In Their Shoes

Sandals, Loafers, Boots, Heels, Sneakers, Slippers, Barefoot

HIGH Through well-crafted dialogue, it trains our empathy.

LOW It’s very repetitive.

WTF Emma’s comfort food — gherkins dipped in ice cream?

Nico feels inadequate for not having left home until the age of 28… But she also believes that being taller than the average bookcase isn’t always an advantage, and fears that ricotta and sun-dried tomatoes will lead to the end of civilization.

It seems an oddly interesting introduction, but fortunately, we will know more about Nico and her quirky features until we internalize some familiarity in her dialogue and her worries, as if her story were also our own.

But In Their Shoes isn’t just about Nico — it’s also Vale, Pier, Nina, Lara, Emma and Alex.

In this game, we will be seven different characters in many different types of shoes, each one with their concerns, doubts, stories, drama, dilemmas, and pains. Inevitably, players will see themselves reflected in at least one of the characters, as many of the chats and situations contained in this experience could have happened to anyone — even us — on any given Tuesday afternoon.

In Their Shoes aims to unlock in us, the player, introspective moments about what it means to live in the modern world and how we dwell with an immeasurable chain of problems — some larger than others, naturally — but real problems that we deal with in one way or another.

In Their Shoes is a narrative experience. Gameplay consists of choosing dialogue to help our characters navigate difficulties. The goal is not necessarily pursuing a happy ending, but rather, to know and to better our characters. Each one has a different story in which they’ll talk with friends, family and lovers about their worries, opinions and frustrations. The themes are many, and the player should keep in mind that topics such as suicide, addiction, racism or misogyny are addressed.

The game is divided into seven episodes, each symbolically represented by a shoe (sandals, loafers, boots, heels, sneakers, slippers, and barefoot) and each character has one dialogue per episode, meaning that players will have 49 dialogues to explore. While we scroll through them, we will be asked at certain moments to choose between two or three replies. Some options are more important than others, since they can shift the story of our characters, and it’s possible for each playthrough to have different outcomes.

An interesting point of In Their Shoes is that our characters aren’t particularly active in their conversations, as much of the talking is done by others. This is intentional. The writers force us to assume a passive posture to examine the discourse and understand how the situations and the external stimuli affect our characters. This materializes in thought tokens, a tool that appears sometimes like a thought bubble, which then allows us to know what our characters are thinking in particular moments.

As one might guess by now, In Their Shoes is mostly reading. We will get dialogue after dialogue, and, although for some people this can be a boring endeavor, the devs use strategy to make this a less monotonous experience. The conversations are short, around five minutes each, and they’re engaging and entertaining. The background art is pretty and different for every dialogue, plus the soundtrack marks the pace and tone of the text well. There are also a few minigames to break things up.

Ultimately, the end goal of In Their Shoes is to unlock keywords while talking, because only through them can we know everything about our characters. However, I found that the hardest part of the experience was trying to avoid choosing the dialogue options that I would choose if it were me in the situation, and to instead act according to the personalities of the characters — truly trying to play in their shoes, as it were.

The writers do give us enough information to do so. There are clues for us to better understand our characters and where the dialogue is, and each one makes us think. Of course some nuances will be missed, as some situations will be completely unfamiliar to the player (not everyone has a brother in prison, or deals with the complications of a polyamorous relationship.) In some ways playing feels a bit like psychoanalysis, where we need to catch deeper meaning in words, actions, personality traits and behavior patterns in order to understand them and advance each story. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to know the script was penned by a psychologist.

It’s obvious that In Their Shoes was made to test and improve a player’s empathy. Although some of us have probably gone through some of the situations we encounter here, many will be outside the average person’s experience. Further, it’s mechanically not a game for everyone — it’s targeting the niche of people who love reading in games, and I suspect it will be repetitive and monotonous for most. However, pedagogically speaking, it’s worth playing as a way of training one’s ability to feel for others, and to be in the shoes of people who are different than us.

Rating: 6.5 out of 10

Buy In Their Shoes – PC

Disclosures: This game is developed and published by We Are Muesli. It is currently available on PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PC. Approximately 9 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: As of press time, this game was Not Rated by the ESRB. The game has a content warning, stating that it explores a range of sensitive topics, like neurodivergence, disability, body image, social pressure, anxiety, death, sexual acts, and substance use. Also, certain characters may express discriminatory views, and few illustrations may contain occasional, non-explicit depictions of sexual acts.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles. The subtitles cannot be altered and/or resized, but there is an option for a dyslexia-friendly font.

Remappable Controls: No, this game’s controls are not remappable. This is a point-and-click game.

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