The Crooked Man

This review contains spoilers for The Crooked Man and mentions of suicide and suicidal ideation

I played The Crooked Man at the best possible time in my life. I was an undiagnosed autistic person at the end of high school, one who'd spent their entire life ostracized and unwanted. I felt like nothing was getting better at home, nothing was getting better at school, and I really didn't know where I'd be going next. I'd lost my middle school best friend after lashing out at her for how I felt she continued to abandon me. My early high school best friend had dated my brother and suddenly ghosted us both without a word. Maybe he knows why she might have, but he's never told me. The one time I saw her after high school, she refused to talk. My current friend groups consisted of my art class friends, one of which actually seemed to despise me, and my junior friends who consisted of one person I knew just a bit in middle school and their friends who I was also convinced didn't like me.

I was just in misery. My only solace was the two closest friends I had online, "Alex" and Lara.

I have always been on and off suicidal my whole life, something I have mostly kept hidden from the world aside from the breakdown I once had on a livestream and what friends have seen of me in little blips. Finding this game couldn't have come at a better time for me.

I don't want to talk too much about the full story of the game. Rather, it's the true ending that stands out to me.

Finding out the player character is being terrorized by someone who lost their own battle with their suicidal ideation, who both hated you for seeming to be getting on with life despite going through much of what he did and also wanted to save you from his fate by calling out to you...the first time I reached the attic and found Duke hanging there, I sobbed. I cried for a very long time.

I am tearing as write this, remembering how I felt the first time I finished the game. The only time I finished the game. It was really something I only needed to play once to get everything I needed from it.

I'm sure for those who have not been there, it is a touching end to a nightmarish game. To me, though, who has been in the depths of those despairs, it is two things: a reminder to continue to fight forward and the game that gave me at least a little hope as I graduated high school and left behind the bad memories and destroyed friendships. Yes, that I would be okay. I hadn't thought about the game for a long time since then, not until my best friend decided to do an art piece for it for an RPGMaker themed zine we were both taking part in. It's actually her piece at the top of this game. I'm happy that it exists, that she exists, and that I could remember what this game did for me all those years ago.