DemonApologist's Ectocomp 2024 Responses

DemonApologist · October 31, 2024, 9:29pm

Ectocomp 2024 Response Format

For each game that I play, I’m writing up responses with the following information:

Progress: How far did I get? How long did it take to play and what endings (if any) did I encounter?

Engagement with Horror Genre: A discussion of what flavors of horror the piece deals in, and how that came across to me.

Things I Appreciated: Pretty self-explanatory, these are the elements of the game or narrative experience that I want to highlight as positive.

Miscellaneous Comments/Recommendations: This is a catch-all for anything that raised questions for me in terms of the experience that isn’t strictly positive. Is there a game mechanic or presentation element that I thought could be improved? Are there elements of the narrative or presentation that didn’t work for me? My goal is to approach this in a way that is constructive rather than mean-spirited.

What I learned about IF writing/game design: I’m (still) approaching this as someone who wants to learn more about the genre and writing, and I think any work has a lot to offer in terms of its structure/presentation. I want to acknowledge elements of games that give me tools or insight to better understand the craft.

Memorable Moment: The moment in my experience of the game that leaves the strongest impression, looking back at it.

If there are enough eligible entries to make this worthwhile, I also plan on giving out the DemonApologist Award for Infernal Excellence for whichever game has the depiction of a demon and/or devil character that I like the most. So, look forward to that… hopefully? (If there aren’t opportunities to engage in demon apologetics in a horror-themed game jam I will be moderately disappointed, and then apologize for my disappointment. And that is a threat. Sorry for threatening you!)

The order that I’m playing is as follows: I created a randomized order of the Le Grand Guignol English-language entries first, then a randomized order of the La Petite Mort English-language entries second. I have no idea how far I will get with these, especially since the comp period is only 2 weeks apparently? Better get started, then.

Alphabetical Response Index

39 Trillion and 1
The Abandoned House Down the Lane
An Admirer
As the Eye Can See
At the Strike of Twelve
Boo.
The Column
Contaminated Space
Dark and Deep
Dark Waters on the Night Shift
The Depths of Madness
Die Another Day
do not let your left hand know
Familiar Problems
Fireboat
Forevermore: A Game of Writing Horror
Ghost Hunt
Hotel Halloween
how to fly a kite
Jumpscare Manor
Last-Minute Magic
The Little Match Girl in the Court of Maal Dweb
Like a Sky Full of Locusts
Mathphobia
Museum of Paranormal Phenomena
Narthex
Nick Neat-Trick-Treat
No More
A Puzzled Soul
Resurrection Gate
Roar
Rustjaw
SPILL YOUR GUT
Sundown
YARRY
You promise
your life, and nothing else
Your Little Haunting

DemonApologist · October 31, 2024, 9:51pm

1 | LGG | SUNDOWN

1 | LGG | SUNDOWN
by: Charm Cochran

Progress:

I reached the end in just around 19 minutes.

Engagement with Horror Genre:

The horror elements come in three distinct phases. The first is a kind of aging-based body horror/psychological horror—I found myself struggling alongside Dolores to understand what was going on, with a slow burn building up toward a realization that she was experiencing dementia. The second, most jarring section, was the dream/vision sequence where you are attacked by the late, perhaps not-so-great Charlie. This is the most supernatural element of the piece, where we’re left to wonder if we really did encounter apparitions of Bucky and Charlie or if it’s induced by dementia. The final section shifts to a kind of social and gender horror—Dolores attempts to explain to Maya what is so dangerous about men (or read more broadly: what is dangerous about the described model of dated normative marital relationship) but is unable to find a way to communicate that to Maya due to her cognitive issues. The way the realization has come too late to communicate fully feels essential to the horror of the piece. Of these elements, I found the first section by far the most powerful—since I am currently living with a (much milder… for now) version of that with a family member, that reached me most deeply. By comparison, the supernatural element and ending didn’t feel as poignant and real to me.

Things I Appreciated:

The UI color gradients and shifts as the sundown progresses is very evocative. At first, I was puzzled by the color choice because so many things in the house are described as being green (or mint green), but the UI colors are dominated by gold/orange/red. However, the green suddenly emerges when we encounter Charlie, which made sense to me—the mint green is associated with the past and the time period that Dolores thinks she’s in, so it makes sense for it to appear when the figures of the past do. (Similarly, I really liked the slow distorted piano music for how it added atmosphere).
I liked how the room map helped immerse me in Dolores’s perspective. I had a hard time remembering where important rooms were (namely, the mud room—I was like, wait, wasn’t that room somewhere else?) So in a kind of cursed way, the player’s unfamiliarity with the layout of the house mirrors the protagonist’s disorientation within what should be a familiar space.
The game did a great job cluing me to do something important. When talking to Maya, I completely ignored the question to ask her what she’s wearing, because there is almost no circumstance where I would ordinarily comment on someone’s clothes. But this is essential information, so later when talking to Kendra and she says “Maya” instead of “Ben,” I (over)dramatically went, “ohhhhhhh.” If I hadn’t received this nudge to ask Maya about her clothes I probably would’ve been wildly confused by the ending (assuming it’s even possible to get to the end without asking this which I doubt but did not test).
The characterization of Dolores was stunningly accurate to me of the family member I mentioned above—right down to the anger over a “broken deal,” and being inappropriately obsessed with other people’s weight. And I also cringed at Maya’s actions, recognizing my own avoidant behavior in trying to sidestep re-explaining things to someone who can’t help but forget due to cognitive issues. I was gripped by the portrayal of the situation because of how real it was.

Miscellaneous Comments/Recommendations:

The sections from wandering into the woods onward took me out of the body/psychological aspect because it felt less grounded to me. During the conversation with Charlie, I kept being distracted by the fact that the protagonist was still able to communicate normally despite missing her leg. Then at the end, I was also disoriented by her suddenly realizing that Maya was Maya, I couldn’t figure out the basis for her arriving at this realization. I wasn’t fully brought along the transit from realistic → surreal → denouement.
I found it odd that the game starts in a green UI, but shifts to gold the moment we are told that it is green. This distracted me a lot when it first happened, it made me wonder if the game was simulating red-green colorblindness by insisting that things that looked red/orange/gold were actually green. In-universe, the UI color is explained to be light coming from the window, so that’s ultimately fine. My recommendation would be to retain the green UI slightly longer. Make opening the curtains a required action that brings in the gold/orange light into the space, or, make exiting the bedroom shift the UI to the sunset color scheme.
In terms of sound design, I recommend the following (if possible): (1) the distorted piano music should start when you click “begin game,” instead of “better get a move on.” My experience was, the game said it had music, so I started it without picking out music of my own to listen to. When music didn’t play, I was like, ok, maybe it doesn’t have music after all, and went to play my own. Then, in the next scene, the game’s music started, so I had to go turn off the music that I had set for myself. (It was quite the comedy of errors on my part ) This isn’t a huge deal, but it would’ve been more seamless to me if the music start coincided with the game start. (2) the crickets sound is too harsh and abrupt, I think it should be more of a fade-in because as a player, you get used to the distorted piano track, so the first time you encounter this change is jarring in a non-immersive kind of way. (Despite these recommendations, I still overall thought the sound design was great!)
Minor Typos: “I can’t seem to find his bowl, either,” you say.[space needed here]“Do | The gloom is oppresive → oppressive | You grip Maya’s arm fiercly, → fiercely (there was another “fiercly” somewhere else too) | Looks like she’s never skipped desert. → dessert

What I learned about IF writing/game design:

I really love the slow burn of the first half, where many clues are provided to add up to the realization that Dolores is experiencing dementia. It works so well because it is poignant no matter when you figure it out—if you figure it out immediately, then you face everything that is happening with a sense of recognition or resignation. If you figure it out later, there is a dark sinking moment of realization, where everything suddenly snaps into place.
I liked the use of timed text to reveal Dolores’s massive list of questions to Charlie—it felt overwhelming because it created the sensation that maybe the questions wouldn’t end, which was appropriate to the situation. It enhanced the emotional intensity at a moment that needed intensity.

Memorable Moment:

For me it was the moment when the game told me there was no dog food in the house. Then, I suddenly realized… you know, why Bucky was “missing.” And the cascade of related realizations associated with that.

DemonApologist · November 1, 2024, 5:31am

2 | LGG | LAST-MINUTE MAGIC

2 | LGG | LAST-MINUTE MAGIC
by: Ryan Veeder

Progress:

I ran out of turns after around 45 minutes of gameplay and received a horrendous final score of 7 out of 30. IF Comp did not, in fact, improve my parser skills that much I guess.

Engagement with Horror Genre:

This game does not really engage much with horror as a genre (at least, of what I saw), but I wouldn’t say it’s off-theme. It has magic and takes place on Halloween, after all! I could see a case for some mild body horror maybe with some of the unusual events that happen with the amulets, but the tone is really not that unsettling. If there’s more horror-themed stuff that happens, I simply didn’t get there as indicated by my abysmal progress.

Things I Appreciated:

My favorite aspect of the game was the sense of discovery as to how the eyestones and amulets worked together. It was interesting to test out the different combinations and see what might be possible in the world. For instance, when a squirrel prompted me with a reminder that raccoons liked digging in the trash, I immediately equipped the combination of “movement” + “raccoon” to see if that would help my character overcome their unwillingness to dig in the trash by better embodying a raccoon. That specific example didn’t work, but I appreciated the intrigue of the unique magic mechanics that got me thinking about how I could weaponize the combinations I had available to me to accomplish tasks. I was really starting to get into the game mechanics by the time it was over.
I enjoyed the light and humorous tone of the game. Other than the time limit element, it was engaging to explore and see what wacky moments I might encounter. I’d describe the overall tone as like, “zany midwestern,” featuring things like a grotesque taxidermied muskie on the wall of a dive bar. As the game dryly remarks, “Its teeth are upsetting.”

Miscellaneous Comments:

I found this game to be somewhat hostile in terms of approaching it from a position of naivety about this subgenre of parser games (I have never played a game like this before). For instance, I tried going back to talk to Cimberly to see if I could get her to repeat the initial instructions (which had long since vanished off the top of the screen and I was having trouble remembering, and were also absent from my transcript because it started after those instructions) but she would only point at her watch, so it took me a while to understand that the trinkets, rather than the amulets, should be my primary focus. Memory was a significant issue in general—I kept forgetting what each stone did (it’s not inherently obvious to me why “olivine” or “pearl” is assigned to that function, for instance) and wasting turns re-examining them over and over again because I was not even considering how important the time limit was. Very late in the game, I decided to type “hint” to get back on track, and at that point the game told me I should’ve been taking notes all along. Well then. That was the moment I realized that my approach to the game had been completely wrong and helped contextualize my experience a lot. I realized at that point that the entire game is one giant puzzle and you’re meant to play it over and over and over again until you can get all 30 (!) trinkets before time runs out. While this understanding came late, it makes me appreciate the game more because it now makes sense why anti-frustration features (such as: having the eyestones have obvious functions based on their names) are absent: it’s part of the challenge structured into the game to require you to take a ton of notes and memorize things and plan routes rather than just seamlessly playing.
I didn’t fight with the parser too much, though there were some odd moments (like trying to put a singular trinket into the cauldron not being accepted). I think this is because optimally, you would dump all the trinkets on the final turn, so it doesn’t even occur to the game that you would want to do something so flagrantly inefficient as put a single trinket into the cauldron like I did trying to bank what little progress I had made. I included my transcript (that I managed to extract and convert into readable text) in case anything I did there is useful for the game programming… but I kind of doubt it, since I really did not play the game in a way that matched what I was actually “supposed” to be doing.

What I learned about IF writing/game design:

It was interesting to experience playing a game with “optimization” (requiring many playthroughs) as the goal. It was noticeably built in a much different way than parser games I’ve played. The structure sort of requires you to be frustrated because if you could solve it in one playthrough, it would not be a very satisfying optimization puzzle, now would it? What I’m left thinking about is how my understanding of the game dramatically shifted when the game told me I should be taking notes: had I received that comment from the game way earlier, I would’ve slowed down a lot and played more deliberately, but since I’m used to games with “infinite” turns, my default playstyle is to navigate quickly and somewhat recklessly under the assumption that I can come back to re-read the same information again later without penalty, rather than feeling pressured to absorb all the information at a slow pace. A lesson I would take from this for myself is to ask: what about the game’s presentation caused me to fail to recognize that it was cuing me to play slowly and attentively? It’s not like the game is entirely to blame, a lot of that just falls on me for playing it wrong. But it does nevertheless make me wonder how, if your game needs to be played slowly, how best to grab the attention of someone who is used to playing fast and skimming to get them to slow down.

Memorable Moment:

By far the most exciting thing that happened was the first time I used the amber + buffalo combination, I hadn’t realized what the amber stone was doing yet and was really surprised and intrigued by what transpired.

DemonApologist_LastMinuteMagic.txt (54.9 KB)

Afterward · November 1, 2024, 6:00am

There’s no good reason you can’t put the toy horse in the cauldron by itself. I can’t figure out why it’s okay with >PUT ANYTHING ELSE IN CAULDRON and >DO ANYTHING ELSE WITH HORSE but >PUT HORSE IN CAULDRON just refuses to be parsed.

DemonApologist · November 1, 2024, 9:52pm

3 | LGG | A PUZZLED SOUL

3 | LGG | A PUZZLED SOUL
by: Sophos Ioun & RebelNightmare

Progress:

I reached an end of the game in about 16 minutes.

Engagement with Horror Genre:

You are actively trying to escape an unstoppable creature. Every turn, no matter what you do, the creature will get closer to reaching you. The descriptions show how the creature is trying to get past the obstacles in its way, which put me in a tense mood as I struggled with the parser trying to get through the rooms. There’s also a kind of religious or spiritual horror to it—you are in limbo, and in order to escape, you commit worse and worse sins to get to the next room. While breaking the coral seems relatively innocuous, I quickly caught on that the way to get through each door is to do something evil—a few rooms I did not hesitate at all in poisoning a well because I was sure it would let me advance. I like the way that the game makes the player complicit in committing sins, rather than having the sins just be in the character’s past.

Things I Appreciated:

After the first room (see later comment on that…), I really like how the rooms have multiple puzzles. This is a great way to deal with the time limit—I picked whatever puzzle I thought was easiest to work one and that made me feel like I had agency and wasn’t forced to fail over and over due to parser misery. The sin-based puzzles were also simple, but still interesting. I stole a coin from charity, robbed a dead guy, and poisoned a well in my desperation to proceed. These were evocative encounters.
As mentioned above, I really liked the sense of threat from the pursuer—I had already learned many times over that the time limit was real from the first room, so I felt especially motivated to get past the next rooms once I finally escaped the first one. The constant reminders of the pursuer’s progress added to the tension.
I liked the room descriptions—there isn’t a ton there because it’s focused on the puzzles, but it did a good job establishing the tone/atmosphere of the piece.

Miscellaneous Comments:

The first room bottleneck was rough due to parser issues. (See the transcript for what went wrong.) I considered quitting this game about 7-8 minutes in when there appeared to be no logical way to exit the room. I tried many versions of hitting the wall with the hammer, none of which worked, and I kept running out of turns and having to start over. This sense of frustration built, until I finally found the combination that the game would accept. I think if you are going to bottleneck the player in the first room, and have a significant time limit, requiring a very specific phrasing of the command rather than allowing for some variation is not ideal.
There was something confusing to me about the final room. The player is told there is a blue-eyed man here, and then also (?) there is a blue-eyed devil here who asks you “Will you sacrify this man?” I was confused by the word “sacrify,” which I interpreted to mean “sacrifice,” and then became further confused as to whether there were 2 blue-eyed people in the room or just the one. When I first read it, I thought that the devil was asking me if I was going to sacrifice the devil, because I interpreted “the blue-eyed man” as being the same NPC as the devil. So I was just… very confused as to what I was doing by answering yes or no here. Was I being asked by the devil if I was willing to sacrifice a second blue-eyed person in the room to advance myself further, or something else? The choice here felt less impactful because I didn’t fully grasp what I was doing beyond “yes” = bad and “no” = good.

What I learned about IF writing/game design:

This was a good example of the pros and cons of bottlenecking the player with a time limit. The upside: it added to the tone of the game to fail multiple times, making the sense of relief at breaking into the next room feel stronger. The downside: the many parser errors made me think that the game was broken somehow, and I considered quitting because it gave me the impression that the game was bugged in some way.
This game had a plot twist that was not entirely unexpected, but still felt satisfying. It gave a new perspective on what the player has been doing to get the end, which I love. I felt involved with the twist because of my determination to do terrible things in order to get further in the game.

Memorable Moment:

When I saw the toxic pool and the well and knew exactly what I needed to do to advance, and did it quickly and efficiently. Oh no! I’m a terrible person!

DemonApologist_PuzzledSoul.txt (17.1 KB)

DemonApologist · November 1, 2024, 11:56pm

(Is anyone else mind-poisoned enough from Why Pout that you keep reading this title as “gnome oar”? Or is it just me? )

4 | LGG | NO MORE

4 | LGG | NO MORE
by: alyshkalia

Progress:

I reached the end in about 8 minutes.

Engagement with Horror Genre:

I would describe this piece as “queer/feminist revenge horror.” There’s an interesting strain in horror that’s a kind of wish-fulfillment revenge fantasy. In real life, abusers often continue their abuse without accountability, and if justice does arrive, it’s often deferred, delayed, or otherwise incomplete. In this story, “father” is not only an abusive patriarch, but also he occupies a position of religious authority, exactly the kind of figure who is unlikely to be stopped from abuse due to the social hierarchies involved. When the protagonist is imagining the illustrations they saw earlier, it’s strongly implied to be sexual in nature (Oh the horror! A woman, reading about sex? In a book? It’s more likely than you think…) which is certainly a queer-coded theme. Becoming a “monster,” too, is a strongly queer-coded story element. And it doesn’t feel like much of a coincidence here that a werewolf is the monster du jour (…de la nuit?) given cultural associations between the moon and menstruation. What Father is so opposed to is, essentially, a woman powerful enough to stop him and silence him. Over the course of the short narrative, the agency of the player grows and grows until we fully take over.

Things I Appreciated:

This game has really well-implemented descriptions. For instance, describing the lantern as “A wrought iron cage for a flame” feeds back thematically into the story. I particularly liked the descriptions of sound and motion—despite being stuck in a carriage for the entire story, the motion of the carriage as it jostles about gives the impression of a dynamic space.
As I commented briefly above, I like the progression in the sense of agency at the story. At first, I felt like when I tried to do just about anything, Father would stop me. A few times, I just used the “wait” command because it didn’t seem like there was much to do, so it made me wonder if I was meant to get through a certain number of turns for an event to occur. However, this was not the answer: I had to think more about what I could do and keep trying. This made the transformation feel a lot more satisfying, because it wasn’t handed to me by a turn-timed event. I had to discover my agency, and my character’s power grew as a result of my own observations and will.
I of course, love a story where I get to be the “monster.” (And the “normal” human is, you know, the Real Monster™). You might as well call this a WerewolfApologist narrative! I know that “queer people identifying with fictional monster characters” is probably a well-known concept at this point, and I could write heaps of paragraphs on why I’m like this , but I don’t want to clutter up this response too much, so suffice it to say that this really is my kind of story.

Miscellaneous Comments:

I had an interesting experience with the twist, because the cover art alone primed me to think I was in a werewolf narrative. I tried a few ways to get the game to give me a description of the illustration I was remembering to confirm my suspicion, which didn’t seem to work. I was just slightly disoriented by the task of trying to figure out how to get a parser game to give me a description of an object in my memory that is not physically present in the space. One of the things I typed in was “become werewolf,” which didn’t work, but essentially was the solution (I just had to figure out how to do that). The reason I put this section here is because it’s really the only time that I had any kind of parser questions, and it certainly wasn’t enough to hold me back from finishing and enjoying the narrative.

What I learned about IF writing/game design:

Really, the precision and beauty of short-form parser content that is well-polished. I spent very little actual time with this game, but there was a density and richness to that experience because of the level of detail. This was well-conceived and played out in a compelling way. I personally don’t write much short form content (nor have I ever attempted to write a parser game) but this game really helps me imagine how those two genre/form elements can work together well.
Each line of description is pulling its weight in pointing back to the tone/theme of the piece. This is a different approach than most puzzle games. I would probably not want to “examine shovel” in a puzzle-based parser game because I already know what that is and the game would probably just be like, “It’s an ordinary shovel you can dig with.” If a shovel appeared in this game, I would expect it to say something diabolical like “The last smear of Father’s blood still clung to the blade.” The intimate attention to detail for a small-scale game like this packs a punch.

Memorable Moment:

When I did, in fact, “become werewolf”.

DemonApologist_NoMore.txt (5.4 KB)

DemonApologist · November 2, 2024, 2:45am

5 | LGG | MUSEUM OF PARANORMAL PHENOMENA

5 | LGG | MUSEUM OF PARANORMAL PHENOMENA
by: Olaf Nowacki

Progress:

I finished this game in about 37 minutes (note: includes time spent watching video clips from the film Ghostbusters and reading the Wikipedia page about the characters).

Engagement with Horror Genre:

This piece is a direct homage to the film Ghostbusters. I admit I have no nostalgia for the film and haven’t watched it in a very long time, so I wasn’t really the target audience for this game. (Truly, my reaction when the EctoComp theme was revealed to be Ghostbusters was, “Oh. Ok.” Sorry to any superfans ) My understanding is that Ghostbusters is kind of a comedy horror film that isn’t necessarily meant to be scary scary, more absurd than anything. I do think, however, that beyond the film trivia theming of the game, there is a secondary engagement with horror: the idea of navigating an uncanny museum that feels like it could come alive at any moment. I liked that aspect of the game and thought it could be emphasized even more!

Things I Appreciated:

I really, really appreciated the note from “help” that the game is assuming that you are familiar with the film. Once I saw that note after making no progress, I was able to find a strategy to go forward. The puzzle I was most focused on was trapping Slimer using the “ghost trap,” so I tried things like putting the trap on the food or putting food in the trap to see if that worked. Once I watched the film clip and saw the cigarette, a few minutes later the structure of the game clicked immediately: I wasn’t supposed to actually be doing the actions from the film, I was supposed to be fixing the museum so that each scene correctly reflects what is happening. Once this was established, it wasn’t too hard for me to go through and assign the objects to the different people. So my point here is: thank you for a “help” option that was actually essential and helpful while not spoiling the puzzles.
I enjoyed the descriptions of the artificial museum elements, it was good at creating the uncanny quality I described above. I wasn’t sure what type of game I was in, so I felt at any moment that actual supernatural things might happen in this museum, which was a point of interesting tension here.
I thought Slimer was great as a decoy puzzle element. I was convinced that I needed to do something with them, since they moved around to different rooms and had a dynamic presence as a result. And, interestingly, Slimer did help me figure out the game’s structure: I kept trying to give objects to Slimer, and got a custom error message, which made me realize later that I should be giving things to the mannequins.

Miscellaneous Comments/Recommendations:

The biggest hurdle I had was needing out-of-game knowledge to solve puzzles without just trying every combination. But, the game successfully directed me to look up Ghostbusters clips so that I could solve it, so I don’t think this is such a bad thing. I think my recommendation would be to say up front (without even requiring the help command) that the game assumes some knowledge of the film to proceed.
Very minor, but the fridge being “five point nine feet high” could be changed to “five feet nine inches high” to sound less like a conversion from metric. This is a bit esoteric, but since a foot is a unit of measurement that (absurdly) isn’t naturally divisible by 10, seeing it written that way was slightly weird to me. Where, by comparison, if I were told that a fridge was 1.9 meters high, I would accept that without question.
Also minor, but I thought “x self” could have had a more specific message rather than a default one. I feel like this would be a good opportunity to add to the characterization of the main character as a Ghostbusters superfan to see that they were wearing thematically appropriate clothing or something!

What I learned about IF writing/game design:

I thought this was an interesting case study in audience and outside knowledge, and how to communicate that to the player. Here, it would have been somewhat fruitless for me to continue wandering around trying to manipulate and combine objects to solve puzzles, but the help message did a great job in pointing me toward the correct approach.
Something else I noticed is the clue system: I realized close to the end that rooms that had been fully solved gave the message “Everything looks good here,” which guided me back to the fridge as the only misplaced object remaining. Since I had never found the seventh object (the help note also mentions the total number of objects) I had to conclude that the fridge itself was the final object even though I couldn’t pick it up. Thus, the game gently nudged me toward the solution here.

Memorable Moment:

The moment that I finally realized how to interact with the fridge.

DemonApologist_MoPP.txt (27.7 KB)

alyshkalia · November 2, 2024, 2:53am

Thanks much for the review!

OlafNowacki · November 2, 2024, 7:02am

Thanks a lot for this great review!

SophosIoun · November 2, 2024, 9:15am

Thanks a lot for the review! We really appreciated it!

DemonApologist · November 2, 2024, 10:13pm

6 | LGG | DARK WATERS ON THE NIGHT SHIFT

6 | LGG | DARK WATERS ON THE NIGHT SHIFT
by: dsherwood

Progress:

I reached the end of the game in about 21 minutes. I spent a few more minutes going back to check other branches, so I probably spent around 26 minutes total in the game.

Engagement with Horror Genre:

I thought this was an interesting blend between like, an industrial ghost story and a tale of succubus-style demonic temptation. (Poor Lucciana, she should’ve waited for a shift where a straight guy was working ) It also has slightly comic book-y features. At the beginning, when we learn that Marcus fell into a vat of acid I thought, oh no, did he have some kind of Batman villain original story? Lucciana is a somewhat campy villain in the sense that she just kind of shows up, chews the scenery, and watches with mild amusement as I flailed around trying to help the ghost and wasted a significant amount of municipal tap water in the process. The best horror imagery I thought was in the oppressive heat inside the factory as it takes on hellish qualities. Overall, I thought the piece cohered well and these genre elements fit together in a satisfying way.

Things I Appreciated:

One of the first things I noticed that I absolutely loved was the color-coded dialogue scheme. The colors chosen were very thematically appropriate, and I thought the gold/orange/red dialogue looked great together, with the blue looking “out of place” in a way that makes sense given what is going on with Marcus.
The puzzles required some thought but were pretty forgiving. I was never able to get myself stuck, and while the remote controls were confusing, I was able to gradually understand what I was doing with until the end when I was managing it seamlessly. Overall, I thought it presented a decent challenge that was appropriate to the scope of the game and didn’t feel overwhelming.
I really enjoyed the water treatment plant setting and the attention to detail there. For instance, when I tried to drain the water and was told it would take 9 days given the massive volume of water. I also really enjoyed how the factory changed as Lucciana manifested supernatural obstacles like glowing red ectoplasm to get in my way. It created a good sense of escalation in the intensity of the game even though mechanically, it was forgiving.
I liked the presence of the map and how it helped me better conceptualize the space that I was in. There’s a kind of awkwardness in games like this where the protagonist character would be super familiar with navigation but the player isn’t (there’s no way that Oscar would have struggled to find his way around the water treatment plant the way I did), but I thought the map and other text cues (like the hook showing up when it was moved to the right place) really helped smooth out the disjuncture between the protagonist’s knowledge and the player’s knowledge.

Miscellaneous Comments:

Something I noticed while playing is that there are a few dialogue options that are formatted with a drop-down menu (talking to Lucciana on the phone) while most other dialogue options are formatted as a list of clickable hyperlinks. I wondered why those dialogue options were formatted differently—unless the dropdown menu is structurally necessary for some reason, it looks out of place to me (not matching the otherwise quite pleasing color scheme.)
After finishing the game, having sided with Marcus after the initial meeting with Lucciana, I went back to see what happens if you choose to side with Lucciana. The main reason I was curious is that the majority of the game is a puzzle avoiding the supernatural obstacles that Lucciana creates in the factory, so I wondered how the game would adapt that if you sided with her. It turns out that you just… can’t. This is an interesting case study because in my first playthrough, the illusion of choice worked seamlessly for me. I never questioned that my choices mattered, so the game was very successful in that, if you choose the “obviously correct” dialogue options, the story makes sense and flows well. However, when I tried to play from the perspective of pretending I was straight (or bi/pan I guess) and super into Lucciana despite all the cues telling me it was a bad idea, the narrative kind of swatted me away from doing that. This renewed attention to the dialogue revealed that most of the dialogue choices are very similar. So I just thought it was interesting—the game did a great job making me feel like I was choosing what to do, until I actually checked, at which point it’s a bit less satisfying.
I was slightly disoriented at the start. You’re given a task list that starts with “Visit control room” and the only choice in the beginning list that sounds like that is “Control Panel,” which you’re then told is wrong. I next looked at the map, and “Control Panel” isn’t on it. I was able to get the hang of things pretty quickly (and later when I had puzzle/navigation elements to figure out), so no real harm done, but I am pointing it out because I think it’s good to think about what is happening in the very first moments of a game before the player has any real sense of what they are doing yet and consider whether there is a way to more effectively direct the player’s action at the start.
Minor formatting: This piece was very cleanly edited, but the vestige of chemistry knowledge that still possesses me wants me to recommend that “H2sO4” should typically formatted using subscripts as H₂SO₄

What I learned about IF writing/game design:

The puzzle feature I most appreciated was the remote control. It appears overwhelming at first because of the options, but is designed well enough that as a player, I can test out different combinations of settings and see how the game responds. In a few minutes, I went from hating the remote’s apparently complexity, to zooming around the factory with it like it was natural.
The illusion of choice, as discussed above, is fascinating here. The game played seamlessly the first time through (And playing with the intent to write about it is a bit unnatural—If I weren’t specifically writing this response, I probably wouldn’t have gone back to check other branches and wouldn’t have questioned the choices much). For instance, I am just now recalling what felt like a consequential choice (due to the inventory limit) of a wrench vs. a rope. In hindsight, I wonder if the wrench (the option I didn’t choose) would have also worked, meaning that the player will always be given the sense that they picked the “correct” option when faced with this choice. At the time, I felt some pressure to choose what I thought was correct because of the imposed inventory limit, so I think that’s an interesting approach to game design. It’s a good strategy to get the player to feel involved without having to create endless fractal branches of every choice you offer them, but comes at the risk of disappointment if the player becomes overly aware of the linearity.

Memorable Moment:

When I tried to go down some stairs and was faced with a rising tide of glowing red ectoplasm. You really don’t see that every day. Water treatment is serious business!

dsherwood · November 2, 2024, 11:12pm

Thank you for a fun review!
The game started off much bigger and had to be pared down quite a bit, which I think every author experiences. So the wrench bit should have been taken out. So did the alternate ending where you chose Lucciana.
And thank you for the chemical notations - I was just in too much of a hurry to look up the html entities.
Thanks for playing,
Deborah

Draconis · November 2, 2024, 11:28pm

Since I was doing stage magic before I was doing RPGs, I always think of this as a “magician’s choice”—a way the magician makes it feel like the volunteer is choosing something freely, while it’s actually been determined (“forced”) in advance to make the trick work. And the real trick with a magician’s choice is you can’t repeat it for the same audience or the illusion falls apart.

There are special Unicode characters for the subscripts, H₂SO₄, but imo the better way to do it is with <sub> tags, H₂SO₄. It generally looks better this way, since it’s the renderer deciding how to lay it out, rather than the font designer—and the renderer has a lot more context to work with.

DemonApologist · November 2, 2024, 11:58pm

7 | LGG | MATHPHOBIA

7 | LGG | MATHPHOBIA
by: Leon Lin

Progress:

I reached the end of this game in around 50 minutes.

Engagement with Horror Genre:

This was another game that was mainly Halloween themed rather than horror themed. In terms of audience, I felt like this story was more intended for a younger audience (based on the choice of character and the “edutainment” nature of the game). In terms of “mathphobia,” it feels like the goal of the narrative is to make math more approachable to math-learners who aren’t having a good time with it. For context, I would describe myself as math-neutral. It wasn’t something that I enjoyed, but I didn’t struggle with it either, so it doesn’t have much emotional weight for me. But I know for a lot of people it can be a very intimidating subject, so maybe something like this would’ve helped with that!

Things I Appreciated:

I thought the game was very cleanly edited and presented. There was effort put toward making sure the math problems made sense as in-universe problems, rather than being completely abstract.
I thought the difficulty of the math problems fit a natural progression and ramped up in a way that felt fair, and I also thought it was nice that a variety of problem types were included. It’s also very forgiving, in that if you make an error, you can just try again.

Miscellaneous Comments:

As a, well, demon apologist, I was very annoyed that all the other Halloween monsters got to be chill and the demons/archfiend were still irredeemably evil. Boo, tomato, tomato! (I’m mostly joking…)
I think it would be helpful at the outset to instruct the player to have pencil and paper ready for this game. After a while, some of the arithmetic involved is slightly more involved to where writing it out was necessary for me.
This is sort of an odd comment, but I felt like the narrative of the game was in tension with the purpose of the game. Like ordinarily here, my advice would be that the narrative felt repetitive and could be significantly streamlined. But the purpose of the game is (I’m assuming?) to get the player to practice arithmetic, in which case repetition is essential to develop the skill. In that sense, I can say that the narrative does a good job managing that tension, but as an adult player I did get tired of it.

What I learned about IF writing/game design:

I think this is the first time I’ve played an IF game that felt explicitly educational? I thought it was a good illustration of how choice-based narratives can be used in that context. I am not really able to evaluate whether the target audience would like this game, but I’d like to think that if I received something like this as someone learning math, I would find it fun!

Memorable Moment:

When I realized that I needed to look for a multiplication term that equalled zero in order to progress a late puzzle.

LWL · November 3, 2024, 1:02am

Thanks for playing my game and writing your review! I found your review to be excellent and very insightful!

DemonApologist · November 3, 2024, 3:23am

8 | LGG | RESURRECTION GATE

8 | LGG | RESURRECTION GATE
by: Grim Baccaris

Progress:

I accidentally paused my timer but I think it took me around 50 minutes to reach the end of the demo?

Engagement with Horror Genre:

This strikes me as essentially a dark fantasy piece (with some steampunk-ish infusions), with the emphasis more on fantasy genre than horror necessarily. This isn’t to say that horror is absent—there’s certainly the body horror of being a lich, the atmosphere of a swamp at night, and the creepiness of encountering something menacing and undead. But it also got me thinking about how, encountering undead creatures in fantasy is a common enough experience that it doesn’t really pack the same punch for me, now that I think about it? An element I thought worked really well to make those encounters more unsettling here was the way that the devourer’s text was formatted, it was jarring to look at in a way that I thought brought some of the “horror” back to dark fantasy kind of setting.

Things I Appreciated:

The visual presentation is ostentatiously stylish. By that I mean, essentially, any bit of text or background that could have some kind of effect applied to is, has had that done to it. At first, I found this cluttered and overwhelming. Like looking at each individual flourish, I could see the case for it, but taken together, it seemed too much to me. But over time I just… got used to looking at it, and I guess I gave in and accepted the overdramatic visual presentation into my heart. Minimalism is so over.
I really enjoyed the glimpses of character and worldbuilding, and in particular, I’m excited to have the opportunity to play a game as a lich lord. Since characters like this are usually framed as unsympathetic antagonists, I really enjoy the prospect of getting to be that character and having to deal with some of the grislier challenges that might arise throughout their day. I thought the other characters were interesting too, just, the lich character grabbed me the most.
Here’s an offbeat music trivia kind of comment: the track that plays in the dirigible (the bell-like tritone section toward the end) is very reminiscent of “Ceremony” from Secret of Mana, which I thought was a cool connection to another game that has a similar magic/technology blend and features a lich lord character. I have no idea if this was intentional, subconscious, or complete coincidence. I mean, tritones are not exactly an uncommon device for creating an unsettling atmosphere. But, it really did send my mind straight to that composition and I liked having that moment of recognition.
I liked the choice based system and how choices could be made unavailable due to the player character’s personality traits and/or stats. I imagine this will be more satisfying in the full version of the game when the player can actually choose who they play as. The assigned character for the demo is not who I personally would’ve picked so I was slightly annoyed when the choices I wanted were unavailable, but I like the concept in general for adding texture to the playthrough and the stakes of stat distributions.

Miscellaneous Comments:

I found one font especially difficult to read: the font used for the stat names/descriptions. It’s a stylish font but I wonder if that style is worth the extra mental fatigue of reading it. In its defense, it isn’t used a huge amount.
I didn’t really like the popup notifications. While I did find the information in one extremely useful (the one that says you can just press the space bar to advance text), I found these made it more difficult for me to focus. There is so much going on visually that adding the motion of popups made it harder for me to anchor myself to the experience of actually reading the text.
Since this is explicitly a demo, here is a list of random typos/bugs etc. that I encountered while playing, since I figure that’s useful information:
Inconsistent quotation mark styling: some of them are curved, some of them are straight. (I have the utmost sympathy, I HATE working with quotation marks in Twine because of the ugly-ass uncurved quotation marks that relentlessly propagate themselves when I’m editing )
[img[images/bg/stonesnight2.png] → incorrectly formatted image
Broken image link → background scenery that tilts when you mouse over it in the first camp area
“One flickering orange beacons still remains” → “beacon”
Two options labeled “Ignore the voice” with one crossed out. One of them should be labeled something like “Answer voice” or “Respond to voice” based on the text.
When I clicked the option “Follow voice,” the title of the card is “Ignore the voice”
Repair Library: the “repairing” trapezoidal button overlaps with the text of the card
Portrait window labeled “Laurence” is often empty
“Besarion meets Lirat’s gaze,” → “Lirat” should be “Laurence” I think

What I learned about IF writing/game design:

It was honestly just kind of interesting to see the visual aesthetic of, you know, the author of the Twine Grimoire. Several times I was like, hey, I remember reading about that effect a few weeks ago in the Grimoire! So I thought this was a great opportunity for my own purposes to see some of those effects within an actual game context and evaluate what I thought of them. It’s good to see someone using a maximalist approach to visual design that works, so that I can better evaluate my own stylistic choices to make sure that they are what I want, rather than the default result of not even knowing that I could do other things with it.

Memorable Moment:

When the first text from the devourer showed up with that ominous red formatting.

DemonApologist · November 3, 2024, 5:46am

9 | LGG | THE LITTLE MATCH GIRL IN THE COURT OF MAAL DWEB

9 | LGG | THE LITTLE MATCH GIRL IN THE COURT OF MAAL DWEB
by: Ryan Veeder

Progress:

I reached the end of the game after around 1h20m, needing two hints in order to be able to get through it.

Engagement with Horror Genre:

I found the horror here to be more psychological than anything. For the majority of the game, you see only the effects/aftermath of Imrath’s attacks, so the tension grows and grows over the course of the game. You learn that even just looking at the wolf will cause these horrible effects, and right when I thought I was on my way to make goggles to save myself, the game forces you to see them and experience what their other victims have been experiencing.

Things I Appreciated:

I went into this with zero familiarity with the story or series that this is based on, and I still found it enjoyable as a standalone entry. So I would definitely recommend this to someone who wants to play a (challenging) parser game but might hesitate due to not knowing about the series it is in.
My first big moment of wonder was at the first teleportation when the color changed and I ended up in Texas. I was really unprepared for this (having explored the area before specifically examining any of the torches) and it was a delightful surprise. After that, I enjoyed getting to see the different locations, some of which are normal enough and some of which are delightfully strange. This was a very effective use of UI.
I struggled a lot with this game as while wandering around, I could only find cards and nothing I could actually use for the main story. But as happens with these games, eventually I started to become familiar enough with what was going on that I started to make real progress. Except for the exceptions noted below, I thought the puzzles were pretty intuitive and I started to learn to search locations that had no clear purpose yet for solutions to things, which helped a lot. Overall, I thought this was a tough, but pretty fair game.
The level of implementation was impressive. Pretty much every reasonable thing I tried to examine or touch had a custom response, and these responses were rich and interesting. Even when I struggled, I felt confident that the game was well-crafted and there would be a solution that I could find, whereas when games have spottier responses I get worried about softlocking myself.

Miscellaneous Comments:

The first place I got stuck involved the grappling hook, which quickly infuriated me. When I received it, my first instinct was to try and knock the object off the top of the pole, but the game refused to allow that. That really confused me as that seemed like a logical interaction, but I proceeded regardless. I kept trying to use it in places that made sense (to climb cliffs or rocks) and would not be allowed to proceed. After a while longer, I asked for a hint for the first time and was told to use the grappling hook in a place I had already attempted to use it quite a while ago. I found this annoying because I had ruled out the grappling hook as progress there after it didn’t work, but on the plus side, this hint was well-designed because it knew exactly where I was stuck and how to phrase the command to allow me to proceed.
The second time I got stuck, the help command told me that I needed to give “the figurine” to Archie. However, I had never seen a figurine before (but the hint seemed to assume that I had) so I retraced my steps at a few difference places. I went back to Xiccarph and just tried “take figurine” without seeing one, which worked, so I think I somehow just bypassed a puzzle completely here. I think for the game state I was in, a hint that I didn’t explore Xiccarph enough would’ve worked better than the one I got.
In terms of the writing style, I mostly really enjoyed it, but thought the opening exposition of all the hero characters was overly dense with information. Especially since, in my playthrough, they didn’t contribute all that much to the puzzles, I wondered why so much time was devoted upfront to introducing them in such detail when they didn’t have that much plot impact. That said, I did like those characters and found them interesting. If anything, I wish they had done more. After that, the density of the text felt more relaxed, still rich, but meted out at a more reasonable pace.

What I learned about IF writing/game design:

Something I noticed that this game did well was set limits on the scope of the room regions of the game. The game will just straight up tell you not to continue going in a certain direction and which way to go back, which is helpful for trying to keep a mental map straight.
I thought the color-changing UI was great. It has a big impact the first time you encounter it, and then, when you are finally used to it, it changes at a climactic moment to give a big impact for a second time. It’s a great use of something ostensibly simple (changing the background color) that packs a punch.

Memorable Moment:

I involuntarily shouted/screamed during the final violin segment because I hit return twice by accident and the rapidly changing colors jumpscared me, so that was kind of embarrassing. But I thought it was cool to experience.

DemonApologist_MaalDweb.txt (107.8 KB)

DemonApologist · November 3, 2024, 10:06pm

10 | LGG | BOO.

10 | LGG | BOO.
by: Lilie Bagage

Progress:

I reached the end of the narrative in about 7 minutes.

Engagement with Horror Genre:

This centers on a “corrupted childhood” theme. It takes place in an environment that you can deduce is a child’s bedroom due to the presence of a toy chest, and the creepy voices are familiar (cued, additionally, by the uncanny doll on the cover art). A “monster under the bed” or a “monster in the closet” in the darkness is a common childhood fear that is built upon here. Beyond the jumpscares, another horror element that is included is the plot twist role reversal—the ending that is designed to make you question who you even were while playing this.

Things I Appreciated:

This piece does something pretty clever, I think. The blurb and presentation encourage you to focus on listening (since the audio design is the major focus), and after a while you expect something creepy to happen while you’re listening. The clever thing is, the piece surprise strikes with visual elements (the sudden appearance of shoes, keys, and bright white light) that cut across the player’s expectation to be spooked by the audio.
Speaking of the audio, I really enjoyed the focus on sound, and how the whispers were sometimes easy to parse, and sometimes were overlapping voices that were harder to distinguish. I thought this created an appealing sensation of ambiguity that primed me to listen more closely and try to understand what the voices are saying. I also liked the background ambience and the build to the climax/ending of the piece, it was a great demonstration of how to use sound effectively in a short narrative.
An element that I thought was thematically interesting was the use of light as a source of terror. At first, the dark is disorienting, but the player adjusts and starts to feel just a bit more comfortable navigating the space as it becomes normal. Then, the light—normally a source of relief for darkness, becomes a threat. It adds to the feeling that you might be playing as some kind of monster or ghoul for whom the light, rather than the darkness, is the real source of danger.

Miscellaneous Comments:

There was one audio cue that I thought was off. When the text “The door is creaking” appears, the sound that plays is the sound of a door closing. While that still gets the “door” across, I feel like it’s missing the “creaky” quality that you’d expect from that description.
An element that I’m curious about is the counter at the bottom (that goes up to 66). Because the player is shown this, it gives a sense of progression in terms of how much is left. My curiosity is around whether or not showing this to the player is a good idea. On one hand, knowing the I’m close to the end can add to the suspense, because it creates an expectation of a jumpscare/fright. On the other hand, it sort of goes against the sensation of being literally and figuratively “in the dark” about your situation. Why should the player get this warning about the end approaching, especially since the narrative is already building toward that moment?
There are some very minor typos that could be edited (chick → cheek; suddendly → suddenly)

What I learned about IF writing/game design:

The game is, along with being a narrative, a demonstration of software and audio tools. I’m not familiar with Moiki but I have been curious in general about including audio elements (in a Twine project I’m currently working on, I have toyed with audio elements but will probably scrap them because it seems really intimidating to code and I want to prioritize the actual narrative writing). I thought this was a good study in how to create a sinister atmosphere using voice cues and overlapping audio.

Memorable Moment:

I got jumpscared by some freaking shoes.

DemonApologist · November 4, 2024, 12:18am

11 | LGG | DARK AND DEEP

11 | LGG | DARK AND DEEP
by: Amanda Walker

Progress:

I reached the end in about 36 minutes.

Engagement with Horror Genre:

I would describe this as maybe, gothic literary horror? Not that it’s necessarily gothic gothic, but the atmosphere of decay is pervasive enough that it brought that to mind for me (in addition to the plot details making me think of the Edgar Allan Poe story “The Tell-Tale Heart” a bit). The haunts in this piece are mostly atmospheric, though they burst out in spiky moments of horror (most memorably, the saw incident…), and the piece is very concerned with the spiritual and emotional lives of the characters as they cause, experience, and recount what they have been through.

Things I Appreciated:

This piece is very capital L Literary. I struggled to parse the sinuous grammar in some of the sentences, especially in the beginning of the narrative. The thought, “why is x word here instead of there” snagged me a few times before I trained myself to just let it wash over me more. This style of writing can be rewarding once you get accustomed to it, I think. I slowed down my reading pace considerably to try and absorb more of the interesting turns of phrase. The language is rather evocative, with many bits and pieces adding to the overall web of imagery. For some reason, the most powerful image in this piece to me is the description of the box of mismatched buttons spilling all over floor. I think it’s because so much of the piece is unraveling layers of containment, the sins and secrets and regrets, and a box of buttons is something collected over the course of a long life. It’s like we were finally seeing, at long last, all that was concealed, scattered before us.
I really enjoyed the theme of guilt intertwined with perception. Amy sees the skeleton emerging from the cellar (and we see it, as her), but her husband Toffile does not. The game plays with that expectation that you will see the skeleton (as the reverend) in the attic, but you instead find only the finger bones that have slipped out of the button box. I was left to wonder whether the walking skeleton is “real,” but that matters less to me than the fact that the guilt and doubt are emotionally real, and the reverend will continue to be haunted by this knowledge because of his spiritual crisis. Speaking on perception, I thought it was fascinating (though perhaps not surprising ) that the reverend did not accept what she saw even when he experienced her perception directly, blaming her for witchcraft only now that he feels threatened by her knowledge. Amy is by far the most powerful character in the story, even (or perhaps, especially) in her state, and it feels like the men are always reacting to her agency (resentfully or not)—even the reverend, going and doing exactly the things she directs him to, so that he experiences her narrative in the order she means him to.
The dialogue-based gameplay was engaging to me. While some of the stuff I tried asking about didn’t work, that was by far the exception and most things I tried asking or talking about led to some interesting or disturbing new text. I thought this social approach made the game feel more intimate and involved.

Miscellaneous Comments:

I am not very familiar with poetry canon (it isn’t an interest of mine) so I was somewhat disoriented by the final text as it was the only time I recognized the poem being referenced (the previous ones being lost on me). My reaction was like, wait, why is a Robert Frost poem randomly happening in the final moments? Well… Fortunately, the author’s note helped explain what was going on and I thought it was a really clever approach to developing a piece. Even though the allusions went completely over my head, the piece itself felt internally consistent in terms of writing style and atmosphere/tone, so I wouldn’t have ever expected that it had that kind of origin.
I found a minor continuity error. On returning to the living room after the scene where you take the woman’s hand, the room description said that the cellar door was closed, but when I examined it, it was still open. (Feel free to look through the attached transcript in case in case it can help.)
A game mechanic I thought could be adjusted was the way the screen text cleared when you are transported to one of the memories. This created an issue for me where I was trying to remember what to “sense” in the barn, but I couldn’t scroll back up to reread the dialogue because it had been cleared by the wall memory scene. Unless there is an unavoidable structural reason to reset the text like this, I think it would be better to allow the reader to scroll all the way back up to avoid the immersion-straining awkwardness of situations like this. (To be fair, it is my fault for focusing on the “barn” part rather than the “saw” part, I could have taken notes, etc.)

What I learned about IF writing/game design:

I thought this was an interesting case study of taking a parser game in a very serious, literary direction. I commented in the past how parser games seem to naturally generate comedy because of the wacky things that can happen when there is a struggle between the player and the program. Here, because of the very clear up-front instructions, and well-crafted responses, I never felt like the parser aspect was getting in the way of the tone or atmosphere of the piece. So it turns out, I guess, that if you really work at it, you can make something as janky as parser gameplay feel very tonally appropriate for subject matter like this. In fact, I really want to emphasize the role of the instructions: by telling me to focus on dialogue and how to format it, it helped direct my attention in a useful way as a player to be guided along and have a better experience of the piece than I think would have happened if I wasn’t given these specific instructions. It’s worth considering, if one is designing a parser game, how to nudge the player toward doing the tasks that you implemented for them to experience the story, and this is one way of doing that.

Memorable Moment:

When I tried to ask her about the depression in the cellar and she said, essentially, oh, we’ll GET to that!

DemonApologist_DarkAndDeep.txt (49.7 KB)

AmandaB · November 4, 2024, 12:42am

Thanks so much for playing my game and taking the time to write this lovely review! And thanks for the transcript and noting those oddities-- these are pure gold for an improved post-comp release.