Someone asked me to do an analysis of Snoot Game and its themes. While I don't quite feel up to giving the whole game the same treatment I gave Wani (yet), I did think it would be fun and interesting to compare and contrast the most pivotal scenes from both games, that being the "Heart to Heart" moments. In the script files for Snoot Game, this scene is even called Heart to Heart. Therefore, it's appropriate to treat the bridge scene in Wani the same since it follows the same story beats as Snoot Game for the most part.

Both the rooftop scene in Snoot Game and the Bridge scene in Wani are vital for cementing the relationship of the protagonists in both games with their love interests while also setting the stakes for their respective character growth. Whether the player attains the best outcome in either game hinges on making the correct actions in these scenes.

Keep in mind, this is all just musings off the top of my head. I don't claim to be an expert on story analysis, this is just something I do for fun, so don't expect the "correct" interpretation from me.

(Please forgive the crappy quality of this image)

Both Snoot and Wani follow a plot structure where in the first act, the protagonist befriends the love interest, and the act ends with the Heart to Heart scene which solidifies their mutual affection. These are the moments in which the love interest is exposed and vulnerable to the protagonist and he must make the correct decisions to get her to open up further so she may overcome her challenges. These challenges are presented as psychological in nature, and are the root cause of her own character flaws.

These inherent flaws in both love interests are also meant to mirror the protagonist's own struggles. As such, there is a metanarrative at play which underpins the story and what the player is meant to take away from it.

Both games share the same basic narrative: human student is only one of his kind in a high-school dominated by dinosaurs. That is the overall plot of both games when simplified. But each game has its own unique metanarrative which shapes, and is even shaped by, both protagonists and their own struggles. And these struggles are shared by the love-interest in one form or another.

As I believe I've demonstrated in my analysis of Wani, that story's overall metanarrative is about self-actualization and attainment of personal agency. Snoot Game too shares a similar metanarrative, but is also underpinned by themes of identity. Fang, as a character, struggles with understanding who she is in large part because she has chosen to reject who and what she is in an attempt to compartmentalize her grief.

Olivia, by contrast, rejects the world around her. This manifests itself in her paintings which are described as being more idealized depictions of the world, as though she is painting in defiance of the world. Olivia's own struggles are more external than internal. She rejects a world which is constantly redefining her, and dictating her own place within it.

In the Heart to Heart scene, both protagonists seek out the love interest of their own volition and find them in a state of turmoil. No matter how the protagonists handle the situation, the plot progresses as intended, with both characters growing closer to each other as their attachment deepens. And the choices that follow will determine if both characters will come out stronger, or meet with mutual disaster.

Both Snoot and Wani have a mentor/father figure who are presented early on in both games and serve not only as a guide for the protagonist, but also a standard which they are meant to attain by the game's end.



Snoot Game's mentor figure is Principal Spears. He is a stern, authoritative fatherly figure who can be aggressive one moment, and gentle and sympathetic the next. His depiction is that of a hyper-masculine caveman whose own atavistic tendencies create a humorously anachronistic juxtaposition to his modern surroundings. While he may seem like a man out of time and place, his morals and attitude to life ring eternal.

Anon first meets Principal Spears in the first chapter of Snoot Game before and after Fang's ill-fated concert. He is polite and welcoming to Anon the first time, and stern and disappointed the second time. It's during their second encounter when Spears utters the line which is to be the narrative crux of the game. "You are not the only one in the world. Everyone is fighting their own battles."

This is after Spears catches Anon attempting to leave Fang's concert, free pizza in hand, after laughing at her band's performance. At this point, all we know of Anon is that he transferred to Volcano High midway through his senior year and feels insecure in the presence of his new dinosaur peers whom he imagines to be talking about him behind his back. It's not known if Spears himself knows the circumstances of Anon's transfer. What we can infer later on after Trish publicly humiliates Anon in a cruel, yet karmic and ironic twist is that Spears perceives Anon's hypocrisy in laughing at others when he himself would like to go unmolested by ridicule.

As the mentor figure, Spears is there to nudge Anon (and by extension the player) in the correct direction with his singular character defining quote, which serves as a clue to how the player should handle each choice as it comes. For Anon, his character arc is learning to be more empathetic towards others.

While I think it's an effective and succinct quote, I do think it's annoying that the writers chose to have Anon occasionally reiterate it to himself in his head as though the player needed a blunt reminder. The quote only needs to be said once to remain in Anon's subconscious. Repeating it merely belabors the point.



First time players of Wani could be forgiven for believing that Solly is the mentor figure. He appears at the end of the first chapter and gives Inco much needed advice and encouragement. However, he's immediately sidelined and becomes irrelevant to the plot.

The game's true mentor figure is that of Trent Iadakan, the teacher for both AP art and photography, who in this game is a mentor to both Inco and Olivia. We don't know for sure if Spears was also a mentor to Fang, but as his quote to Anon applies to her as well, we can imagine the two probably had some offscreen development.

Iadakan is first introduced in the second chapter, but it isn't until the third that he gives Inco his quote which is to serve as his guiding principal throughout the game. "If the air around someone needs clearing, clear it yourself."

At least...I think this is supposed to be Inco's character defining quote for the game. Truthfully, I didn't even remember it until I saw someone's fanart that featured both this quote and the quote by Spears. Even after playing through Wani several times and rereading parts of the script in preparation for writing the first analysis, this quote never stuck out to me.

For being a fan favorite, the ever charismatic and flamboyant Iadakan has a forgettable quote compared to his caveman counterpart. But nevertheless, he is Inco's immediate role model.

Being that Inco is not an independent thinker and tends to conform to peer pressure, Iadakan, by contrast, has a very rebellious attitude, both in his mannerisms and tendencies to flaunt convention and bend the rules. He is Inco's mentor and Olivia's surrogate father figure. His importance in the story is to encourage Inco to become an independent thinker and actor as opposed to the unthinking conformist he is initially.

The subtle lessons given to the protagonists by both mentors are supposed to clue them in as to how to handle the situation when faced with the Heart to Heart sections of both games. For Anon, his role is to support Fang and listen to her. For Inco, his role to be adversarial in the face of Olivia's solipsistic attitude towards the world.

In Snoot Game, the rooftop scene takes place in the same chapter as when Anon and Fang are in detention doing menial garden work, though both events could be their own separate chapters. They're merely in the same chapter in the game files.

By the time the rooftop scene occurs, Anon has been presented with three important choices, two of which grow Fang's score, and one of which grows his score. Even before he makes a choice that can positively affect Fang, Anon is also given choices before hand regarding his attitude towards Naser and Naomi. With Naser, he can attempt to apologize to him, or go straight to Principal Spears so as not to try the Caveman's patience. This is an interesting conundrum in of itself because, arguably, by going to Spears first, you are actually doing so in defiance of his proclamation that you are not the only one in the world. It's selfish motivation versus selfless motivation, and also independent action versus immediate fear of an authority figure. Though neither option affects Anon one way or the other, it is an effective way to mentally prime the player for the choices to come.

Same applies to Naomi. Even though her ulterior motivations are selfish, none of what she does is particularly malicious. And Anon, given the choice to talk to her, is choosing to think beyond himself, because Naomi matters too (even if she is an annoying busybody).

With the choices that affect Fang, it could be argued that Anon, even when picking the options that affect her positively, is doing so only for selfish gain. The first option is supporting her in defiance of Trish, but only to prove to Fang that Anon is right about her being subpar on bass. The second choice is to ask her for help with music class. It boosts Fang's confidence in herself and her musical expertise, but only because Anon needs help and is leaning on her for assistance.

The first choice that can positively affect Anon is when they're in detention and he accidentally gives away that he was at her concert. He can either try and play it off as a joke or swallow his pride and apologize. Even before this choice is presented, Anon and Fang are set on equal footing with both being in detention for misbehaving. And Fang, like Anon, is presented as being just as inconsiderate of others as he when she ignores his protests while trying to help her.

In summary, before the rooftop scene, they're both presented as egotistical jerks who look down upon others.


Like in Snoot Game, Wani gives the protagonist, Inco three choices before his pivotal scene with Olivia on the bridge in the rain. And like in Snoot Game, two of these choices have options which can positively affect Olivia, and the third choice positively affects himself. And with all three of these choices, Inco and Olivia find themselves struggling against a world which seeks to rob them of their agency. With the first choice, they act in defiance of prockling; with the second, they find common ground in both feeling misbegotten; with the third, it's defying the will of their peers.

I've already made it clear in my analysis of Wani that I'm not fond of the chapter Art Contest Blues. I think both Inco's internal monologuing about Olivia and their shared dialogue are very clumsily written. And the chapter itself packs in a ton of exposition and backstory on Olivia and Ben just to justify the scene. It breaks the pacing. It's also immersion breaking because it's dictating the player's emotions with Inco's oddly specific descriptions of his reasons behind each of his responses. The writing in Snoot Game and Wani isn't ordinarily this descriptive. Yet Inco's narration makes it feel like the writers are talking down to the player, which is unusual for them.

Worse still, Inco acts like he's walking on eggshells for her. Even after he gets tough on her, he immediately thinks, "aw jeez, she should've mauled me for that!" It robs the player of their own agency. There's little to nothing in the way of catharsis by throwing it back into her face because of how limp-wristed Inco's responses are.

There's also the fact that Iadakan makes it clear that Inco's skill as a painter is lacking; yet the fact he "won" either slips his notice, or he's aware of what Olivia did and is looking the other way for the time being; which is a massive plot-hole and makes him look just as complicit; or even down right permissive of Olivia's behavior, which is unusual for him.

*What it all comes down to is that Iadakan's actions throughout the game seem to have been done purely for convenience of the plot. He's shown to be stern with Olivia when it's necessary, yet looks the other way on her subterfuge which shows not only permissiveness towards her self-destructive attitude, but also indifference to Inco, who is as much his charge as Olivia. It makes him look negligent. (was chatting with Sebek about this plot point and typed this up to sum up my frustration, then decided to copy/paste it here 01/06/2025)*

Yes, I get that he realizes his mistake and that causes him to destroy the paintings in an act of desperation. It's just that everything leading up to it comes off as contrived. He too is flawed, which is fine for fleshing out his character. But in this instance, the flaws seem driven towards serving multi-act story beats.

This whole chapter is just one big mess.

Compare this to the rooftop scene in Snoot where it's mainly Anon listening to Fang's pleas for help. There's no internal monologuing by Anon to provide superfluous and heavy handed commentary on Fang's emotional state, just brief descriptions. It's simply her getting everything off her chest. And if Anon chooses to stay silent and listen to her, she eventually tells her story with her brother, Naser, in vivid detail without it being overly long. The scene as a whole is efficiently written and gets the point across.


Full disclosure before proceeding further. I played Wani before playing Snoot. And even then, I didn't actually play Snoot at first, I watched Machine Meastro's AI dub on YouTube several times through before playing it myself. I have no idea what ending I would've gotten the first time, I kinda spoiled it for myself there. And as for Wani, the first time playing through it blind, I got E3, and my final score was Inco 4, Olivia 2. I made every correct choice with Inco except for the one in Art Contest Blues (funny, I know). I picked the first option, "I can't hate you." Once the rest of the scene played out, I knew from how quickly and unsatisfactory the remainder was that I had picked the wrong option (I kept hoping he'd hold her to account). But by then, I was committed to the blind run and decided to see it through. For Olivia's choices, I invited her outside and cheered her on against Buster. Given my choices, E3 felt like a very natural outcome.

Just to explain my mindset during the bridge scene, I remember thinking specifically, "I don't hate you, but..." The other option, "But why do all this?" didn't feel direct enough. It should've been something more confrontational like "How could you do this?" Or, "This affects me, too!" A moment before, Inco was panicked at the thought of being thought of as a fraud, yet now it's like his instinct for self-preservation has been suspended just so he can think "I'm gonna hate myself for pressing her." His reactions are just annoying and limp-wristed.

Maybe it's supposed to be some meta-commentary about Inco battling his own inclinations towards pitying her in real time, but not allowing oneself to feel anger and indignation is by far the most condescending act one could have in the first place. Anger may not always be the healthiest emotion, but it can be the most rational in certain circumstances. It would've been more expedient, but maybe that's why they chose to write Inco's interactions the way they did to get more out of the scene.

If that's the case, then it makes Inco seem that much more a slave to the status quo the plot demands. (Had to rewrite this several times to properly articulate my frustration with what feels like contrived, lazy writing and poor characterization).

If an unambiguously upset response had been an option, I would've leapt at it in a heartbeat. But I get that there's supposed to be an element of ambiguity to all the options to get the player to think and self-reflect. I guess I'm just annoyed at myself for picking the incorrect option the first time. But I would've preferred the correct response had more bite to it like the one's I suggested. Make of that what you will.

The dev notes in the chapter file offer some insights into their mindset when writing this chapter. This one is on the first choice.
"But why do all this? ( +1 Inco) (this is an inco point because it's inco overcoming his failure of taking things at face value, allude and play into this."

Just by this, it's clear that Olivia's role here is intentionally antagonistic towards Inco. She's being dishonest and deceitful. This cycle of bad behavior continues if Inco fails to develop any further as a person and gets the E2 simp ending. He's being weak-willed and refuses to be adversarial.

On the other hand, if Inco does continue to develop and E3 is achieved, then another way to look at this exchange is that Inco is already on the path to becoming strong-willed and feels so rich in spirit that he doesn't mind being wronged by the poor, helpless crippled girl. He is condescending to her level to be her protector; she herself is even encouraging it--whether she knows it or not. I made this egoistic attitude of Inco's in E3 quite clear in my analysis of that ending.

Even if you do choose the correct first option, that in of itself doesn't automatically entail a path to the best ending. You still have to hear the backstory with Ben. And even then, if you don't choose the remaining correct options and hold Olivia accountable for her actions, it's still possible to get the best ending anyway as long as you get every other choice with her correct for the remainder of the game.

And of course, the purpose of the best ending is to show Olivia being fully independent, which is made quite clear by the imagery of her dancing without help. She's broken free of her self-perpetuating cycle of learned helplessness with Inco's encouragement.

Personally, I think Cavemanon botched this. I may not like the dialogue or the numerous choices, but I think they should have made it requisite to get every choice correct in order to get the extra Inco point and the necessary condition for E4 (which is how it worked in Snoot). Furthermore, by the end of this scene, provided you've gotten every choice correct up to then, that still leaves a final maximum score of Inco 2 and Olivia 3. If you complete the game with that score, you get E2 in which Olivia turns into an abusive narcissist anyway. It really doesn't paint a good portrait of her character.

Contrast this with E2 of Snoot Game where Fang is only guilty of continuing with her woke non-binary BS, but otherwise is not a bad, deceitful person (Trish is). She reacts with understandable indignation towards Anon's callus drunken behavior--after she supported him, no less. Fang looks more sympathetic than /our/ girl, FemAnon Olivia. Wani makes you jump through a lot of hoops just to see a version of Olivia that isn't such a selfish and entitled brat full of delusion. At best, she's a slightly more self-destructive and deluded version of Fang, and at worst, she's Trish with Anon's tendencies.

Perhaps Cavemanon were trying to make a point about people who would like to see themselves in the role of some valient white knight as a kind of tongue-in-cheek jab at themselves and how they wrote E3 of Snoot Game (which was originally the best ending before they added E4). And with this in mind, intentionally made Art Contest Blues as sappy and overly sentimental as possible with the sappy, sad music and the image of a protag valiantly condescending to Olivia's level to be her forgiver and protector. And all of it was just bait, just a red herring to trap players into any of the lesser endings, with E3 showing an uncertain future instead of an Army chad and a trad wife.

If this was the case, then well played, Cavemanon, you got me.

The only problem is that to make this overly self-conscious bit of labored story telling from Cavemanon work, it was necessary to make Inco into a spineless wimp not capable of indignation at being used, and Olivia even more so an impulsive coward for ever doing it in the first place and waiting till the last minute to try and rectify it.

And the player's reward if they do make the correct choices is to see Olivia beg and plead like her life depends on it. The whole thing is very uncharitable to Olivia and requires some act of condescension from Inco no matter how he responds to her plight. It's like a power fantasy to make the tsundere girl beg and plead. And Inco's only flaw is that he's too much of a nice guy and not someone who could potentially go down a worse path (unless it's 1nco, then maybe).

Compare this to Snoot Game which does the opposite. The imagery is not of a rainy day, but a bright and beautiful day. Anon is climbing the stairs to find Fang and is thus ascending to her level, not condescending to it. He finds Fang in a state of suicidal ideation (though he doesn't know that), and listens to her as an equal. Cavemanon's depiction of Fang is far more charitable here.

I haven't read the famous critique by LitAnon on Snoot Game which inspired rewrites and the creation of E4 of Snoot Game. I only know that the biggest critique was its depiction of Fang still being dependent on someone, and simply shifting her co-dependent attitude from Trish to Anon instead of attaining personal agency for herself. I get the feeling the writers at Cavemanon are still traumatized by this and were trying really, REALLY hard not to repeat the same mistake.

Only I think they did. Olivia just looks weak and pathetic no matter what, and Ben too doesn't get the redemption arc he deserved because he doesn't work for their trust, it's just handed to him. So much for "muh representation done correct."

I suspect this because again, it's all in the imagery: Anon is ascending to Fang's level, and Inco is condescending to Olivia in the most condescending and sappy, sentimental scene imaginable: a crippled crying girl lying helpless in the rain [INSERT POIGNANT EPLIPSIS HERE]

Ultimately, the most condescending thing about Olivia's treatment in Wani is that if you go down the E4 route, she gets everything she's ever wanted and more. Other than losing Iadakan, whose death is scripted to happen no matter what, she doesn't lose or relinquish anything. Only Inco, whom she wronged, is privy to her subterfuge which by rights should've have cost her an awful lot. No one else knows, not even Damien and Liz who are kept ignorant. And in the game, only Liz gives Olivia the beratement she had coming for her juvenile attitude.

This is why E2 and E3 both feel more natural because they're the endings Olivia "deserves." I put that in quotes because that's my opinion. E4, even in spite of everything, feels very undeserved. E4 of Snoot felt more deserved, even if it's also too idealistic.

The more I think about Wani, the more disillusioned I become by it. But then again, these are merely the rantings of a neurotic caffeine addict and wannabe professional writer. Maybe I'm just being needlessly cynical. In spite of all the criticisms I have, it still says a lot about Cavemanon that they can make stories that get me this emotionally invested. So make of this what you will.