I just started playing Cantaloupe Chronicle. It looks like a wholesome and easy-going experience. (...) I don't suspect this game will go all Twin Peaks on us, it doesn't seem that subversive.

This is the first thing you see when you leave the house:

   

Our aspiring journalist calls this disturbing, hoping it's just some sort of "sick decoration". It seems out of place - nothing we encounter seems to indicate this town has all that much darkness hiding beneath the surface.

The tone of the game is still overwhelmingly cozy. I'm doing my best to help and charm the locals. Meanwhile, I've committed two acts of larcency and as a journalist, I'm doing way too much to make my first story happen. Ethics: optional. 

I think I'm about ready for my first article. For some reason, our late millenial protagonist needs to ask her aunt how a computer works.

I'm on the second story, the second day. Mortimer, the big city transplant and editor-in-chief of the Cantaloupe Chronicle, gives me the rundown on this case of the unidentified body floating facedown in the lake. He wrote the story, stirring up all sorts of drama and speculation among the locals. At some point, there was nothing more to report. "The big newspapers" never picked up on it, because it lacked a satisfying conclusion.

That seems odd, especially considering two salient details, with serious implications. Is Cantaloupe Chronicle preparing me for a WILD departure from it's breezy atmosphere? It still seems unlikely - I suspect it isn't incriminating mainstream media in covering up a grand conspiracy. It doesn't fit the tone, the state of mind evoked by the game.

And yet it keeps on giving these little details that spark up that part of my brain. I'll keep going with the flow - half-expecting an undercurrent to swallow me whole.

I've been playing the remake of Riven and enjoying it very much. There are a couple of hair-pullers, different from those in the original game, so I'll be living there many more hours, I'm sure.