Android Emulation
I played Money for Girls: Amortized on desktop first, but then tried it out on an Android phone with GameNative's on-device emulation & direct downloads from Steam. There are some great advantages and unique experiences that come with playing on Android this way!
The setup for GameNative is explained better in the link above, so just go there for that. The only thing I'd like to note is that I don't 100% know if GameNative and MfG:A will run on every Android phone, but GameNative is free… So, just make sure that if you buy the game, you'll be prepared to play it on desktop in the case that it doesn't work on Android.
Now, onto the experience!
Reading text and maneuvering around is pretty easy. I have my on-screen controller set up like this, with a keyboard C and game controller B button on the side. C goes to the Cancer menu, and B goes to the Save/Load/Exit menu.
You can (usually) see exactly where you're pointing to with the cursor, and I got that same, strange feeling I had on desktop where I was "interfacing" with the world and all of its harsh, stylized vibrancy through that pointed hand.
One of the first thing I did was cap the FPS to 15. To do this, and customize other settings, you can open the quick menu in-game by swiping left from the right edge of the screen, and pressing the back arrow. The 15FPS cap is a personal preference, and not really necessary. The Cancer Prize creation screen seems to stutter both on desktop and Android for me, so just a heads up about that if you see it slowing down a bit regardless of your settings.
Having mouse input enabled (or, to put it another way, having "Disable Mouse Input" disabled... GameNative can be a little confusing about it) lets you use the screen as a big trackpad. I haven't been able to figure out how to set up touchscreen input, but I prefer this trackpad-style input anyway.
(Android-themed Cancer that I didn't know where else to fit.)
I found the text to be readable on my phone, since most of the interface buttons are nice and big. However, if you have a visual impairment, desktop may be a better fit for you, as the dialogue text can be a little small on mobile.
Additionally, if there is any section with a scrollbar, you cannot scroll through it easily. You instead have to click on the portion of the scroll track where you want to jump to. The only sections I've seen so far that require navigating with a scrollbar are not mandatory for the gameplay, like the text history menu and the game credits.
There is one re-occurring moment where the cursor disappears, and while this might normally be seen as a difficult thing about playing on Android, it's actually what lead to my unique experience with the game on this platform.
When you close your eyes while trying to fall asleep, the screen will go black, and the usual hand cursor will disappear. You have a few options to the left of the screen, like opening your eyes, closing them, staying awake with your eyes closed, and eventually falling asleep.
Since I have my controls set to trackpad and the cursor has disappeared, you kind of have to grope your way through the dark until you see the options on the left get highlighted. It takes a bit of time and care to do so, which really increases the tension of the scene!
Review of In Skyrim by XRAFSTAR
That's all I wanted to cover about Android emulation in this post. There are a few more things I wanted to say about MfG:A and a short story by the director of the game, though.
I played the Money for Girls after having re-read In Skyrim by XRAFSTAR, and the combination rocked me to my core. In Skyrim really cuts deep because of how it makes you (re-)experience the duress of being unhoused, poor, hungry, going through drug withdrawal, in mania and psychosis, and the lasting effects of abuse… or more accurately, the duress of living in a brutal capitalistic society that uses you and won't support you after it has damaged you. Also, the way that the real-life videogame Skyrim has been transformed into this social-chemical-technological-political hub, and modding has become this state-sanctioned-and-organized but also dark-market thing… I think it contributes to that deep cutting feeling.
In real life, doing things like installing Nexus mods or interfacing with the internals of Skyrim can trigger a 6th sense (digital proprioception?) in people of a certain social group, but in the world of this short story, that 6th sense and everything associated with it has been "made available" to (or tantalizingly dangled in front of? forced onto? made a requirement if you want to participate in society and connect with?) everyone. It has also been put into this context of a hyper-vigilated, hyper-accelerated, hyper-vibrant, hyper-melting world…
Technically, that is the world we live in, but in order to hold a candle to the already overwhelming real life experience, In Skyrim has to match the feeling and then exceed it, which it does.
I've had a similar experience with Money for Girls. It's really hard to describe if you haven't interfaced with the game itself (as in, playing it but also being so deeply immersed in the emotional-sensory experience that you find yourself crying, and hey, suddenly, Cancer is crying on screen too), because it may all end up sounding like I'm talking about how neat the world-building or writing is. It feels more complex than that, though… Not just surface-level artistic flare.
Bat guano sparkling on the streets… no birds… limited cellphone calling distance... dead Cancers being turned into blood coins and coming back to life in blood-wishing-wells… women being infantilized, perpetually school girls, hyper-vigilated, their agency removed, not allowed to support each other, trapped in debt, used by the state as resources and tools, disappearing… Everything reinforcing and expanding upon those moments in the early part of the game full of dazzling money in the air and light and a beautiful girl, or the first mentions of the INNOCENT Academy and women disappearing when it rains (it always rains here), and when you (the player) learn that your (Cancer's) mother is 1000 xeraphim in debt, with only 12 weeks left to pay it off.
I unfortunately have not gotten to much of Agnel's story in my playthroughs (I've been on team "stay at home with mom, visit Sugar Puppet a little bit, and then die badly by week 12"), but I think her being framed as the "preppy rich school bully who is the Golden Child of INNOCENT Academy" will have a similar… effect? Twist? Unusual sensation? I don't know what the right word is…. but, yes.
This is the world you know, but captured and then transformed in a way where the colors and sounds and language and everything mirrors exactly how painful it feels to live in it. We can't give up, though! We might not be able to change the world in the span of one lifetime, or by acting alone, but with more people, and more time, we can...
You can get Money for Girls on Steam, and read XRAFSTAR's short stories on their site's blog.