Bi Girls Can Jump - Watch me Jump

 "An entirely different kind of basketball game. A narrative-driven journey told in four quarters."

Watch me Jump is a short (average play time is just over an hour) game that's focussed on progressing through a story. This could easily have cut the few interactive parts out and gone full visual novel, but instead it went the point and click style adventure game route.

The visuals are pretty crude, it looks like this

Which is going to be a deal breaker for some, but personally speaking I grew up playing MS-Dos games in the 90s and a surprisingly large number of the mystery/adventure games looked a lot like this. Characters in a crude Ms paint style that move like wind up toys kinda thing. So it doesn't really bother me, you can tell all the characters a part so that isn't an issue.

The story revolves around a WNBA basketball star Audra Bee Mills and the various scandals that have been created out of her celebrity, athletic attitude and open bisexuality. Its one of those stories with a message games. Its pretty interesting, the story keeps revealing twists and developing relationships with a good use of flashback to flesh out the arguments and provide context for everyone's emotional states and stances. It felt a lot like watching a play,  with the levels being sets with characters entering and exiting. When I completed the game the credits prominently featured a "based on the play by Jeremy Gable" so that makes sense, it was originally a play turned into a game by the playwright. Not many like that but short and cheap story games like this could find some traction and an audience.

Anyway I don't really know much about women's basketball the closest I came to basketball was occasionally trying it in school PE, but I do know quite a bit about bisexuality. Pleasantly Audra being Bi isn't really that big of an issue, it causes her some problems but overall it was just the first revelation that got the paparazzi type celeb gossip press interested in Audra which led to the revelations of her other issues. Though I did enjoy the part where Audra has to walk her coaches through the fact she isn't gay just because she had sex with another woman, and them assuming she was in denial at first. That was very familiar.

No Audra's real failings are more to do with her emotional attitude and drive to be the best athlete she possibly can. She wants to both be a role model for girls and show that women's basketball is serious but at the same time wants to get the best possible deal for herself, so she and her agent aren't above burning bridges and Audra has something of a temper. That's actually a refreshing change, a queer protagonist that's not perfect and in fact deeply flawed, but in a way that is very familiar and can in no way misconstrued as the result of her sexuality. Often in Queer media the choice is boringly perfect idol that is usually victimised horribly to drive home the anti bigotry message, or flawed but in a way that has very uncomfortable implications on sexuality and gender and will be jumped on by several bigoted straight people looking for more ammunition to increase the scaremongering.

So even though I probably wouldn't like Audra at all in the real world, I really like her character and what her character has to say about celebrity, pressure, self drive, the power of institutions like sports franchises and tabloid media. In addition there isn't really a villain or hero character, there all adults with their own points of view. The closest it comes to a generic archetype is a character whose a victim, but the final quarter that character gets some time to acknowledge that role, but its one that's been forced on them by wider society, and its not one that they're just going to sit back and accept.

Its very grown up and quite refreshing all round. I recommend it, its not sweet exactly, it is short but its pacing is tight so its about the right length for the story its telling. If it was longer it'd just retreading itself and would lose its impact.