Checkpoint’s Queer Game of the Month: July 2024 – HITM3

Sometimes, all queer people need to do is survive. When the world is as harsh as it is, when everything is stacked against you, sometimes you just need to be. But wouldn’t it be good if you and your queer friends could do a little more? Paint the town red. Start a riot. Fight for your everyday life? What if you and your fellow queer compatriots could make a real difference and make some art? HITM3, a newly released indie game is a brief narrative adventure that explores this very idea. It’s because of its simple beauty that this is Checkpoint’s Queer Game of the Month for July 2024.

HITM3 follows a group of queer characters, a majority of which are in a relationship together. You control Nam and you must help one of your loves, Dei, create a personal film inspired by experimental stories told throughout cinema. Set in Santiago, the capital of Chile, the group will explore the city, work to fund the film by selling empanadas and just… find themselves.

Though brief in runtime, the game is packed with substance. Parts of the experience are a quaint slice-of-life simulator where you’re wandering around observing the silhouettes of locals with stories to tell, or simply buying Chilean ‘completo’ hot dogs. Maybe you’ll grow a bond with a cat that wanders around your apartment complex, needing food each day. What you’ll also bear witness to is insightful looks into the inner dialogue of a creative and colourful cast of queer characters. You’ll become more familiar with how queer people live and breathe their day to day. This is something incredibly valuable both to queer players of HITM3 for strong resonance and those that aren’t of that background just wanting a little bit of education and exploration of queer goodness. The game too is the third entry in a series of visual novels on itch.io, now evolved into a 3D narrative experience. Despite being a newcomer to this release, it stands strong on its own as a palpable, emotive game.

HITM3 beats a lot of odds. It’s a very indie experience, made by a solo Chilean developer and, as such, its English translation is quite rough. A lot of sentences are quite stilted and typos are certainly noticed. Still, that barrier is overcome. The messages, the meaning and the guttural experiences found within transcend language and are ones I felt to the bone.

The world in HITM3, much like ours, isn’t all roses. Though softer, more wholesome queer stories feel like a warm blanket of an experience, it’s refreshing to experience a queer story in games that don’t have soft edges but instead, one that cuts when it wants to. HITM3 does a stellar job of exploring homophobia. You’ll note the casual use of the F slur all the time by the people you pass on the street. In an early sequence that follows all the characters at a bar, some patrons will bemoan about the group’s presence. Often you and your friends will host a movie night at a bar run by your friend Terco known as Blendie. These are all queer and experimental art films that actually exist, with scenes from them briefly recreated in the game’s low poly art style. Passersby attend these nights before leaving the film in disgust when they learn of its nature.

HITM3 feels like such a grassroots game because of its cast and how they adopt that DIY mentality in their everyday life. Late in the game, they’re doing their best to fund money to save Blendie from closing down by hosting donation-driven movie nights in the park. They also use that mentality and the group’s strength of community to get shit done. One of the movies that you’ll witness recreated in-game is the debut film from experimental film director Bruce La Bruce, 1991’s No Skin Off My Ass. In it, the lead character recounts an explicit sexual encounter with another man he meets on a park bench. One of the lines uttered is “Everybody’s a fag.” This turn of phrase is empowering and palpable to the group, and they use it to fight homophobia found in prior scenes by sticking posters around the city that boldly and triumphantly proclaim: Everybody’s a fag.

These acts of defiance reach a boiling point in a late scene where some of the other homophobic locals again unbeknownst to them attend another of these queer movie nights. Only this time it erupts into a fight which Dei uses to their advantage and captures footage of it for their film. With Nam manning the camera with Dei, you’re now in a sequence where you’re controlling and capturing the footage, surveying the carnage. Suddenly the oppression and violence that this group of queer people face in their lives is under their control. They handle the narrative and they can change their story, or share it any way they please. It’s such a raw, compelling and vulnerable moment turned empowering that I’m still thinking about days later.

HITM3 is an incredibly important title that stresses the importance of queer communities, self-advocacy and the arts. It shows players how, with the right people by their side, they can be, achieve and overcome anything that stands in their way. Delving into some hard topics but never feeling gratuitous or like misery porn, it’s a quintessential experience for those looking to be the fly on a wall for following a set of queer people’s lives.

HITM3 is the first of developer Xiri’s releases to make its way outside of itch.io and onto Steam. Fittingly so because of just how damn important it is. Check it out.