(There be SPOILERS below. Beware! Play this game before you read this through!) =)

“I think of the postmodern attitude as that of a man who loves a very cultivated woman and knows that he cannot say to her "I love you madly", because he knows that she knows (and that she knows he knows) that these words have already been written by Barbara Cartland. Still there is a solution. He can say "As Barbara Cartland would put it, I love you madly". At this point, having avoided false innocence, having said clearly it is no longer possible to talk innocently, he will nevertheless say what he wanted to say to the woman: that he loves her in an age of lost innocence.”

- The late, great Umberto Eco. Rest in peace.

Take a few minutes to read the above words, which came from a far greater brain than mine. Why? Because it's in the light of the above quote that we need to understand Project1.

It's hard to say when the age of lost innocence came upon the world of the RPG. ("It's all Final Fantasy VII's fault" is the cheap and easy answer, but the truth, as always, is more complicated). Yet, even if we can't provide a particular date, we can recognize that it has happened. Every hero must be an angsty anti-hero with an identity crisis; the classical virtuous hero is either a joke, a villain in disguise or a cliche. Every female character must be either a "strong woman" (a term that is unconsciously insulting to the many kinds of strength that women can have, even if they don't go all Lara Croft on the universe) or a psychologically traumatized deconstruction of the legendary princess. Every seeming "good guy" is actually a villain with an agenda, and vice versa. Yet, we continue to make and play RPGs in which the anti-hero ends up being heroic despite his issues, the female character is eventually reduced to a love interest, and there is usually a final villain or boss enemy, regardless of how you view his motivations. Thus, good can still conquer evil, and traditional roles can still be upheld - in an age of lost innocence.

Project1 is all about this lost innocence, of course. But then, we live in a world where "going meta" and breaking the fourth wall have become tropes and cliches of their own, and if all it did was deconstruct the process of constructing a modern story out of ancient archetypes and motifs, it would simply be a clever parlour trick, something to admire for its glib cleverness before being cast aside.

But it is the deeper level of this game that elevates it above the "oh, let's make fun of Chrono Trigger" or "let's make Chrono an abusive jerk who drives Marle into the arms of another man, just to break that old fourth wall" crop of games and fan works that are all too frequent these days. Such works are simply an attempt to deny lost innocence by making a bad joke of it, just as the "gallows humour" joke is an attempt to deny the reality of death by trying to see its funny side. Project1, however, brutally refuses such forms of denial, and strikes right at the root of lost innocence - not just in storytelling or RPGs, but as a basic fact of our existence in this world.

To quote another late, great mind, Cardinal John Henry Newman:
"And so I argue about the world; if there be a God, since there is a God, the human race is implicated in some terrible aboriginal calamity. It is out of joint with the purposes of its Creator."

We all recognize this, in one way or the other, unless we choose denial as a way of coping. Why do so many epic stories (RPG or otherwise) deal with the restoration of harmony and balance, or with the dangers of breaking such a balance? And why is it that, recognizing that there is no human way of restoring such balance, we seek solace in such stories?

Project1 has an answer - no, the answer. It is not one that will be to everyone's taste; it is not one that is hard to swallow. But it is true. And whether you choose to believe it or not is up to you.

Very strongly recommended.