Your lover has become the altar of a shrine.
She is surrounded by candles and she has no supplicants.
Don’t leave me here, she says. I don’t want to be alone.
Mira Simon’s Your Lover Has Turned Into A Flock of Birds begins with a plaintive line. Do you still love me? Made for the Heart-Pounding Pulse-Stopping Dating Sim Jam, this Twine is appropriately short with a wide variety of options. Despite the jam name, I would hesitate to call it a dating sim. At least in the traditional sense. Instead, it seems to be able two people in a relationship who have reached a crossroads where they have become different people.
In this case, the lover has become not a person at all, but rather a flock of birds.
There are probably a few different ways to read Your Lover Has Turned Into a Flock of Birds.You could do so literally, in which case your lover transforms herself into a wide variety of objects in an attempt to please you, to keep you safe, to provide you the comforts that you need to. In a more metaphorical sense, the game seems to speak very clearly to the phenomena of growing apart and the suffocation that occurs at the end of the relationship. There is an ever present sense of loss and longing that pervades this piece. Even when you do love her, it’s not right. She becomes a suit of armor, but you do not require her protection. She morphs into an altar, and you her willing supplicant. This is not healthy, and that tone persists no matter the outcome.
I rarely go through a game to find all of the options, because I feel like it takes away the gravity of my decisions to go back and try again for a different outcome. In this instance, I felt compelled to go through and feel the options that Mira Simon presented, to capture all of the moments in what feels like a doomed relationship.
The game is beautiful and quiet, and a definite must play. You can find Your Lover Has Turned Into a Flock of Birds at this website.
