Gayme of the Week: Is It That Deep Bro?
Close your eyes bro, what do you see? If the answer was nothing, then that’s my life without you, dear rea- I mean bro. Jokes aside, Is It That Deep Bro? is one of the most charming games I’ve played recently.
It’s got cute, pixel art with a combination of a warm and cold palette, really catchy music that had me bobbing my head as I worked with the settings in the main menu and two, very likeable characters: yourself and Clay.
Despite being just called ‘You’, you do get your own look so that you aren’t just staring at a blank face throughout the game.
The main premise of this game is that you and your best friend Clay have gone to watch a movie together. Nothing gay about that, just two bros watching a movie. Only, one mention of assless chaps and hot, sweaty men, and the fact that it’s only the two of them in an empty cinema screen, does raise a few questions. Maybe it’s…a little gay?
This is where the game really starts to ‘heat up’, so to speak. You’ll get a few mini-games, and depending on what options you pick, you can really start to acknowledge your feelings for your best friend and wonder if they feel the same way, or live in denial and ignore the feelings bubbling inside you. I really appreciated this sort of ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ choice. It’s obvious that you have feelings for Clay, but whether you act on them is entirely up to you.
It’s moments like this that really make the game feel much like a hug — warm and comforting. There’s this denial that goes on between the boys, to the point that they laugh and joke about it, but then there are also the lingering looks, the touching of hands and the butterflies in your stomach. It feels good to play and relive those sorts of feelings.
So far I’ve played twice and got two different endings. The first was ‘Boy’ which led to Clay and I having a jokey, almost doublespeak conversation about being too focused on one another to really see the gay cowboy movie’s actual ending. It’s light, not explicit, but does imply that the two of them become more aware of their feelings for one another.
The other ending was ‘Denial’. To get this, I tried my best to shy away from openly touching Clay or even looking in his general direction, ignoring absolutely every option that could lead to him thinking I was being ‘predatory’ and checking him out. It’s a fear that most of us have when it comes to interacting with people we love, especially those who we feel will react poorly. As to be expected, this ending very much ended with a ‘No Homo’, a phrase that has been uttered more than a few times in Is It That Deep Bro?
My favourite ending was, of course, the one where the two boys open up about their attraction to one another, but there is still merit in the denial ending by conveying the toxicity still present within today’s society about how men loving men is considered abnormal to the point that being in denial is just safer.
You can play Is It That Deep Bro on itch.io for free, or donate to give the developer some cash for their hard work! There are three endings to discover, and with a playtime of 3-5 minutes, we’re certain it won’t be too hard to find them all!
Check out the rest of our Gayme of the Week picks. We’re certain we’ll point you in the right direction of a game you should play to get those warm, fuzzy feelings.
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