Heaven Will Be Mine

When I finished Heaven Will Be Mine I was left feeling like most people who play this will either claim it to be a religious experience or view it as a slog to get through. Then there is myself who sort lands in the middle where I there are parts I greatly admire and parts I question a lot.

For starters, the art direction and atmosphere of the game is top notch. As visual novels go, this one does a great job of standing out. Mia Schwartz's stunning art does a great job of showcasing the most intimate and intense moments of the story in a way that really sticks with you. They use colors in a way I find very appealing and left me admiring almost all of the art in the game. Alec Lambert delivers another fantastic soundtrack with a lot of moody pieces that feel right at home with the story about transcending humanity and flying sexy robots.

Where I think the game falters the most is its story. Similar to the developer's previous game "We Know the Devil", there are three routes to choose from with three different characters to play as. Of course when I say play I mean you are just reading and boy is there a lot of text. Unlike the previous game, each run can take over an hour based on your reading speed and if you want to read all you can about the world it will take even longer. My biggest gripe with all this reading is that I just did not find it nearly as compelling as the previous game. There's a lot of optional text that goes more into the world and relationship between certain characters the main problem was that none of this text enhanced what I was reading in the main story. I feel this game would have benefitted from a smaller script because by the time I got to the last playthrough, I was skipping a lot of the dialogue which I normally don't like to do.

By and large what upsets me the most is that I just didn't enjoy this game nearly as much as "We Know the Devil" which I loved greatly. There is a lot of cool story bits that I wish I could wrap my head around more as I feel it would have enhanced my experience. I can see why this game is often talked about in regards to LGBTQ+ games I just wish I resonated with it more.

If there's anything out there, it's not going to be something we understand. We already have enough trouble at home defining ourselves, constantly pushed and pulled by gravitational forces we can't free ourselves from. A society crafted around making sure our culture is rigidly defined so that we can understand ourselves for what is human. But what is humanity, really? We keep pushing the ceiling of what that can be, and we project what is "alien" on things that are certainly human-like, because we have nothing else to draw from.

These are esoteric and difficult questions to answer, and even harder to do so when we're still stuck here shifting through our job yearning to free ourselves. Heaven Will Be Mine is queer, in every sense of the word. Queer in that it breaks me from my shell, liberating me and driving me to tears as it helps me understand my own way of expression and why I refuse to be circumvented by this "gravity." Queer in that it breaks between the line of reality to understand what seems strange, and help us transcend the grounded narratives we spin to keep us center. It's deeply personal too, with characters that each deal with their own traumas and flimsily work to try to understand each other in relationships that draw between romantic, heartfelt, and deeply serious.

For hours after I finished the route of Saturn I was in tears, and the route itself took me more time than it should've because I had to take a break to sit there in silence. I had to wrestle with phantoms of if I truly felt liberated, or if I really have grown out of the cage and pull of culture that people craft for me so that I may live. Am I really living my life here?

The discordant thoughts cross around for a while, and Pluto brings me back to center.
Saturn: "And you'd like that, right? Cutting loose with no gravity to tie you down?"
Pluto: "I think about that every day. It's so tempting.
You've got to be ginger with the universe, you know, Saturn.
Now that you're this strong, you've got to be careful. So much can go wrong."
Saturn: "I'll make sure to be very careful with the universe you love."

In another excerpt, Mercury asks "That's just it. Are we too attached? I want to be something new, and share it with everyone. Am I too heavy for this apple?"

The reading is dense, and it might not have to be. But it enraptures me and brings me close. I feel lost and I'm being given the proper guide to truly learn, even if I have to take every paragraph at a time, slowly. I'm shivering by the ending as I feel like I'm reaching a true understanding of why I'm queer, why I identify in the way I do. Why I WANT to live in the way I CHOOSE.

Saturn: "I don't owe them anything but, there's one more thing I can't stand.
Not being seen for what I am.
So, choose to come with us, or choose to stay.
But I won't be happy without them knowing what they're missing out on.
Look up in the sky, and see all the weird stuff we get to do with each other!"

And then I ascend, too.

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I'm falling in a different way now. I want to seek more understanding. I know what I know now, but where does that come from?

Heaven Will Be Mine answers in another way, or really it answers with another question. Could you? Could you really reach a true understanding?

I read now from the role of someone who wants that. Pluto herself wants what's best for everyone, or so she believes. A future where everyone could be happy, even if that means saving humanity from itself. Roles change over what's at focus now, but not much. The same themes are still here as before, but now I feel like I have the backstory to understand why each of them are fighting for what they believe in.

Throughout this route there's even denser prose, literal faux-theory that I comb through to understand the mechanics of the world. It's a bit worthless when it's unnecessary to really understand the message, but I feel like I learned something. I learned that it's impossible to hold these things all by myself, thinking I could do it on my own was how I wasn't reaching true understanding the whole time.

Pluto's route is about others, and what they believe in, and what they fight for so hard. I'm crying again because I understand myself more. Being queer isn't just about what I can choose and HAVING that choice, it's also about making the change I can now that I'm liberated, and making sure everyone else has their choice too.

What's more beautiful than making sure we're all in this together, so that we can make a prettier future for the next generation?

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Luna-Terra closes herself off from the world and it's her route that ultimately falls in line with getting as close as possible to each other. We've dealt with what it means to be us, and what it means to fight for something, and how those can clash. It's written in flowery prose how humans can't really get along without conflict, but what's the most warming about it is that conflict can be romantic.

What's wonderful about it all is I haven't even scratched the surface of what each thing could be talking about. There's a weird satisfaction in understanding everything but not knowing anything. I can't explain what every single thing about this work of art is about, but I know exactly what I should be feeling and what lesson I'm learning.

I can say that each 2-day act of HWBM tells a story instrumentally tied. From a liberating awakening, to the ruins of a never-really-existing-planet, to debating what to feel of the past, to then decide on the future that always ends in a new liberating awakening.

And this last lesson built from that structure is love. And to be pretty gay. Gayest you can fucking be.

I honestly might be too smooth-brained for this game. Deeply abstract writing about difficult themes, delivered with intermittent Twitter snark. An acquired taste let's say, but I really appreciate that it exists.