• he/him

drawing and dadposting

The Fungus Zone Blog



Here we go! After a great tone-setting intro video, I decided I wanted to spend the first three days trying to figure out what kind of kid Boku is. Is he a kid that likes bugs? Fishing? Does he like sticking to a schedule or is he more carefree? What would my Boku want to do?

And then the game did something so bold that I gasped.


For the record, I had not played any of these games before, but I watched the Tim Rogers video on Boku no Natsuyasumi a couple of times and I made it about 2/3rds of the way through Em and Dia’s Bokunatsu 2 playthrough. I had a sense of what I’d be in for and I tried to divert my playthrough in ways that I knew Em and Dia didn’t cover.

(Honestly, it takes a bit of a load off for me when I know I can watch someone else do the things that I could also do. I feel like I can stress less about getting a “good” ending.)

So as I’m playing through it, the dialogue is starting to give me a sense of who Boku is. He’a a city kid, confident enough to be able to be sent away for a month on his own and to speak frankly with adults, but not too boastful or arrogant. Curious. The kind of kid that other people feel comfortable talking to and opening up to even if it goes over his head. Oh, and from that big smile he always gives, this kid absolutely loves bottle caps.

So Day 1, roaming around the guest house, I happen to grab some chalk by the chalkboard next to the phone under the stairs. Don’t think much of it, unsure when or how I’ll be able to use it.

Day 2, evening, I’m interacting with a lot of parts of the screen and I pass the chalkboard again, pressing the triangle button. And then a little animation and sound plays, and I think, “Oh maybe Boku will draw a little picture or write his name or—”

Screenshot of Boku looking at chalkboard with the word “LAME” written on it

Did he… did he just…?

Closeup of the word “LAME”

Man, I thought I knew Boku. I was wrong.

Is he writing this about the way he feels generally about the situation? Is that a little squiggly arrow pointing to the room where his two cousins live? Is this something that Boku actually believes or is this something he picked up from his big city friends that’s more posturing than anything? And is an adult going to see that and know I wrote it???

It legitimately shocked me. How long has he harboured those thoughts? Nothing Boku had said or done so far gave me the impression he felt this way. And I know Tim Rogers talks about this in the video in regards to an incident with the dog in Bokunatsu 1, where a routine interaction ended up revealing something deeper, and unexpectedly dark, about who Boku really is. I just didn’t expect it to happen on Day 2.

For a kid who’s all smiles and friendly greetings and innocent head tilts, there’s something in there that bubbles up in unexpected ways. He’s not a blank slate, a simple avatar that players can project their own desires and agency through. In most games I’ve played, the default assumption is that the player character will never do something against the player’s wishes or expectations. They don’t tell us how they feel while we pilot them around like little mechs. Turns out Boku is a full character himself, with feelings and relationships and a history, and sometimes he can take the wheel in a way that goes against our ideas of who Boku is.

Can you imagine a game where you can routinely pet the dog and one time, out of seemingly nowhere, your character kicks the dog? Or if interacting with an NPC suddenly led to you insulting them without any precedent? I can’t get over it, how bold of a move it is to do something like this, this early.

How else will Boku (and Millennium Kitchen) decide to assert Boku’s agency? Will it always be in ways that go counter to his “good boy” image? Is this something that will keep up for the rest of the month or something that will gradually soften in him over time, by being around these people in the countryside?

I have no idea, but now I’m really curious to find out.


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