One More Time from the Top v0.41

I keep thinking about the way the producer guy touches your shoulder. Three times in the first conversation. And the game never draws attention to it, no close up, no dramatic music sting. Just this small animation loop of his hand landing, squeezing, leaving. I rewound to check if I imagined it. I didn't. That's From the Top for you. It's ostensibly a gay dating sim wrapped in a murder mystery set at a film studio, but the real corruption here isn't the "dark secrets" the blurb promises. It's how the game corrupts your own sense of what's a clue and what's just... a guy being friendly. Or is he. The multiple endings thing is a lie. Well, not a lie, there are several, but they don't branch like a tree. They tangle. You think you're pursuing the sweet, closeted A list actor, all soft confessions in his trailer, and then suddenly you're in a bathroom stall with the director who's been nothing but cruel to you and the scene doesn't play as assault, it plays as a choice you didn't realize you made three chapters ago. The romance paths are all contaminated by the investigation mechanics. You can't just date. Every gift given, every flirtatious dialogue option, it's also you fishing for an alibi. The game makes you feel slimy for it, but the sex scenes don't judge. They're explicit, detailed, the 2DCG art surprisingly expressive for how simple the character designs are. There's this one scene with a screenwriter, on his desk, and the way his glasses fog up... I'm getting off track. The coming out narrative is there, sure, self acceptance, empowerment, all the tags. But the game's real interest is in the moments where those things fail. Where a character accepts himself just in time to be rejected by someone else. Or where empowerment looks a lot like using your body to get information. The summer setting, the glamour, it all rots slowly. By the end I didn't trust anyone, not even my best friend who invited me. I think that was the point. The game forgets to resolve a subplot about a missing script, by the way. Just drops it. Maybe that's an ending I didn't get. Maybe it's deliberate. I don't know. The music's fine.

• dating sim
• 2dcg
• multiple endings
• Male Protagonist
• corruption