In the summer of 2019, my life was mostly composed of two games. There was Slay the Spire, hereafter STS, and First-Time Author, hereafter FTA.
FTA is a first-person simulator run on human hardware. In it, you're an author who's just released his first book.
STS is a card-based dungeon crawl, in which you, playing one of four heroes, scale a tower filled with vicious enemies, tightfisted merchants, and bizarre chance events.
FTA is an open-ended adventure game. In the opening scenes, your book is greeted with universally positive reviews and pitiful sales numbers. Your career as a literary star, promised you by many, comes to an apparent standstill after a proposal for your next book is rejected at the last minute, after it's become clear that your work is commercially dicey.
STS is composed of a series of floors, and every one changes your character, making you more or less equipped for the next. After defeating monsters, you might attain Deadly Poison, or the ability to deliver a Perfected Strike. Sometimes, a goblin spins a wheel and gives you a curse, or you fall into a slime pit full of gold.
FTA is composed of a series of days, and it's not always clear how your character is changed by them. Unlike STS, which is governed by inexorable forward motion, in FTA you have to generate motion yourself, venturing out of a tiny bungalow in Echo Park, surrounded by avocado trees and young professionals. You can do nothing at all, if you so choose.
STS is best played by those who adapt to present circumstances; while weak players decide they're going to play a "poison deck" or a "frost orb deck," strong players make the best of what they find, sculpting their character dynamically rather than based on a preconceived notion.
FTA is the same. Though you begin the game waiting around for the life you wanted to materialize, you can only progress when you acknowledge the conditions on the ground, which is to say, acknowledge that you're 31 and you don't know what to do.
STS is an incredibly addictive game; every decision you make is consequential, and the graphics and sound are pleasing.
FTA is less addictive, at first—it takes some time to get it going, and it's easy to avoid the main action. The pace is frustrating. There are false starts, meetings in Hollywood that go nowhere, spectral opportunities that disappear on inspection. Curiously enough, you can actually play games of STS within FTA, and this might get in the way of the main storyline for weeks or even months. The graphics, though, are unparalleled; the game's universe of Southern California is a beautiful stage for the slow-motion sun-kissed anguish and triumph you experience.
STS ends when you defeat the boss on the tower's final level. At this point, you may restart the game, beginning afresh at the bottom of the tower, ready to surge upwards once again. As always, a large spooky whale will great you and offer you boon, easing the difficulty of the initial floors.
FTA is a game that you can only play once, according to most, although a subset of players insist that respawning is possible. Regardless, there are many possible culminations to the gameplay: you could run away to Mexico, you could persist in drink and delusion, and so on. No-one has yet mapped out all the possible endings. Curiously, though, all the 'good' endings involve abandoning the game's starting narrative and picking a new one. For example, you could take your career in a different direction, get married, and grow out of your character's juvenile alienation. This is when the game seamlessly segues into its sequel, Grown-Up Human. The sequel features much the same graphics and gameplay, but, to the experienced player, it's apparent that the game is fundamentally different.