Wolfbiter reviews IFComp 2024 - latest: Deliquescence; Miss Gosling's Last Case

[Draconis (Daniel Stelzer)]

Okay, I love that.

[wolfbiter]

Forsaken Denizen by C.E.J. Pacian
Playtime: 1 hour 56 minutes (to main ending)

The one with: a post-apocalyptic urban setting and a crack-shot PC

Probably the most video-game inflected of the games I’ve played so far. This is not my genre, but I definitely saw some shooter elements. To start: we shoot a lot. Also: ammo is limited but available by searching the map, limited save points, inventory restrictions (and the game tracks what you have in each hand separately), power-ups via special ammo, there’s patrolling mobs (here meaning NPCs that move around and can be attacked) that sometimes chase you, the PC can lose health but can get it back through power-ups. Another video game element is the sort of cinematic area descriptions—the creepy giant tree sucking energy out of the city I could definitely picture in concept art somewhere.

I also really liked that Dor gets different bonuses from wearing different outfits, which was a fun bit of self-expression and also practical.

(Sad note that, as often seems to happen to me, the transcript got messed up [because I used save and restore?] so I’m mostly relying on my memory here).

The game makes very good use of the shooter-elements I mentioned above. The PC is enjoyably competent, we explore the map for resources and figure out how to unlock areas. The game does a really good job keeping players “on the rails” by providing hints through the error messages and through conversation with the hologram if you need it. And I LOVE the choice to display, right there in the inventory, the intended command that works with each item in your inventory. Really reduced guess-the-verbing.

In general the game is tuned relatively easy, which I think helps create a kinetic feeling with forward momentum. It takes some effort to die and the provided resources are generous. Although there’s a decent number of mobs, most are skippable (in that as long as you keep walking they don’t catch up to you).

I did use the walkthrough in the end sequence. This was probably a somewhat less than idea experience, but I really wanted to finish within 2 hours. (I think finishing on my own was possible, but would have required more “look at this place I have been before and consider what is different” than I had patience for in the moment.)

The IF structure is interesting in that there’s a distinct narrator (Cath) who is different than the PC (Dor). (At the beginning I thought maybe Cath was haunting Dor, but actually it seems like she can just see her all the time. If the mechanism for that was explained, I missed it.) This provides some interesting narrative benefits—for example, Cath has an entertaining narrative voice which we get to enjoy, although from what we see (and filtered through the fact that Dor is trying to act on, err, my ideas) Dor is a bit more straightforward. I enjoyed Dor and Cath both as characters, and they had a cute-and-decidedly-untreacley romance. (Also this didn’t fit anywhere else but huge fan of the name “Alizarine Road,” using a banger word I have only heard in the context of paint.)

The plot feels of-the-moment, with a lot of “critique of late-stage capitalism” elements. The apocalypse is the result of creditors trying to recoup their investment from collateralized assets (i.e., the entire planet and populace??) There’s a lot of discussion of jobs that require people to expose themselves to shadow corruption, the main way presented to resist all of this is to . . . connect with a different corporation.

I had a very good time with this, it’s just really well executed, a solid chunk of entertainment. Probably my favorite scene is the slapstick “wait for the elevator in this extremely dangerous place” sequence—I could hear in my head the “ding” sound effect that would accompany the elevator finally arriving in a movie.

Two miscellaneous thought that are not really pluses or minuses:

(a) at one point I became convinced I had softlocked myself (pretty sure I was wrong based on something I realized later) and replayed about 20 minutes of the game, so it would probably take most people less time. This was when it won’t let you go up the elevator without a silver bullet, which I was out of because I shot the Viscount, but I also missed a room elsewhere. That silver bullet, by the way, is of course TRANSPARENTLY UNNECESSARY–

(b) Based on other reviews, I think a lot of the expected value of this game is in the replaying. There’s not going to be a LOT of time for in the 2 hour window for anyone, and was none for me.

I also would have loved if the end-game point system was revealed earlier. I was mildly making efforts not to kill the mobs (I don’t know what these things are! Are they . . . sentient? Did they used to be people? I’m sure gonna feel bad if I find a way to fix them later but instead I killed a bunch just because the game gave me a gun!) so I felt vaguely annoyed at the end when that was a scoring penalty. Although if I had time to replay presumably I wouldn’t have cared.

A few things I would have liked to see explored more:

1. I would have been interested in seeing more exploration of the narrator / PC dichotomy. Conceptually, there’s something interesting going on in the mix of who among me / Cath / Dor is “responsible” for Dor doing things. For example, I recall at least one point where each *vetoed* the player’s instructions (as I recall, if you try the command “reload gun” or something similar, Cath will effectively refuse to pass that along, telling you that Dor knows more about guns; and as I recall I once tried to take a nice-to-Cath conversational option, which the game didn’t object to, but Dor blew on past and said something else).

It’s fine as is, but I would have loved if there were plot elements that put Dor and Cath in opposition or made the player decide if Dor was going to support Cath’s ideas or not, if there was a plot-relevant instance of Dor rejecting player input, etc.

2. I wouldn’t have minded more lore or interaction with the NPCs, who were fascinating. (Maybe some of this is in the re-plays?). Can I introduce Saint and Zras and see how they get along? Are these people I’m killing mutant versions of Cath’s relatives? Etc.

3. This is perhaps related to the fact that I felt pretty rushed at the ending and was in the walkthrough. But some of the ending seemed to come out of nowhere / not build in a satisfying way on the prior gameplay. (I take it there was some desire to give like a “we need support networks to thrive” message, but I think that could be accomplished in a way that felt more like it build on earlier parts).

Front matter
Could better set the table for the game	Successfully sets the table for the game	Successfully sets the table for the game PLUS

I am on my knees begging for more of a description than: “(A text-only survival horror.)”

I will say I also agree with those who felt that “survival horror” is not quite the genre. Again, this is not my wheelhouse but when I think of a survival horror game I’m expecting something more like a soulslikeETA: I wasn’t familiar with any specific meaning of “survival horror” going in, but those words made me expect an experience where I would feel the PC’s life is constantly in danger and it’s difficult to keep them alive. This felt more like a horror shooter where the PC is OP relative to the mobs and the environment, and it wasn’t particularly hard to survive. But perhaps I’m misunderstanding the genre.

Overall, a gleamingly executed, wild action ride featuring two entertaining characters

[severedhand]

@wolfbiter

when I think of a survival horror game I’m expecting something more like a soulslike

Yeah, anecdotally the internet agrees with that a soulslike is not survival horror

I’ve talked about this genre in other topics (Forsaken Denizen - #15 by severedhand and others) and being an old survival horror head, I admit it’s hard to guess how people interpret the survival horror label these days if they weren’t around, or at least into the games at some point, that were characterised by that label as almost a brand before both that style and the brand name fell out of mainstream popularity.

In a sense, it’s the qualities of the games that possessed that brand originally that define “survival horror” rather than either of the meanings of the words in the brand label. I tested Forbidden Denizen (EDIT— FORSAKEN Denizen! I’ve been doing this ever since I met the game, typing Forbidden instead of Forsaken I assume because of Forbidden Siren) and it is laced with both broad and specific (i.e. sometimes quoting) elements from those original generation survival horror games. That’s why its tagline makes good sense.

Most players during IFComp have been finding it skewing not-too-difficult, which is potentially the most at odds element with the genre as a whole, and certainly at odds with the ghost of the idea of the genre. Particularly for the folks who were never into it. But even if it’s unusual on this axis, there is that long and majority checklist of specific OG survival horror boxes it ticks that home it there. People who don’t come from that survival horror history already like the game a lot now. You or they may find it’s one of those games that has something extra to offer by opening a window onto other games and histories.

-Wade

[wolfbiter]

Yeah, it was interesting to read the other thread and learn more about the “survival horror” genre and some of the references.

I should probably have been more clear I certainly don’t know enough about “survival horror” the video game genre to say what does or doesn’t qualify as part of the genre.

When I read all 13 words in the blurb for the game, it didn’t even ping me as referring to a specific grouping of video games. I was perplexed overall, but just based on what those words usually mean one of like the whole two predictions I came up with was “hmm, I guess it will be challenging to not die.” (And then I was surprised in the game when that wasn’t the case.)

So when I was criticizing the blurb I was trying to say that it didn’t work for me in terms of previewing what the game was like. Now that I know that “survival horror” also refers to a specific group of video games I suspect the blurb was likely was more helpful to people familiar with that genre!

[wolfbiter]

today’s theme, courtesy of the rng-gods: two games ft. a major character who dies (this is not a spoiler)

Deliquescence by Not-Only But-Also Riley
Playtime: 8 minutes (3 min to first ending)

The one with a: deathbed vigil

(Not tagging spoilers, it’s a very short game if you haven’t played!)

Oof. This game tackles a heavy subject—watching something bad happen to a loved one. You can offer comfort in various ways but you can’t change the outcome.

There’s a strong horror element, focusing on the visceral disturbingness of watching the human body fall apart—a “luminous being” (I’m with Yoda on this one thing) becoming a sack of malfunctioning proteins etc.:

You hold it lightly. There is a shocking amount of give to it. You could squeeze, and her whole hand would gush out from between your fingers. It wouldn’t even be a hand anymore.

Although, as that pull quote demonstrates, we’re maybe two ticks off from maximum body horror. There is a certain wateriness (as opposed to other bodily fluids) that makes things seem more sanitary than they might otherwise.

There’s also some, err, societal horror beats:

You touch the tub. It’s cold. You wish she would go sit on the couch or something, but she promised the landlord she wouldn’t make a mess if he would let her do this here.

The game is bleak but not in a way that I found soul-destroying, if that makes sense. Your friend seems to have reached a point of grace, and your efforts will let you be present for her in a way that seems to be what she’s asking for.

Nor did the topic feel gratuitous, it felt like it’s reflecting an essential truth: On the day my ticket gets punched I doubt it will be precisely this scenario, but decent odds it will be unpleasant, disgusting, and lonelier than I’d like (quick, where’s the “tell a joke” option? I need to bring up the mood of this review).

As others have noted, good design choice to contrast the length of the available options with the futility of the set-up (sure, you can make conversation on ten different topics, but it’s not going to change the endpoint). I noticed that at least some of the options have multiple possible responses. I will also say there is a lot I didn’t try / wouldn’t want to try—at least for me, “friend’s last 3 minutes” is a scenario where I’m not going to be trying things just to see what happens and there’s a somewhat narrow range of things I want to do. So in that sense the author’s effort in writing responses to a lot of options wasn’t seen by me.

Front matter
Could better set the table for the game	Successfully sets the table for the game	Successfully sets the table for the game PLUS

Big fan of the title.

Overall, this was definitely an experience–a bite to chew and try to swallow despite the bitterness—and it stirred some thinking. That said it felt a bit short/stubby as an experience and wasn’t quite a “game."

[wolfbiter]

Miss Gosling’s Last Case by Daniel M. Stelzer
Playtime: 1 hour 36 min

The one where: we solve a murder with a dog and a ghost gives us a house tour

• the many excellent quality of life features

This game has SO MANY thoughtful features that make it frictionless to play. I think this is really important—it just signals to me that the author wants people to have an enjoyable time, and has thought through the play experience enough to figure out where the rough edges would be.

• automatic transcripting!! we live to see it
• the option at every moment to use either a parser OR choice-based interface (I mostly typed because that’s faster for me, but seeing the choices helped me focus on key items and avoid verb guessing)
• a “go to” command . . . yess
• AND typing the name of an item tells you where you last saw it, for when you realize 20 minutes (or a day) later that you actually need the x
• a map!
• love me an implemented “think” command
• nicely progressive clues (I needed a few nudges, let’s see, for me the smoke alarm—I was way off on this one. Two things that might have helped me in-game: (1) putting the smoke detector in the description for the dining room (I don’t think it’s mentioned until it goes off?), or (2) cluing how the upstairs cops react to other noises. Because they had no reaction when Watson barked outside the door, I thought maybe the doors were supposed to be so good that they couldn’t hear anything? This is ultimately on me since it’s eminently solvable from the viewpoint of “why is the stove here”. Also opening the pill box)

The tutorial—neutral-warm feelings from me. Love the concept, but in practice I just kind of skimmed my eyes over it since it was interspersed with responses to what I wanted to do. But I’m sure some need it and it didn’t detract from my experience.

I will say I very much admired this type of explanation, which is completely clear and helps the player generalize for the future:

Messages like this, telling you why you can’t do something, often indicate puzzles to be solved. In this case, the shelf is too high for Watson to reach; perhaps he could reach it if he were higher up?

• characters and puzzles

One of my favorite elements was that we’re basically getting a posthumous tour of the house delivered by Miss Gosling. It’s in her character voice and just a very entertaining way of conveying her personality:

It really does give the tea garden a charming look, the crumbling stones of the old building around them. It used to be an old cottage, but you always thought a garden would look better there, and kept offering it to the police and the fire department if they wanted to destroy it for some training or other. Eventually you got tired of waiting and, well, you like to think it did end up providing some useful practice for them in the end. It isn’t considered arson if it’s your own property; you made very sure of that first.

There are various amusing knickknacks in the house but not an annoyingly large amount. The game is also full of fun easter eggs and descriptive notes:

>read the shredded police tape
“…DO…CR…IME S…”

(me: I’m impressed Watson can read! [OK, another thought, it was unclear to me what senses Watson uses to perceive Miss Gosling. He can hear or see her, right? And she can hear and see the house? I spent a while during the cellar puzzle puzzling over whether Miss Gosling could just haunt at the door and yell for Watson. Or in the garden, she seems to be seeing what Watson sees, through his eyes? Anyhow this is not important.])

I was also a big fan of the basic structure of 4 self-contained puzzles plus an endgame. It gives the player a clear sense of what is available for them to work on. The puzzles did a good job getting me in a doggy mentality and I liked how they were relatively different from each other—one focusing on eyesight, one on jumping, etc. (Those two I listed were also my favorites). And I liked anything involving a dumbwaiter, and how the tape recorder had multiple uses.

This is a quibble but I kind of expected there to be some kind of revelatory moment at the beginning where Miss Gosling tests and confirms that Watson can hear (and see??) her, but if there was I missed it.

• plot hooks?

I think it might have been more engaging if it came with a few more plot hooks? This is a strange complaint to have–investigating one’s own murder seems inherently compelling. But there were a few things about the set-up that were vague or off-screen in a way that I think made it feel slightly less . . . motivated than it could have felt.

• Miss Gosling comes across a bit quiescent, seemingly having 0 leads on who killed her until the police name 4 suspects. When hearing the police suspects, she reacts a bit, but it wasn’t clear to me if that was like “I am confident none of these did it, and thus I must find the real killer” or if that was “hmmm, I guess I should investigate them all to make sure, although I don’t think any of them did it,” which felt slightly like I didn’t know why I was taking the rest of the steps. It’s especially mystifying since we find out at the end that she suspects the Inspector for reasons that would have been equally apparent to her at the beginning, so I guess she was just not mentioning that where the player could hear? This passive feeling from her didn’t match what I understood to be her general firecracker personality.

I’m not sure if there’s a feeling that the player will want to be more in the drivers’ seat (or try to solve along? But the game doesn’t really present clues that would let the player solve).

I just wonder if it would have felt a bit more cohesive if Miss Gosling had come out at the beginning and directly thought something to convey to the player that she wanted to clear the names of the 4 suspects, since she was sure they were innocent but didn’t trust the police, and also that she had some ideas about the real suspect that she would get to later. Just to lay her goals on the table for the player.

It also might have helped if a reason had been provided why waiting for the police isn’t enough. For the majority of the game the player is turning up evidence that the police could presumably retrieve themselves—probably more easily since they have opposable thumbs! So I kept wondering why I had to get Watson to do it. In the end there is a good reason but that’s not something that’s conveyed to the player at the beginning. I would have taken pretty much any reason, teh narration could have just told me she was such a busybody she couldn’t rest until she saw it done herself or something!

Front matter
Could better set the table for the game	Successfully sets the table for the game	Successfully sets the table for the game PLUS

I like how clearly the blurb establishes Miss Gosling’s character voice.

Miss-Gosling-s-Last-Case wolfbiter - Copy.txt (261.0 KB)

Overall, a delightful crime-solving romp with a canine assistant

Gameplay tips / typos

• This didn’t bother me, although I was confused momentarily, but note the descriptions for the dumbwaiter use the British convention where the first floor is the one above the ground floor (in american usage generally the first floor and ground floor are synonymous, and the one above that is the second floor).

[Draconis (Daniel Stelzer)]

Thank you so much for the review, and I’m glad you enjoyed the game! You raise a very good point about the narration on the suspects, and I’ll see about adjusting that after the comp!

The intended reason why Watson has to do everything is someone has sabotaged the investigation (Phillips is spending hours searching for keys that don’t exist anywhere in the house, Davis is overloaded with paperwork instead of going out and finding those roses, and everyone on the task force was specifically chosen to be lacking in creativity and initiative of their own) but in hindsight that could very much stand to be more explicit.