1 | UNSEELIE
1 | UNSEELIE
by: Alun Clewe
This is a Back Garden entry.
Progress:
- I reached the (somewhat abrupt) end of this game in 1h57m. The “about” text states that this game is still in the process of being written/developed, so there are partial red herring puzzles that were not finished at the time I reached the end.
Things I Appreciated:
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I really enjoy the general vibe of this game and the design of the various bits of fungus and how their uses are communicated. For example, there is a red creature that you need to lure toward a different room, and it turns out that the fungus it wants to eat is red. In hindsight, I was like, yeah, that color cue makes sense. Similarly, the shape of the fungus suggests its uses (having a cup-shaped yellow fungus, or a finger-shaped green fungus). The wacky organic feyworld nature of the objects makes it a lot enticing than if it had just been a regular cup.
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I was excited when I met the prisoner and had someone to talk to about all the weird stuff I had been experiencing, it felt like a real breakthrough! When the game ended, even though I had been stuck for over an hour on a silly mistake that I made, I was still disappointed because I wanted to keep going and explore the story/world more.
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Many of the puzzles that I did solve had really satisfying solutions. For example, when I figured out how to lure the creature to the platform in multiple stages to get the timing right, I felt like it really rewarded me for the time I spent thinking about the materials/mechanics that I had at my disposal. I felt like I was on the verge of solving another (using the hypodermic needle to draw out the oil from the hatch and then grease the red knob… uwu) when it ended.
Miscellaneous Comments/Recommendations:
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I experienced a severe bottleneck as a result of not seeing one of the exits (see more in the “what I learned” section) and didn’t have much recourse. So a general recommendation I have would be to include a walkthrough, map, or some kind of hint system as part of the game. I was able to figure out what went wrong initially, but not after exhausting some very strange attempts to get around things.
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Since this is a Back Garden entry that is still in development, there is a general issue with bugs and underimplementation, and puzzles that were red herrings because they haven’t been finished yet. I felt like I found plausible solutions that were not implemented or otherwise accounted for, like placing the ladder plus fungus on the platform to meet both the weight and living requirements, or trying to throw the red fungus down into the pit so that the creature would get stuck down there and not be able to guard its nest. I think the strongest example of this is when the prisoner asks you for a needle that he can pick the lock with, when he already has a needle in the cell with him. I got frustrated with my inability to communicate to him that he should use the needle that he already had on the lock.
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I had some disambiguation woes when trying to accomplish things, e.g., “Which fingerlike piece of green fungus do you mean, your fingerlike piece of green fungus, or a fingerlike piece of green fungus on the platform?” I understand the duplicate items were probably necessary to avoid softlocks (at some point, I dropped an item in the dark room that I lost access to, for instance), and also for certain puzzles, but perhaps there would be a more elegant way of implementing the fungus that didn’t instigate this kind of linguistic turmoil.
What I Learned:
The big question that looms over me when thinking about my experience with Unseelie is, given the relatively compact layout of the area that I had access to, why was it so hard for me to notice the west exit from “Beneath the Opening” for hundreds of turns, even though the room description mentioning the west exit had printed twenty-four times? I eventually solved it by remembering a similar issue I had in the game Eat Me, where I had not been able to notice a critical extra exit from a room that I didn’t expect to have another exit. Like it’s very classically me to get stuck on something that was not even intended as a puzzle.
In a game like this, which did not come with a walkthrough, a map, a hint or help system, and no one else had posted a transcript of yet that I could read through to see how I messed up, it was on me to notice the west exit of this room on my own, and I didn’t, for about an hour and fifteen minutes.
Other than my own incompetence, which is obviously the main factor here, are there game design reasons that contributed to this? If so, how could this be adjusted? I think the issues here for me was two-fold. First, this room was in a series of nearly identical hallways going east and west, so I had become more attentive to details that were different (such as: the purple fungus, the red knob) rather than the details that were the same in every preceding room. As such, the opening in the ceiling drew my attention as the obvious puzzle to solve. Up was the way forward, so I never envisioned a west exit. Second, other hallways had ended in unique blocked exits (the purple energy barrier and brass door) so the opening in the ceiling fit into that pattern as the obstacle. When I got up into the next room using the ladder, I felt like there was nothing left in the previous room to solve.
What I take away from this reflection is something about managing the cognitive load of playing a parser game. A player has to do a lot in terms of navigation, fighting with the parser to be understood, recognize puzzle cues, and so forth. So if you want something to be noticed by the player, it needs to be specific and distinctive. Many of the other exits were memorable and distinctive, but this one wasn’t, and in this case, it tripped me up. And maybe it would not trip up anyone else, but it did remind me of this discussion of parser navigation issues.
Memorable Moment:
- You might think my answer is going to be FINDING THE WEST EXIT, and like, yeah, it is, but my favorite moment is finding and talking to the prisoner after being lost for over an hour. It felt like I was finally making some real damn progress!
Unseelie_Transcript_DemonApologist.txt (236.4 KB)