A Brief Introduction Sometimes, when a person is damaged, it is easy to see. Sometimes, it isn’t. And sometimes, the person who is damaged doesn’t even know it themselves. It helps to have friends and family that can offer guidance to get you through the tough times…. but only YOU can fix your own problems. They cannot be fixed for you. I Wani Hug That Gator! appears on the surface to be a funny dinosaur/crocodile dating sim. This is true. It is filled with references, jokes, and often has a naturally silly flow. But just beneath that layer of meta humor and entertainment is one of the deepest and most realistic stories of self-healing and support I have ever witnessed in not just gaming, but in all of media. Let me tell you why the funny gator game is worth your time. In-Depth Analysis Story In IWHTG, you play as Inco G. Nito, a human attending a school of anthropomorphic dinosaurs. While his name and appearance would lead you to believe he’s a parody and caricature of the typical “self-insert protagonist”, he is very much his own character, with his own story, morals, and goals. However, Inco is not a very competent person. While his family is quite well off, his parents are intensely neglectful, pursuing their own careers instead of being at home with him. He’s moved from place to place his whole life, and as he says himself, “a rolling stone gathers no moss.” This has made him disconnected, naive and unsure of himself or his goals in life. He has never been given the attention nor forged the relationships to begin to understand what he truly desires, how to assert himself, nor how to properly interact and connect with others. As the player’s character, it is the player’s responsibility to make the choices that will help push him towards achieving self-actualization. But Inco is not the only major player in this story. The other is the titular “Gator” the game refers to, a girl by the name of Olivia Halford. Just like Inco, Olivia is not in a good place in life. Despite her prodigious skill in art, and a genuinely good person under the surface, Olivia has been beaten down by life to the point of simply giving up. She is coasting, unable to summon forth the willpower to try anymore, believing herself to not be worth the effort, and that she cannot amount to anything of her own skill. She mistrusts everybody she doesn’t know, having been burned too hard in the past to believe anybody genuinely cares for her anymore, and even doubts the love her own family has for her at times. She has resigned herself to believing she will always be given pity as a handicapped person, and can never stand on her own merit. She is truly at the lowest point. I Wani Hug That Gator is a story of two people healing, coming to terms with who they are, and becoming the best of themselves. It’s a great, feel-good concept, and if that was just it, I’d still probably enjoy it. To my surprise, IWHTG takes things a step further. I rarely see ANY form of media so accurately portray how people with these issues would act, and on top of that, how true the hidden message of the game is. Healing from issues like these is a long process with several steps. It’s not a straight line, and it’s not as simple as being told to be better. Sometimes life kicks you while you’re down, and sometimes it kicks you while you’re trying to stand up. Olivia does NOT immediately trust Inco. In fact, it takes quite a long time for her to do so. Equally, Inco tends to still fumble at the worst times and be unsure of himself until very late in the story. But it’s the unspoken message of the narrative that truly struck home with me. Friends and family are important. They can provide kindness, affection and advice in the worst of times. But true change, and true choices can not be made for you. They must be made by YOU. A choice you do not make for yourself can not lead to lasting, impactful change. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3354922706 Like all visual novels, the choices the player makes guide them towards one of multiple endings. IWHTG has four endings, ranging from absolutely terrible outcomes to the best case outcome. Throughout the story, there are choices that are deeply important to the characters. But unlike most VNs, where some choice/ending connections are kinda vague or arbitrary, every key choice in IWHTG has a significance. I think of them as a “healing” choice, because the “correct” decision is one that pushes Olivia or Inco towards the path of self-actualization and healing. But what gave me reason to stop and think is how the choices are presented. As the player, Inco’s “correct” choices are ones he can make for himself. He should speak up for what is right, stand up for himself when he needs to, and reach for the connection with others. But Olivia is just as important as Inco. However...... the player is not playing as Olivia. They are playing as Inco. And Inco making a choice FOR her is not helping her. In fact, it actually does the opposite. By making a choice for Olivia, the player is robbing Olivia of her ability to prosper on her OWN merits. You cannot succeed in life by having everything handed to you, and chosen for you. Olivia’s entire issue is that she feels as if everything is given to her only out of pity, and that she cannot succeed on her own. If Inco makes that choice for her, he simply proves that more true, and drives her deeper into that hole. Inco and Olivia must make their own choices to improve. Inco can only help Olivia, he CAN NOT make her change for the better by making that choice for her. She must decide that on her own, like a real person. Both characters must be the catalyst of their own journeys. It is only when they both improve, on their own choices, by their own merit, that they flourish. Gameplay IWHTG plays nearly identically to any traditional visual novel or dating sim. It’s a text and image based format, where you read it like a book and occasionally make choices, some of which are important. Almost everything gameplay-wise is what you would expect from a VN / Dating Sim. Visuals Some assets are better done than others, but on average, the quality of the art, and especially the animations is better than what I’d expect from a visual novel. When I normally play a VN, I expect static images. This was a nice surprise. Audio It has music, but it’s not very memorable. It does its job, and that’s all it really needs to do. Technical GeForce RTX 3050Ti 4GB | Intel i7 | 16GB | Windows 10 The game runs fine, and I had no issues. However, the “point tracker” debug mode seemed to be enabled by default for me, which I had no personal issue with, but some people might. It can be disabled in the settings. Conclusion I went into I Wani Hug That Gator expecting an amusing, simple story about a guy hugging a gator. What I got was a shockingly deep story about mutual self-healing and the importance of taking control of your own life. I spent nearly a full week thinking about this game after finishing it. It even pushed me to start working out and rekindle my old passions like video editing and writing. With my ADHD, dedication is incredibly hard, and the fact that I am STILL working out four weeks later is astonishing, even if I am having some issues figuring out a routine. But what matters is that I made the choice to improve for myself. I heavily recommend this game to anybody that feels like they’ve been struggling to realize their potential in life. 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