New browser game Too High is about trying to form credible, humanlike sentences while absolutely whazzed on happy eggs at a party, but I think it also performs pretty well as a send-up of social anxiety at large.
Created by Christine Mi for the “Worst Nightmare” week of Itch gamejam Prototype Studio 2025, it sees you ushering the words of a greeting together with your mouse, only for them to be knocked out of formation by other, rising and falling phrases such as “am I going to die” and “what did they just say”.
You’ve got to herd those kittenish letters into coherence before your “Awkwardness” bar fills up. I was too frightened to learn what happens when your “Awkwardness” bar fills up, so I’ve got the game paused at about 90%, having successfully completed the utterance “I’m Christine super”. I’ve certainly said worse things at parties. Oh no, now I’m remembering things I have said at parties. Get ye behind me, New Year 2015.
I can well imagine an audio-based version of this game, with players fumbling towards the echo of a “hello” or a “hey”, against a screenful of context-free Bocchi the Rock scenes. Please don’t make that game, Christine. You have done enough. Perhaps even less pleasantly, I’d love somebody to mod this into a first-person RPG that simulates either woozy incapacity or just the mortal fear of being asked your name and job title. Socially anxious Skyrim, now there’s a concept.
