Have you ever felt represented by a piece of media? More specifically, have you ever felt comforted, understood, or seen after experiencing a video game?

For me, the answer was always "kind of". I do relate to certain characters and character archetypes: usually the ones that are quiet and snarky, the lone wolves, the ones that are independent, tormented by their past mistakes and the reality of them always pushing others away... You know, the edgelords. I do feel somewhat represented by them.

These types of characters are often coded as aspec (well, mostly aromantic). And like every aspec person in fandom, I headcanon them as such. I can imagine scenarios in my head where they come to terms with their identity, go through the typical aro experiences, feel isolated and misunderstood, or perhaps triumphant and visible… But no one else sees what I see. Broader fandoms are pretty much allo-centric, and aro headcanons for likeable characters are rarely popular. I can't expect these people to know what "aplatonic" or "loveless" is either, I’ll just get weird questions and assumptions thrown my way if I mention those labels.

While I am often afraid of bringing up my headcanons in public discussions, these characters will always be aspec to me. They’d be very good aspecs… If they were ones. And as for canonical aro representation? Well, it barely exists.

I came to terms with the fact that I'll never feel truly "represented" by a story. I can relate to a character’s personality, sure, but I will never see my experiences, thoughts, and motivations reflected on a screen. And for a while, I was content with that; although stepping outside of my bubble and realizing once again that my vision is a very niche one would make me upset.

"I will never see myself in media, but that's okay". At least, that's what I thought.

Until I experienced Friendship Test, an indie RPG Maker game by Mar64.

I can hear Moonlight by Scott Buckley just looking at this image...

Without going into spoiler territory, it's a wonderful 10–20-hour experience. Since I watched my friends play this game, our two playthroughs took 20-30 hours. The time was all worth it, though. A lot of thought was put into the story, the characters and their relationships, the game oozes of charm and passion, so savoring it and playing it slowly instead of binging it in two days was a good decision.

Most important for me, though, is that this game focuses heavily on aspec themes, with the main theme being lovelessness. I found out about the game while looking through the loveless tag on Tumblr and was immediately interested in playing something that is allegedly about one of the core parts of my identity.

The rest of the review will go into heavy spoiler territory. If you are considering playing this game, then PLAY IT BEFORE READING THIS. If you can't play this game or if you are not a gaming type, there is a playthrough available on the official Youtube channel! Also, please heed the content warnings for it, they can be read on the game's Itch.io page. I will talk about some heavy stuff in this blog post. Most notably, I will mention aphobia, anti-lovelessness, derealization, mental abuse, and suicide.

If you have already played it or just don’t care about spoilers – sit tight, maybe grab a snack, and get ready to read my very personal thoughts on Friendship Test!

A perfect beginning (Prologue and Act 1)

Before Friendship Test was officially released, a Demo version that included the Prologue and Act 1 was available to play. I got acquainted with this project through playing it.

The game doesn't start exploring lovelessness right away as the first two story sections are instead spent on establishing core gameplay and world-building elements. This is not a bad thing in the slightest, if anything I think it's a great hook to get the player interested in what’s going on before hammering in the themes. The average player, unfamiliar with the concepts of amatonormativity, lovelessness, or aplatonicism, would have been very confused! I understand that I am, in fact, not the average player. I know way too much.

The conflict between Hammer and Wrench is (relatively) short and simple, and more is learned about the Lab through Keys; this Act does a good job of setting expectations for the conflicts that will be seen later in the game and tells the first story of a canonically aspec character.

I don’t have much else to say about this story’s beginning, unfortunately. My memory of it is the weakest since I played it once in February and never properly revisited it. But let me highlight some of my personal experiences playing the Demo.

This game is especially fun if you play it with other people. That's what I did! I first played it on my Discord server in the company of people I call my friends. The presence of other people might have influenced my perception of the game, too. I don’t retain story details well when there are, like, three other people commenting on what’s happening.

My friends didn’t just comment on the story; they also voiced the characters! Two of them voiced the first duo of characters: Malice took FUN, and Dbap took GAMES. The voice acting was perfect, we kept making jokes during the questionnaire, and I was pleasantly surprised with how insane the first two characters I met were. They immediately became my favorites! In short, the Prologue experience felt magical. Too bad I didn't record the playthrough.

"Love is like hahahahah the easiest emotion for a program to feel!" Really, FUN? Dropping anti-loveless microaggressions as early as Act 1? I'm joking, but yeah, it's a funny line in retrospect.

But the magic didn't stop there. The reveal at the end of Act 1 was a core moment for me. I think I somehow knew that FriendProgram wasn't who they seemed to be - maybe I saw Tumblr posts with them talking, or maybe I just guessed that since the game is about aspec stuff, and the protagonist is allegedly a “perfect friend”, then they must SECRETLY BE APLATONIC AND LOVELESS!!! Either way, the reveal of them being "evil" didn't surprise me (if anything I just got jumpscared by the drill sound).

But right as they started speaking and I realized that I'm going to be voicing them (since traditionally the one playing the game is the one voicing the main character), I thought: "Oh. I am this character". What exactly do I mean by that? I'm not sure myself. But that's pretty much what I felt.

I wouldn't say I was on the edge of my seat and impatiently waiting for the full release, but I was definitely invested after playing the Demo! And a month later, the full thing would be released. It was funny to see the announcement: the game would come out in March, along with Dream BBQ, Everhood 2, and Rain World Watcher. It was a big month for indie game enjoyers.

Also, want a fun fact? The first time I saw “B.F.P.”, for some reason I thought it stood for “Big FriendProgram”. I guess I forgot the phrase “best friend” exists. It’s something I haven’t heard since high school.

Real to me (Act 2)

Once the full game came out, my friend Malice wanted to stream it, and I was cordially invited to check it out with him as the expert on everything loveless. So, we started to play Act 2 together. You can watch Malice's Friendship Test VODs on YouTube to see how we reacted to some of the important moments in the game, although I will talk about a couple of them in this blog (obviously).

FriendProgram and Waterbottle come to the Emulation area, a place where anything and everything can happen. The Act immediately was a drastic change because Waterbottle and FriendProgram are now the main characters. FriendProgram now talks, and Waterbottle is an amazing addition to the party. They are charming, have a lot of autistic swag, and a lot of comedy in the game comes from them alone. The library scene caught me off-guard the first time I saw it.

I have to highlight the more serious stuff too though! For example, the juxtaposition between them: an alloplatonic Reprogram trying their best to become a good friend and an aplatonic Friendprogram who doesn't understand why anybody would strive so much to be a good friend. It is AMAZING. They have the kind of banter I always wanted to see in aspec media — the aplatonic knows way too much about relationships, the alloplatonic learns from them. At the same time, the aplatonic might be too cynical and might not understand others as much as they think they do. That's a part of FP that I really like (it reminds me of myself lol).

In most media I usually see the opposite happen. For some reason allos tend to assume that since we, aspecs, don't experience some forms of attraction, we must know nothing about them, forgetting that we're surrounded by them anyway and learn about them on an almost theoretical level.

And I can't not mention the scene where Waterbottle accepts that FP doesn't want friendship. In talking about loveless and aplatonicism, I was met with a lot of microaggressions and bigoted comments, so I understand feeling surprised when you finally find someone who doesn't question you. I was reminded of the times when I talked about these identities to my friends and they accepted them despite their obscurity. I imagine FriendProgram must have been even more shocked, considering they've never met someone so open-minded before.

But wait, this Act also introduces a new darling... Pixels! I like Pixels, they're one of my favorite characters. I really like characters that come off as superficial in conversation because of how self-absorbed they are. In Pixels’s case, this "fakeness" is only heightened by the fact that she was artificially created by Dreamer (which becomes relevant once you read through their memories).

But really, I'd say that Pixels is the opposite of fake. She is sincere in her dislike of others, doesn't act nicely when she doesn't want to, and never tries to be a perfect friend. I kind of look up to it for this reason, I'd like to be less nice too. And I believe this to be a clever story beat: a program accused of being fake while they’re one of the realest ones out there.

Oh... And BadFriend is there too. Hello BadFriend! They initially come off as one of those "anxious and awkward introvert" characters, but because of how self-aware they are (which is a very realistic trait) they are more unique and even funnier. I wasn't that interested in them initially, but I grew to be fond of them after voicing them in Dbap’s playthrough.

Speaking of comedy. The first half of the Act is dense with comedic scenes, a big portion of them being banter between Pixels and Waterbottle. We follow the protagonists as they visit a library, a restaurant, and then a beach, and every encounter has a funny interaction between WB and Pixels. I adore the connection the two of them have. But as the tests progress, something starts to feel off.

Towards the end, the tone shifts to be horror-esque and the content warnings given in the beginning gain relevancy. I enjoy media that mixes comedy and horror! MINDHACK, one of my favorite indie games, is a fast-paced visual novel where one scene can be about breaking someone's mind beyond repair and the next about humans having five butts. And I started watching Courage the Cowardly Dog recently, a show that's full of scary monsters but of so much childish whimsy. I'd say Friendship Test sometimes captures the same feeling, although the game is longer and slower, so the change of tone is not immediate (not a bad thing, this is a neutral observation).

Dissociation is not one of my triggers, and I don’t think I experienced it enough where I would feel discomfort from depictions of it. One scene in the second half of the Act, however, stood out to me, the one where Dreamer talks about FriendProgram:

I have never seen a program that pretends more than them. All your emotions, all your feelings… are any of them real? Do you ever want to help people? Is it all just part of your plan?

This is something I think about a lot. After all, how am I supposed to know? How do I know if I’m using people or if I’m being genuine? I am neurodivergent and alexithymic, I have trouble parsing my emotions. And since I’m loveless, aplatonic, and have low empathy… Maybe I am just using people. I don’t know anymore. The more I think about it, the less real anything seems.

But I stop and ask myself: does it really matter? After all, actions speak louder than intentions. If I do good things, it doesn’t matter if they happen to come from a place of selfishness. Maybe I helped that friend because it benefited me in the moment, but I still helped them. What matters is that I choose to do the kind thing. And do my friends constantly think about whether my actions are genuine or not? Of course they don’t! Most of the time all they think is “I spent some quality time with Peer, yay!”. So really, I should worry less. I try to worry less. And I try to choose what’s real to me.

…It’s only Act 2, and the game already made me self-reflect and think Deep Thoughts. I guess I can end this section with the two quotes from this Act summarize the attitude that helps me break out of this destructive thinking pattern. First one, by Waterbottle:

I am not the water, I am the bottle that carries it.

Second one, by my girlypop Pixels:

Heh, the concept of reality has never really bothered me. I just do whatever I want in life and enjoy the moment!

No one else like me (Act 3)

The two allies enter the Heartbreak area, meant to test one’s ability not to break under pressure. Fittingly, Act 3 focuses on the topic of ex-relationships and the impact they have on us, something that I wish more media talked about. It is the longest in the game, and since Malice was streaming only once a week, it took us three whole weeks to get through this one.

Unfortunately, even if this Act is dense with good cutscenes and MANY DEVELOPMENTS, I was going through a brief Rain World Watcher phase during the time we played it. I don’t have that many fond memories of it off the top of my head. I won’t be able to give this Act justice in my review, I hope you forgive me.

First, let’s talk about the stars of the Act… TNT! These three are fun and full of charisma, I can see how fun it probably was to write them. I really, really like Enemy specifically because she is a strong loud robot woman with sharp teeth and electric powers. At the same time, I'm afraid to draw her. What if she looks too good... Or too bad... Either way it's scary. But I NEED to draw her. I will. I want to include TNT in my lineup of characters in formalwear.

... Speaking of, JOB TEST!!! I like anything related to offices, so I was gladly surprised to see one. It was one of the things that pushed me to draw the characters in formalwear. Thank you, TNT, for destroying the test and saving the day! Screw 9/5! If they and FriendProgram unite, they might be able to defeat the power of friendship!... Right?

...Well, turns out none of them are aplatonic, they just have complex feelings towards friendship for one reason or another. They are not like FriendProgram... And not like me either.

I relate to this feeling a lot, although for me it was always about aromanticism instead of aplatonicism. A few years ago, I used to be the only loveless aro I knew. Some of my friends had negative feelings towards romance, sure; but I was the only one who couldn’t stand it at all. I was told that my stance on romance and love is too negative or extreme even by peeps who seemed to be on the same page as me. I felt unwelcome and could only find like-minded people in the loveless tag on Tumblr.

I had people who supported me (like one of my friends who is now my loveless partner!), but I also wished to find someone actually *like me*. FriendProgram commenting on how there is no one else like them reminded me of my past self.

While I’m on the topic, you know what else is relatable? FEELING LIKE YOU’RE EVIL. The scene where FriendProgram called Enemy out for being a coward reminded me of all the times I would say mean, even cruel things to others and then regret what I did immediately after. My response to conflict is oftentimes “fight”, so I tend to lash out on others without thinking things through; it might even be a form of self-sabotage, I have no idea. But afterwards I have trouble apologizing and my first instinct is to think: “I’m a bad person, what did you expect?”. Most of the time the thought is directed at myself, not at the other person.

It’s easier to accept the role of being evil, especially if there is precedence of others telling you that you are. It might have been a parent, a teacher, or a former friend. This reality is cruel, so there are times you wish to distract yourself by watching a movie or playing a game. But even media starts to hurt when you see someone like yourself in the role of a villain, when you see love put on a pedestal with proclamations of the lack of it being what separates the bad guy from all the good guys.

Have you ever seen any media from any life form with someone like me?

The only difference between me and FriendProgram is that I know for sure that there are others like me, thanks to places like Tumblr. In that moment, I wished I could tell FP that there are many loveless lifeforms out there. We even have media about lovelessness! There’s a game about it called Friendship Test I’m pretty sure. I haven’t looked into it, so I don’t know if it’s any good. Someone should go check it out, I think.

…Jokes aside, the movie theater scene was good. And I already made the joke in the paragraph above during Malice’s stream.

To sum up, while the topics of lovelessness and aplatonicism were mentioned in Act 2, I really started to feel their presence in this Act. Also, FP not-so-subtly dropped the word “loveless” during the campfire scene lol. I was so happy about that.

There was other good stuff happening in this Act too. You know how FP stays silent or talks using friendly functions only when interacting with anyone except WB? Because they are masking, right? Well, they spoke to Keys and Enemy. Those moments were good.

FUN and GAMES are making progress on their business too. I haven’t mentioned them at all outside of the Prologue encounter and that’s because I couldn’t find a good enough time to talk about them. I guess I can mention now that I enjoy their relationship and how it is shown through the story.

When they are first seen, the player gets only a glimpse at their conflict; it is yet unknown why GAMES fears losing FUN when it gets mad. But the reason becomes clear in Act 2 after they try to find a new job (FUN being more enthusiastic about the search) and encounter Sparks. In the end, it is reiterated that the two enjoy their relationship as is, since they get to be themselves. GAMES can mess with FUN, and FUN can get mad.

Fictional friendships often involve fights and characters being mad at each other, but them being built not on just positive, but also negative emotions, is something that’s barely ever explicitly brought up. I think it’s something that should be mentioned more, because I personally believe that it’s healthy to annoy your friends on purpose from time to time (if they’re okay with it of course). I’d say there is no fun in friendship when it’s all just fluff. And for that reason, I adore FUN, GAMES, and their kickass friendship.

…Before I finally move on, there was a particular encounter with a mouse and a fox who were having an argument. The mouse was very cruel to the fox, but when the fox defended herself, the mouse played the victim. There is an option to ask her to apologize, but she will continue saying she didn’t do anything wrong. That’s when you realize that maybe the best solution is for them to stop being friends.

Again, that’s not something most people realize – that severing a friendship when it becomes unhealthy is a valid option. You shouldn’t be friends with someone who keeps hurting you and refuses to change; that’s logical, right? But since friendships are conventionally non-committal and not treated with the same nuance as romance, people stay in abusive friendships anyway.

Hmmm, I wonder if this encounter is standalone or if it foreshadows a different, more complex case of an abusive friendship!

This place wasn't built for me (Act 4)

Act 4 is the shortest in the game, but it's also the Act on which I started to become obsessed with the game since my interest in other games started to die down. I was so ready to jump into it and experience the Amatonormativity™ area.

The platonic love area is hilarious and, unfortunately, definitely reflects how society views friendship. It is said to be important, but not TOO important, since other types of relationships should take priority. You should perform as a good friend, but you can't kiss your friend or find them hot, that's only for romance! Friendship is what everyone should have, but it's also temporary, since it must develop into a familial or a romantic bond.

...Wait, what? Some people think that familial attraction develops from platonic attraction?? I never thought too much about familial love (which is why I also don’t have anything to say about it), I just know that I don't experience it. I was surprised to learn that, like romance, it can be viewed as the next step after platonic love!

I stayed silent during the romantic love segment because I am already too used to amatonormative bullshit regarding it. I don't even remember anything about it except the awesome scenes with Keys, Knife and Knight, and the Hugprogram who gave the romance quizz. I'm glad that an alloace, a poly person, and two aroallos got a spotlight here. Something something amatonormativity is bad for everyone who's not alloallo and monogamous and we should have aro + ace + poly solidarity so we can take it down together.

There is an amusement park at the end of the Act, where everyone seems to be having fun, except FriendProgram. But nobody notices they’re there. HMM I WONDER IF THAT’S AN ALLEGORY TO SOMETHING. I WONDER IF LOVELESS PEOPLE EVER FEEL UNSEEN IN THEIR EVERYDAY LIVES. Well, I know that the answer is yes, because I’m loveless and tired of being invisible to everyone other than fellow loveless people or the few allies.

There are a lot of aro/ace-spec characters in the game, but very few aplatonic and loveless characters; and their existence is not even considered. This is, once again, reflective of our world, where even other aspecs, fellow queers who I thought I could confide in, put friendship and love above all else and are quick to throw loveless people under the bus. The idea of not experiencing love is, apparently, too radical. It’s too ingrained in our society for anyone to accept the possibility of not feeling love. Hell, the next Act will have a character who embodies anti-loveless so much that I have no idea how any media literate person can walk out of playing Friendship Test and still be on the fence about the label.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. There’s Exe! At least she’ll cheer me up before the inevitable happens, right? She seems to be one of us, after all. This is my favorite Exe cutscene in the entire game, actually. Mostly because of this quote:

You know what, FriendProgram? I think the only time I felt understood by a television screen… was when I watched you on those videotapes.

THIS DIALOGUE!!! I felt as if she was speaking for me in that moment. Because that's me! I'm the one sitting in front of a monitor right now, trying to keep my mind off my miserable life, relating to FriendProgram! I see myself in them, and at that point I started to feel like they are THE most relatable character I ever saw on screen. I cried thinking about this scene the next day haha, it was the first time I cried because of Friendship Test, but surely not the last :)

The ending of Act 4 hits like a nuclear bomb. The entire Act was mostly "haha, allos, am I right?" but then the Love Test happened. It was tense. Between the awkward reveal of how much Waterbottle loves everyone, FriendProgram’s panicking causing the whole place to FUCKING COLLAPSE, the two Hugprograms screaming “someone will fix them” as they run away, and then WB doing the one thing they never wanted to do in order to save FP, the tension was through the fucking roof!!

I can’t put my thoughts into words, but something about FP’s stubbornness and refusal to accept help speaks to me. Like brooo why would you want to help me! Your sacrifice will only hurt you we’re even not friends why are you trying to be a good friend to me!!

And then, a crazy cliffhanger!!! Thank god that was when we switched to playing Friendship Test twice a week because I surely would have gone mad waiting for 7 days.

Murder party (Act 5)

Yeah, I couldn’t think of a better title for this section, sorry.

This is the path of no return, the start of my descent into madness. From that point on, Friendship Test was the only game I watched, and it would be on my mind every day. It would be an understatement to say that I was excited to see the story’s continuation.

Waterbottle was able to get to Friendship Home with FP tied to their back. When they get there, the whole area is populated by other Friendprograms. I finally know how diverse they can look! There are small ones and tall ones, they can have different head shapes, and they come in many colors. Fun! But they are friendly, too friendly... I miss FriendProgram. Waterbottle does too.

After the initial walk around, we are introduced to Nick, one of the two characters who debut in this chapter. At first, I had no idea what to think about him. He is smooth and seems friendly, but maybe a bit too friendly and insistent for someone who, allegedly, was meeting Waterbottle for the first time. I wasn’t sure if he was to be trusted… Especially since we’ve been hearing about a “him” from the secret encounters. There aren’t that many characters in this game who use he/him pronouns. I was on the lookout for any suspicious men.

My suspicions were confirmed towards the end of his second talk with WB. Immediately when he started to act all creepy, I thought, WHY IS HE SAYING THAT? WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS GUY? Though to be honest, that dialogue explained why he was saying that. What concerned me wasn’t that he was vengeful against FriendProgram, but rather the way he worded his feelings towards them:

My old friends… They really loved them, you know? They really loved all of us. It’s a shame FriendProgram can’t love anything. Must be a miserable existence.

I expected something like this to be said in the game at some point. But still, wow. The dialogue is well-done because it showcases not just distaste for loveless people, but also pity, something I’ve become way too familiar with: Nick says “it’s a shame”, and “it must be miserable”.

People like him can’t imagine a happy life without love, so they pity us. They associate a lack of love with not just the absence of feeling, but also of morality as a whole. “They are loveless; therefore, they are evil”. Individuals are blamed for who they are instead of the system that didn’t accept them and drove them to do bad things.

I always thought that aspec people experience a unique kind of bigotry. Not only is it as caustic as all other types of it, but it is also paired with some kind of condolence. If you think about it, this is so ableist, too. Some of us are born like this, others gradually lose their ability to love or experience a type of attraction because of mental health issues – either way, no matter how hard we try, we can’t influence this. So why should this be pitied? Also, others implying they’d rather die than live like you is a shared experience between aspecs and disabled/neurodivergent people.

…Anyway, immediately after the strange talk with Nick, Waterbottle goes to check on FriendProgram. Only to find them replaced with Clover, the second new character of this Act.

Oh Clover. They seem to be one of those characters that everyone is repulsed by initially. I mean, my friend Dbap started to make throwing up noices because he thought that FP got fixed and this is who they became (that was funny).

Clover’s presence is completely different from FP’s, and the way they act doesn’t help them gain any favorability in the players’ eyes – they break Waterbottle’s boundaries and have rigid standards for what constitutes being a “good friend”. Clover tries to be sweet and thinks they are doing the right thing, but that sweetness turns toxic as they voice their dislike for others’ personalities and push their values on them. The scariest part is, of course, their insistence on “fixing” WB’s rudeness, which I'll talk about a few paragraphs down.

This segment of the story has my (probably) favorite side characters in the game – Plum and Berry. A major part of my fondness for them comes from how chill they are in comparison to other Friendprograms. They are still all about friendship, but at least they understand that it’s more than just being nice and happy, and that nobody actually wants to be a “perfect friend”. And I like their designs! I hope I’ll be able to draw them eventually. Also, Dance of the Molecules by Pumpupthemind is a good track.

Moving along, we get to this Act’s secret encounter. I skipped over every secret battle so far because they weren’t important to what I was talking about. Moreover, mentioning every little thing would result in this blog post being three times longer. However, this one IS important. And this time it’s not a battle.

The program’s name is Off. And well… They are clearly aspec. In fact, don’t they cover all the A’s? Their room has the vibes of “secret developer rooms” that you can find in some games, except there are no explicit fourth wall breaks, just a character who probably scoured the entire Web to find articles on aspec topics. How sad that FriendProgram wasn’t there to read them! The game is torturing me on purpose.

Off is also an artist, their room decorated with unfinished, amateur paintings. Although they don’t care about that:

I just create art cause I like it. I could not give a crap whether it’s good or not. But most programs just care about ‘how good something is’. It’s a shame really.

That’s words to live by as an artist. Create things just because you want to! They don’t have to be good or finished! I know it can be a hard mindset to internalize when we’re poisoned by social media engagement and algorithms, but we have to start trying at some point.

Lastly, Off confirms that Nick is the “he” the secret bosses have been mentioning. Oh that can’t be good.

This is the part where I mention the reboots. It’s clear from the cutscene in front of the computer room that Clover doesn’t like them either. Yet, they suggest Waterbottle to get one... These two met at a very unfortunate time. Clover had no idea how much influence their words would have.

I noticed that FriendProgram’s and Waterbottle’s arcs kind of happen… In reverse? In Acts 3 and 4, FP finds more programs who accept them and help them understand that they can be kind despite their corruption. It’s baby steps, since they still live under a system that hates them, but it’s steps nonetheless. Meanwhile, through a series of unfortunate events, WB gets brainwashed into thinking they are nothing but a killing machine and that they should get rebooted. They really went from “I am not the water, I am the bottle that carries it” to “I’m evil and fucked up actually”. It’s interesting to see the shift gradually happen, and of course the culmination of it all when they are about to reboot themself.

And then a murder happened. And there was a funny scene with FUN and GAMES and FriendProgram was doing a poor job not looking guilty of the crime. And then it’s revealed that BADFRIEND IS THE CULPRIT! AND THEY HAVE A COOL GUN!

I was spoiled on them having a red design and I had a hunch about them hiding some kind of secret based on when they received a phone call in Act 2. But still, the reveal was good, and the drawing of them pointing a gun at Waterbottle is my favorite in the game. It’s so dynamic and full of… Emotion, I guess? So good I had to redraw it.

Act 5 had a lot of amazing art in general. It really popped off once Nick showed up and the cutscenes had to show him as evil as possible, haha. There’s a lot of use of dynamic lighting that sets an uncanny or sinister mood.

The things that keep us here (Act 6)

I had to wait a week before we started Act 6. In that week, I didn’t spend a single day without thinking about Friendship Test. I rewatched some gameplay footage and made theories about what was going on. I was able to gather quite a bit of info, and believe it or not, some of my guesses were true! I knew my theories were useless to everyone but me because most people played the game to see what happens next. I did this for fun and because I wanted to occupy my brain somehow.

What does this Act focus on anyway? A part of it is dedicated to heavy lore reveals, and another – to Nick’s team. Though the relationship between BadFriend and Nick is in the spotlight here.

I could only guess that since Act 5 ended on a cliffhanger with BadFriend, this one will finally unearth some of their secrets. And boy, did it deliver. The very first cutscene between BF and Nick sets off sooo many alarm bells and makes me hate Nick by the second.

Let’s talk about Nick first, actually. I think he is a great character, but quite obviously terrible as a person. He is determined and calculating like most villains/antagonists, but you know how they are often portrayed as unfeeling and heartless in media? Nick is the opposite of that. He is clearly feeling and loving. He loved the scientists and grieved their absence. There are a bunch of scenes where he cries. He gets unironically mad at a board game, too. Basically, he is given a lot of humanizing and maybe even relatable traits. But they are paired with his self-serving goal of… Fucking space colonization? Is he for real? It’s so funny to think about how literally everyone hates the scientists except Nick. Initially it seems that they didn’t treat programs right, but then you find out WHY they made programs in the first place and realize it’s even worse.

Nick is loving; therefore, his cruelness is justified. Because he actually cares. Meanwhile, BadFriend doesn’t feel anything; they’re broken, in need to be fixed, he thinks – nobody would want to be friends with someone like that. So, him keeping them around is the nicest thing he can do.

And I can’t sugarcoat it – Nick is abusive towards them. In the Friendship Test Q&A, Mar talked about how they wanted to write a realistic abuser, since they tend to be cartoonishly evil in media. Well, they succeeded! And I think it’s interesting that BadFriend doesn’t have the “right” emotional responses to the abuse; in fact, they have trouble understanding their feelings and often brush things off by making jokes. Nick himself says it’s impossible to be mad at them. But all of that doesn’t make their situation any less scary. Their relationship is so different from how bad relationships are stereotypically portrayed, it’s so good.

Eventually, the three Friendprograms meet up and we learn that BadFriend's real name is Void. When asked about it, they dodge the question; and in a later cutscene they reveal that since ‘BadFriend’ stuck as their name, it’s awkward to tell others their real name. Yeah, I get that. Since ‘Peer’ started out as an online name, I used to be embarrassed and even mad when others used this name IRL. Void is a kickass name though, makes me think of voidpunk too. I think voidpunks would enjoy Void.

Axl pointed out that the way they describe space sounds like a description of lovelessness, which I thought was neat:

I have always liked space. The void of space. It’s pure nothingness, but… It doesn’t feel like the absence of something. At least, to me it doesn’t. It just exists there. A big infinite space. Nothing in it. It just is. And it’s beautiful. I wanted my name to reflect my passion for space.

We also learn that they are FP’s sibling. That’s something I guessed in the 7-day wait for Friendship Test Wednesday! Hell yeah, loveless siblings. Void’s lovelessness is connected to alexithymia, something I can relate to; I initially started to identify as loveless because it’s hard for me to label my emotions, and if not for lovelessness I might not have learned about this phenomenon. I can’t exactly intuit what “love” means as a general feeling either…

And I liked the part about being selfish. I am mostly content with being loveless, I don’t think it’s something to be fixed. But sometimes it gets to me. I do feel like I take but give nothing in return from time to time, especially since I have a dry personality and am not good at showing that I care.

Knowing that FriendProgram is loveless just like them, Void doesn’t dislike that part of themself.

If you know me closely, then you might already know this about me. But I was the one who introduced lovelessness to most of my friendgroups. I feared that maybe the idea was too radical, and sometimes I was too annoying about it. But my friends understood me; some even came out as loveless. There were ups and downs, but it’s been a few years, and I no longer feel alone in my experience. I don’t know where I would be without these people.

I may be different from my friends in some ways, or in many ways; but if lovelessness is the one thing we have in common, then we will connect.

I found community. People who make me feel like this part of me is okay. People who let me by myself.

Void doesn’t want to abandon Nick just because he’s difficult sometimes. They don’t want to leave without hearing his point of view. And god, I sympathize with that. I’m the type of person who’d hate running away from a conflict without an explanation, I prefer to communicate and see things through. So, I was on Void’s side at that moment, haha. Although deep down I knew things wouldn’t go well with him. And they didn’t.

…By the way, how’s Clover doing?

Remember when I said that they’re a character who’s likely to be hated at first? Well, the other half of the story is that everyone I knew started to like them over time, me included. I consider them to be in my top 3 favorite characters of this game. And that’s even before the scene with Sparks. That scene gives them depth and confirms the suspicion that their values were taught to them and that they never grew out of them because they feared that going against the current would make things worse... Cloveeeerr </2…

And I don’t think I’m alone in my experience of not realizing that Sparks was speaking in the Game Overs until it was pointed out to me. Oh well.

The Act ends in a confrontation with dinosaur Nick. AWESOME DESIGN, BY THE WAY. Wish of the stars by nojisuma is played for the second time here; it could be heard for the first time at the end of Act 5, in the battle between WB and Void. And the game wasn’t subtle at all when Nick called FriendProgram a monster while looking like one. :)

And just like in Act 1 when facing against the big experiment, Waterbottle came to help their weak ally. The cutscene quite literally mirrors the one from Act 1. I’m afraid it’s cinema…

AND THEN EVERYONE JOINED IN! HELL YEAH! FUN THREW THE FIRST BRICK AT NICK

Oh fuck. I did not expect there to be a “just because they’re distant doesn’t mean they don’t feel love” talk so late in the game. I actually wasn’t prepared for that. This game thoroughly covers every loveless experience huh. And because of that, I can’t imagine any loving person who attentively played the game to come out of the experience with only a superficial understanding of our experiences. The game does a good job at showing the kind of shit we go through. Of course it’s not a replacement for real conversations with loveless folk, but you know what I mean, right?

Only one thing left to do now, the thing FP set out to do from the very start. Put an end it all.

Be yourself (Act 7 and Epilogue)

We decided to binge the game before I would go on vacation, so we played Act 7 on the same day we completed the second half of Act 6. We’ve been going for 3 hours already, and unbeknownst to us, the rest of the game would take 3 more.

"You were dead, FriendProgram."

Most of Act 7 is cutscenes, and a lot of them are FP’s memories. We already learned about their past from the scientists’ perspective in Act 6, but this time we see from their point of view.

The first memory has Clover in it. I find it interesting that they didn’t consider FP’s behavior lacking back then. This confirms that they weren’t always so strict about others’ performance in friendship. Sigh… I hope they learn to be mean.

Judging from the memories, Friendprograms had to spend so much time around each other… I like to be alone and being around others all the time is exhausting. If I had to perform as a “good friend” all the time, too? I would have gone mad. If I were in FP’s shoes, I would end up hating friendship too.

I used to be very plato favorable. Right now, I think I’m ambivalent? I don’t dislike friendship, but I started to feel weird about the way others describe it, and I hate it when others put it on a pedestal and act like they’ve defeated amatonormativity. I am certain about my romance repulsion though; I hate that shit. So, I think I understand FP through this repulsion.

"There is nobody else like you."

The TV scene. It’s the first time Moonlight by Scott Buckley is played in the game instead of just the title screen, although it’s slowed down, so I didn’t notice at first.

It was the first “oh I want to cry” moment of this Act for me. I don’t think I cried, but I got close. It might be a stretch, but it reminded me of the times when I tried to assert myself, to stand up for who I am, only to realize that I might have pushed others away instead.

I was told I can be intimidating when I’m defending my identity. I often felt guilt for that. I didn’t want to feel that way anymore. That’s why I deleted one of my personal blogs where I used to talk about aspec stuff, and now only really mention it on Tumblr and in DMs/groupchats. Looking back at it though… Was that all my fault? Or was it also the fault of those who hurt me and made me feel like I must fight for who I am in the first place? Because there were people like that in my life. I’m glad they’re not there anymore… Although the fear remains.

That was the one time B.F.P. rebooted FriendProgram. But a reboot can’t get rid of something that was always there.

There is something bad in all of us, Friend. That’s what we’re trying to stop.

The scientists were cruel. B.F.P. doesn’t want that cruelty to come back. So, she wants everyone to be nice, friendly, loving. She wants to help FriendProgram, for them to learn to do better, to not be “bad” like them. But really, she made them so much worse. She didn’t understand them, she told them they were evil, even if indirectly; although I would guess that the TV shows they were forced to watch weren’t so subtle about that.

Your emotions… Your love… I have never felt that. I never will. I have always liked that about myself. It made me who I was. I like who I am. But I could never be honest about who I am. I know what everyone would think of me. I have seen it before.

This is the lowest point for FriendProgram. They don’t belong here. They must change to have a chance at living a normal life. The life everyone else gets to live so easily. It’s unfair, it’s fucking awful. They’re ready to die because they’re so tired. And they already died once, probably hoping that their death would make an impact. That it would change B.F.P., that she would realize she was wrong. Game, you have to stop with the realistic depictions of suicidal intent. I’m begging on my knees.

… Waterbottle is here. Cue the best scene in the game.

I talked about a lot of things that would be considered “personal” in this post. I don’t mind, I don’t see any reason to hide those, and don’t feel any embarrassment or shame talking about them. There are very few things that FEEL personal to me.

What I’m about to tell you though? This is where I actually feel vulnerable.

First of all, this scene made me cry so hard I had to go stand up, go wash my face, and bring a handkerchief to my table. If you listen closely, you can probably hear me cry as I voice FP. I felt bad because that was out of character, they didn’t cry lol.

Second of all, I think it helped me realize I’m aplatonic. I probably would have realized regardless, but this scene sped the process up for sure. I spent a lot of time thinking about the relationship between Waterbottle and FriendProgram, about how they built a meaningful connection without being friends. As I was reminiscing, I even texted something along the lines of “I wish we could have more relationships like this, unfortunately people tend to assume friendship once you share an emotional bond”.

For the longest time, I labeled myself as demiplatonic because “I don’t want to make friends, I never went out of my way to make friends, but I do care about the close friends I already have”. But… Is that inherent to platonic attraction? After some reflection, I realized that for me, it isn’t. I just… Care about people. I want to be around my friends, and I would have wanted that even if we weren’t friends.

Coming out as aplatonic is scary. It would be like coming out as loveless again. It would be people making assumptions about me, about who I am and the way I feel. But I can’t change the fact that I don’t love my friends. For this reason, it's hard to talk about my aplatonicism separatly from lovelessness. I see the two as interconnected; one helped me discover the other.

I thought about the people in my life that would accept me, and the realization that people like this exist comforted me. The feeling of being comforted, seen, or understood by someone, the feeling when you realize there is a person who lets you be your true self – it’s one of the best ones in the world. It’s a feeling of warmth I can’t describe with words.

But Friendship Test described it with a color: yellow. It’s my favorite color too.

Maybe the yellow symbolism was intentional, or maybe it’s not that deep. But it is deep to me. Axl also noticed that blue and yellow are complementary colors, which is so cool too. Red and blue are often seen as opposites, but after FP’s color change, they and WB are no longer opposites.

I turned yellow a while ago. But does that mean that my journey in life is over? No, of course not. And the game doesn’t end after this scene either, so let’s see what happens next.

HOLY FUCK PIXELS IS BACK. I MISSED HER SO MUCH. AND SHE DROPS THE L WORD TOO. I knew she would come back but still, oh the joy of seeing your comfort character on screen after multiple weeks of their absence.

The gang is ready to take on B.F.P. There is a cool sequence where you see all her memories and thoughts, and then hear everyone express their support for FriendProgram, after she traps them in the green dimension not wanting to let them go. We had to skim over it during the stream because we were getting tired, but I did read everything later. Once again, the only option here is to unfriend. But this time, it’s different; and rather bittersweet. Because unlike that mouse or Nick, B.F.P. is willing to accept her mistakes and change.

What a nice ending to the story, isn’t it? Weeeeeeeeell, about that… Someone disagrees. After all, the objective was to *put an end to it all*.

It’s funny, cause at that point the stream had been going on for 5 hours. Exe can’t let us finish the game. So, for the sake of me going to bed at a reasonable time, she must be stopped. We are officially in the Epilogue.

The scene where FriendProgram wakes Waterbottle up by being corny is funny. Both Malice and Dbap laughed. I laughed in my head.

Exe’s Anti Malware design kicks ass. It’s a jester-like fit befitting of a character who is acting like a villain. It’s so cool, and if I have spare time, I would definitely like to draw it. Same for FP’s campy transformation! It’s so cute and cool at the same time, how do they manage to be both??? And they get highlights in their eyes, which is always a sign of a character being happier.

As the confrontation between FP and Exe starts, I can’t hold anything by nojisuma plays again. Another fight with someone who is stubborn and self-destructive, huh? She is quite literally self-destructive, since she ate the Anti Malware Software and it’s been hurting her for years. I understand her. Life is harsh, and it always feels like I’m just distracting myself from all the pain. I often want to *end it all*, whatever that could mean. Sometimes I think about hurting myself, other times about hurting others. But those thoughts are more so signifiers of how tired I am from feeling pain all the time, they’re not what I really want.

Do you think everyone would accept you? Or do you think they only pretend to do so at the beginning? It’s easy to say that they understand you at first. But then they find out you are complicated.

She reminds me of my past self. I used to think that too! Hell, I still realize that this is partially true: there will be people in my life who won’t accept me, and people who will tell me that they will, only to change their mind later. And that obviously fucking sucks. Life is not easy, but I know that ending it all is just the easier solution that won’t make me happy in the long run.

Exe hasn’t realized all of that yet, she didn’t have a journey life FP did. But instead of accepting their words, she continues to sabotage herself. Triumphant music plays, akin to something you’d hear at the end of a movie about the power of love; but the moment is nothing but sad. A lot of blatantly mischaracterized dialogue is thrown around as I’m internally screaming “THEY WOULD NOT FUCKING SAY THAT”. I can’t imagine any character saying those things, especially Void. ESPECIALLY Waterbottle. They would not fucking say that. FriendProgram understands that too.

And that’s when instead of [Be Friend], they get to [Be themself]. It’s a powerful signifier of the journey they went through, of how they learned that it’s okay to stop pretending. That instead of taking on a role, of labeling themself as a friend, as good or bad, as hero or villain, they can just be.

The last few dialogues between them are beautiful. Most importantly, the ending is bittersweet. The two don’t know if life from now on is going to be easy, they never saw someone like them happy. But they can live and find out. It almost feels like talking to yourself, or is it just me? FP and Exe both remind me of myself, all of Epilogue is like seeing my depressed side fight with my “rational” side until they come to a conclusion.

We can find a life that makes us happy. Maybe for once, life forms like us… Can be happy.

Yes, there are other life forms like you out there. Like the people playing this game!

And finally, roll credits. Finally, I could go to sleep. Because it was, like, 1 AM my time when we finished the game.

But what happened next? (Post-game)

I cried thinking about the Epilogue the next day. The uncertainty of whether you’ll have a good life… If you’ll be happy… And the meta messaging, ooh. I noticed the TV theming right around Act 3 and was sure that the discussion of absence of loveless representation in media was very much intentional. Well, not anymore? We now have a big, long game about lovelessness in this universe. I hope there will be more to come.

I dabble a bit in gamedev myself and I do want to include lovelessness in one of my projects. I don’t know if it’ll be the main theme, though, because Friendship Test covers so many things about this identity that I don’t know if I can do any better. I’ll just make Friendship Test 2 and it’ll be worse, like most sequels.

But lovelessness WILL be in the things I make. After all, I put parts of me into everything I create. I already blasted two of my characters with the loveless aro beam. One of them is Scare, and I care about them a lot. He is a loveless aroallo, and also demiplatonic. I’ve been obsessed with developing her for a year now and my fondness for them doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. In case you are curious about my funny guys, I have an ongoing OC Q&A, where you can ask my OCs anything you want. I plan to get it done after this blog!

I adore this game: the simple but charming art, the royalty free music, the character designs, the characters themselves, and the relationships between them. If you know me, you know that I am a robot girlie (gender neutral). So a game that’s about cool aspec robots? A recipe for me to become obsessed with it for a couple of months.

The entire second half of the game especially is just so, so touching. This is why I feel like the second half of this thinkpiece is longer and denser than the first, too. I often felt awful looking at the word count as I was writing this. Is this too long? What’s the point of this? …But I’m too stubborn and don’t like to leave things unfinished. If you enjoyed reading this, cool! If you feel like you’ve wasted time, sorry!

I can’t really call this a review, because all I did was praise the game and retell my life experiences, I didn’t criticize anything. So, I called this a thinkpiece. But really, the best descriptor is “blog post”. Which it is, it’s a post on my blog. And I will write about whatever I want on my blog.

I understand that critique is what helps creators improve, but really, I’m not good at giving critique. I tend to see the good in every game I play and don’t pay too much attention to what could have been better. And I think Mar, the creator, knows what is lacking in her game. They said that not having custom textboxes is one of those things, and I agree. I’m looking forward to seeing how she’ll improve in her next projects.

This game didn’t “rewire my brain” or “change my life”. I was already deep into aspec theory before I played it. But it’s such a gift to me as a loveless person. It’s something I didn’t know I needed. Like I said in the very beginning, I became content with not seeing loveless characters in games. So, when I started to heavily relate to FriendProgram I felt like I was hit by a fucking truck. Like, what do you mean it’s possible for me to relate this much to a character? I feel embarrassed every time I say this. What if other people think we’re nothing alike?... I try to tell myself that it doesn’t matter.

And I may have been a bit too cocky when I said that “I already have all of my labels figured out”, because once again, the game helped me so much in realizing that I’m aplatonic. I came out the day after aplatonic visibility day, too! I noticed that this game helped many people discover that they are aspec in some way, and that’s awesome. I guess you can now count me as one of those people.

The diversity of loveless experiences shown is neat, too, thanks to there being multiple loveless characters of different backgrounds. Off is the mature type, content with being alone; Void still wants to make friends and connections. Clover… Wait, Clover is loveless? Yes, they are, apparently! According to post-game commentary, they will figure this part of their identity out eventually. And they represent the overcompensating type of lovelessness. Yeah, I used to be like Clover.

I hope Pixels will help them learn to be less nice over time, because those two will enter a QPR after the events of the game. I was pleasantly surprised with this information, cause like I already mentioned, they are my two favorite characters. And a loveless partnership? That’s fucking rad. An angel just grew wings somewhere in this universe. I recently entered a loveless partnership, and I can’t wait until my partner finds out about these two (she is still playing the game).

What’s next for me and Friendship Test? Well, I plan to do more fanart once I have more free time. I have ideas I haven’t drawn yet! Artfight is starting soon, so I have to work on OC refs, but I will try to allocate some of my time to fanart too. Additionally, my friend Dbap made a Wiki for this game on wiki.gg and I want to continue contributing to it. I’m not the best at writing down information, but there aren’t that many volunteers besides me. You, the reader, can go help us out too! We have a Discord server as well, the link is on the navigation sidebar of the Wiki.

…That’s about everything I wanted to say in this blog. I may have forgotten something, but I think it’s time to wrap things up. This thing is way longer than I expected anyway. Literally 10k words.

Once again, thank you for reading, and until next time.