DemonApologist's IFComp 2024 Responses

30 | METALLIC RED

30 | METALLIC RED
by: Riaz Moola

Progress:

  • I reached the end of the game in about 40 minutes.

Things I Appreciated:

  • Weirdly (perhaps), my favorite part of the game was the salad dressing simulator. I thought it was the most actively engaging task that I was asked to do, and as a result I felt actively invested in reading the taste cues to figure out how to balance the flavor of the dressing. There’s something kind of interesting about the fact that you have the most engaging experiences at the compound that the protagonist has determined to leave forever.

  • I thought this was an interesting case where there is a notable gap between the player and the protagonist. As the player in this game, I felt a sense that I was lagging behind the protagonist’s knowledge and motives. You can guess what those motives are based on which tabs they left open on the console, or by interpreting their dreams, but you are not truly privy to their sense of purpose. That was a unique dynamic of this piece. I did not understand why we had flown all this way until the very final scene of the piece, yet, given that purpose at long last, the preceding clues make sense in hindsight.

  • I liked the sci-fi worldbuilding here. The snippets from the console tabs were interesting and felt internally consistent, as well as hinting toward the overall goals of the protagonist. An example of a cool worldbuilding detail would be the maintenance crabs that helped with the harvesting, that was a creative/imaginative touch.

Feedback/Recommendations/Questions:

  • Another entry with forced light mode in a row, oh no! The randomizer really hates my eyes today. The first time the switch happened I was caught off guard and really did not like it, but since it follows a pattern I learned to look away from the screen right before the bright flash was about to happen. I wonder if there’s a way to make the shift between dark/light mode a little less visually disruptive?

  • Something I noticed about my experience playing this game is how it reminded me of times in my life when I was most battling depression. The fact that your character wakes up, seems to only do the bare minimum in what seems like it would only take a few minutes/an hour of real time to complete before becoming so exhausted that they needed to sleep again felt very familiar to that. But I’m not sure to what extent that matches the tone of the game? I mean, in some ways, the kinds of tasks your character focuses on are peaceful in their simplicity (such as planting and growing herbs in the hydroponics station) with the exception of clearing the tabs from the console. But the game brought me more into that depressive mindset than a relaxed or calm/focused mindset.

  • I thought it could’ve been interesting to have more opportunities to engage with the “esoteric” objects (e.g., the tarot deck and orrery) and potentially have randomized results given to you? I just quickly replayed to check and still got the same cards. I think from a player perspective it would be interesting to be tempted by the opportunity to read into the random card that you get and interpret its significance to the plot, only to realize later that it was actually random and you essentially fabricated a connection with your pattern-seeking mind as can happen with real world tarot/horoscope readings.

  • In terms of the dream sequences, I thought some of them could’ve been written in a more intensely weird or disorienting way. I think I would’ve liked for them to stand apart from the “awake” writing style a bit more. However, that being said, the parts of the dreams that were happening inside the ship were realistic in a way (it reminded me of times when I had dreams about reading emails, like seriously, why does my subconscious need to waste my time while I’m asleep with that?) . But I don’t know, I just wish there was more intensity and variety to these sequences since they encompass a lot of the game’s runtime.

What I learned about IF writing/game design:

  • I thought this was a great example of balancing the desire to give the player insight into the character/world without overly explaining it. By the end, the things that I had seen made sense, but I didn’t necessarily feel that it was telegraphed to the point of undermining the story, either. Overall, I thought this is a good example of giving the player an opportunity to pay attention to learn more about the character and world, or not, and still have a fairly neatly tied conclusion to the narrative.

  • I really loved the way that the hyperlinks in the cult compound were formatted into a minimap of the area. This was a clever bit of UI that I thought helped provide a contrast between the compound and the ship, and made intuitive sense to navigate as a player.

Quote:

  • “The planetary dials continue to rotate, various dates appear and you notice how few of them hold any particular significance to you.”

Lasting Memorable Moment:

  • When the protagonist declares to the Hierophant that they want to leave, and ultimately hands in the jade figurine they’ve brought all this way.
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