Violet (video game)

Violet is a work of interactive fiction by Jeremy Freese. It is a one-room puzzle game. It took first place in the 2008 Interactive Fiction Competition with an average score of 8.53.

You play as the unnamed boy/girlfriend of the eponymous Australian girlfriend who will leave you if you do not complete your graduate thesis in the next six hours. A world of distractions surrounds you and overcoming them will put your relationship to the test...

It can be found here.


 * Gay Option: You're male by default, but you can change your gender to female by typing in FEMALE or, more humorously, HETERONORMATIVITY OFF.
 * Love Hurts: Far lighter than most examples, though. An increasing amount of puzzles requires you to destroy sentimental gifts given to you by Violet to finish your essay (and, by proxy, win back Violet), revealing that no, everything wasn't fine and dandy with Violet in the days leading up to your thesis. Lampshaded by Violet herself in the ending,
 * Plucky Girl: Shines through in every sentence of Violet's dialogue -- or at least the dialogue your mind associates with her. The end dialogue notes you really Flanderized her.
 * Potty Emergency: Your final puzzle has you needing to relieve yourself without going outside your room (as you'll be hopelessly distracted if you do; not to mention that you're naked at this point). A handy wastebasket does the trick. Or a bottle, if you're playing as a male.
 * Ridiculous Procrastinator: The PC, full stop. You'll almost certainly be reminded of that night you kept on being distracted from working on something super-important by various diversions while playing this game. Maybe you're even procrastinating on something while playing the game itself. If you give up, you lay down and cry.
 * Shrinking Violet: One of Violet's friends. She has an album on your gimmicky MP3 player - it's mostly her shyly singing about mundane topics.
 * Violation of Common Sense/Solve the Soup Cans: The puzzles, which range from jamming gum in your ear to keep an MP3 player from being too loud, to stripping naked.
 * Zombie Apocalypse: Not literally, but someone organized a zombie march at the park outside your flat. If you let it distract you for a while or spend too much time trying to solve the puzzles before the one requiring you to shut the march out by closing the blinds, it eventually drags in pirates, ghosts, aliens, and someone even brings a zeppelin.