A Catalan Summer describes itself as a “historical gay melodrama.” It’s certainly that, but there’s a lot more to A Catalan Summer as well. Over the course of the game you’ll play as four different members of the Vidal family, only one of whom could be considered gay. All four characters will have to make choices about romantic partners, though, and some will also have to respond to the Catalan independence movement, an anarchists’ group, and growing unrest among workers at the family factory.
Paterfamilias Josep is the most prominent of the four characters. You start A Catalan Summer in his shoes, and you spend more time playing him than any of the other three. In addition, his choices have the most effect on the lives and choices of the other characters: wife Maria, son Jordi, and daughter Clara. I enjoyed switching back and forth among these four, although their internal voices weren’t as varied as they could have been.
A Catalan Summer contains more of a concrete world model than a lot of choice-based games. Much of the time you’ll be able to move around the Vidal family home and grounds, talking to other characters (and not just the four you can play). There’s nothing to interact with, though: no objects to take, no puzzles to solve. This is a game where all the choices are character-driven; i.e., your decisions are about who you want to be and how that affects everyone else. There is a goal of sorts: The game kind of indicates that you should work to ensure the Vidal family continues successfully into the next generation, but the game doesn’t force that on you; in fact, it is perfectly fine with choices that clearly undermine that end.
I think the choice structure works well, for the most part. The beginning — through the first two episodes as Josep — is pretty much on rails, but establishing scene, plot, and characterization before allowing major decisions is a reasonable design move. Once past this, though, A Catalan Summer provides lots of small choices that work to determine a character’s primary story arc. These don’t build up over time so much as they circle back, so that (for example) if as Josep you’ve mostly encouraged Clara’s upcoming marriage, you have opportunities later to put a stop to it. I like this better than choice design that provides you with only one chance to make a major decision, especially when you have to make that decision before you’ve thought through what you really want to do. Plus it allows you to change your mind. You aren’t given unlimited opportunities to change your mind in A Catalan Summer, though; your choices do have some consequences. Certain possibilities can become cut off, and eventually (of course) the game ends, with an epilogue telling you how your decisions affect the future of the Vidals.
A few minor comments: The color scheme, with text that is often green or yellow on a red background, is hard on the eyes. I’m also not fond of the text overlays when conversation occurs. It’s O.K. when you enter a room and then start talking to someone, but I found it a little irritating at the beginning of a scene, when the overlay covers up the room description before you’ve had a chance to read it (especially at the very beginning of the game). The initial eye contact between the two major gay characters was a bit over the top, even given the foreshadowing. The Proust cameo was fun, even if I don’t know enough about him to appreciate how he might fit into the game’s themes. I also like the game’s cover art, which looks like a real oil painting.
Overall, I enjoyed A Catalan Summer. The major choices aren’t choices I face, but it was fun to play as different people for a while. I even played twice, making different decisions for each of the major characters, just to see what would happen. And I received appropriately different epilogues. I do think the writing could be stronger, particularly with respect to bringing out the characters’ various personalities. However, they do come to be defined fairly well by the choices they face, so this isn’t a major flaw. More than just a gay melodrama, A Catalan Summer is a worthwhile choice-based game set in a specific historical moment.
An Exercise for the Reader 