there’s a tiny chance you’ll get a beautiful letter from Charlotte, the girl who runs the pastry shop. Money, the one who locked you in this dimly lit, cement coffin.

It could be your old friend Salvador writing you about his adventure in the far east. You stand motionless on the cement floor waiting for the next letter, regardless of the sender. You’re stuck in a small cell with only a bed and a head-sized window you aren’t tall enough to use.

Presentable liberty theory