40 | EIKAS
40 | EIKAS
by: Lauren O’Donoghue
Progress:
- I was able to fully complete this game (including four character side quests) in about 1h55m, just making it in under the 2-hour time limit.
Things I Appreciated:
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This is a very wholesome and well polished game. It’s not wholly devoid of conflict or stakes, but the game goes out of its way in almost every respect to have an optimistic worldview and to think about ethical community engagement. It’s kind of poignant, too. As someone who loves to cook for friends and family members but rarely has the opportunity to do so, there’s something melancholy about the fact that a community structured like this feels so escapist rather than “normal.”
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The game is very responsive: at each community meal concluding a round of gameplay, the narration reflects the major and minor characters you interacted with. For instance, in one round, I had helped teach someone how to make falafel, and at the next dinner, there was a segment where they came to talk with me again about it. Similarly, the advancement you make in side quests with Antonia, Llew, and Orlando is reflected in the canteen environment.
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I really could not say enough about how well-designed the recipe selection process is. In a game where you could make dozens of different recipes, the game narrows the scope slightly so you are focused on just procuring the ingredients rather than making things overly laborious. And the game rewards strategic shopping—paying attention to when recipes that use the same ingredients so you know to acquire two of that ingredient. The way the recipe screen stars the ones you can actually do is super helpful. And when finally making the meal, the screen narrows to show only the dishes that you are capable of making, to avoid wasting player time looking at recipes that would be impossible with the current ingredients. The core mechanics of this game are designed with obvious care—I could make a similar comment about the market system where the links to items you can’t afford disappear, to avoid the embarrassment/clunkiness of clicking on them and being told that you can’t afford it. For such a long game, involving so many overlapping systems, the fact that the gameplay is as seamless and engaging as it is reflects an aspirational level of attention to player experiences.
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Something I really dislike in games is the feeling of being overwhelmed with game mechanics at the start. There are many games that I love, that I had to restart playing multiple times because the discomfort of learning the game systems was intimidating enough to stop me from playing. I had a fear of this at the beginning of this game, too. You have a lot of different concepts told to you at once. But because the game is forgiving, welcoming, and wants you to succeed, I felt like it eased me in well without feeling like I was having a tutorial dictating at me (which can also be an alienating experience). This game threaded that learning curve really well.
Feedback/Recommendations/Questions:
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A minor UI element that bothered me many times through the playthrough is the button labeled “toggle the UI bar.” Because this button has a left-facing arrow, it intuitively feels like it should be a back button, but it’s not—instead it disruptively removes the sidebar until you click it again to restore it. Even after understanding what that button did, I would still sometimes instinctively click on it. It wasn’t until the final third or so that I had developed a mastery of the game’s navigation to the point where I would no longer foolishly click on this. My recommendation would be to either remove this button (as pressing on it actively messes up the screen since the sidebar is essential for navigation) or change the symbol to something that does not resemble a back button.
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I think this game is one round too long (that is, I think it should last 25 in-game days instead of 30 in-game days). I was being very active and strategic with the turn economy for the first four rounds, and as a result, by the time day 21 rolled around, there wasn’t enough for me to do anymore. I could quickly get things set up for the meal and since I had also advanced the side quests so much by this point, I felt like I was just kind of aimlessly wandering to use up turns. I don’t assume this experience is universal, of course. I think having one round worth where you feel a true mastery of the game is just right. And in most aspects, I appreciate that the game has such a forgiving mechanics that I feel like it would be hard to naturally have a bad experience with it unless you were actively playing in bad faith to choose the occasional ruder dialogue options, and go to sleep instead of using your turns to do anything.
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One of my most engaging moments in the game involved the turn economy. I realized that I was one expensive ingredient short of making a recipe that I wanted for that meal, and it came down to whether or not the snack randomization gave me a value of 19 or higher. I ended up getting an unusually low roll here of I think 16 or 17, meaning that I couldn’t afford the ingredient and had to make a different dish and adjust my meal plan. This was a super engaging experience to face a small amount of adversity in-game. And very realistic, to have to think on my feet to adjust the meal plan last minute! Ultimately, the game is forgiving and flexible enough that making one alternate dish is not enough to make or break your performance overall, but it was an actively exciting gameplay moment. So this is why I wish there had been a bit more time or turn pressure: not because I actively want stressful experiences, but because I noticed that my most memorable moment while playing was when the time/turn pressure actually impeded my plans, but the game had still given me the tools to pivot my strategy to recover. I’m not sure what my recommendation is here because I don’t know enough about how to balance a game to know what adjustment would be better. And again, my experience is my own and not universal, so just because I personally thought the turn economy by the end was too generous, and there were too many gameplay rounds resulting in a lack of stakes for the final stretch, doesn’t mean that the game should necessarily be tuned to my exact gameplay style.
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I thought that the side quests for Antonia, Llew, and Orlando were too structurally similar. While I liked all these characters, by the time I was wrapping up the last of Antonia’s side quest content I felt like I was noticing the mechanical aspect of how the side quests are structured a little too much. I think some slight mechanical adjustments to even just one of these side quests will help keep the illusion alive instead of leaving the player thinking about it in terms of a pre-set sequence of steps that echoes the other character quests.
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There are a few moments in the game that hint at more sinister or spooky elements. For instance, one can see a creepy abandoned mine as part of the valley landscape. When I saw that, it made me curious to learn more about the spirits/entities in the area and I hoped to encounter something that seemed creepy or scary but, when treated empathetically, turned out to be harmless or well-meaning. Those elements of the game piqued my curiosity, and while the game has a rich and well-developed world, I found myself (especially in the last two rounds) hoping to stumble upon something like that and ultimately didn’t. It’s entirely possible that encounters like that are in the game and I just didn’t find them; I don’t think I ever figured out what the extra sounds in the canteen were (unless it’s just the cat?)
What I learned about IF writing/game design:
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In a way, I didn’t learn much at all, because the gameplay flows so well it was hard for me to actively notice how and why it was working so well. Pretty much any of the interactive features could be examined to learn something from. I’ll just pick one: the way that the turn economy was communicated to the player. It uses a system of diamonds that fill in on the side-panel, clearly showing how many actions are remaining. Similarly, when exploring the areas, choices that will require an action are marked with that same diamond. As a game design choice, the predictability and smoothness of this turn economy lends itself to strategic thinking because you are never surprised by something costing an action that you don’t expect. You can be surprised by an action “not working” (for instance, when trying to get a spell ingredient, one of my attempts failed, which was an interesting moment). This is a game that trusts that giving players accurate information about what the cost of an action is will be more rewarding in the long run than trying to have gotcha moments that are more likely to discourage exploration and risk-taking.
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I liked the way that the game didn’t penalize curiosity. For instance, if you want to learn more about the spirits in the game, there is a book that you can buy for 10 coins. In-game, there are certainly moments where you really need those 10 coins to buy something, so it’s not a completely negligible amount of money. But, the economy is structured such that sating one’s curiosity by buying this book will not likely cause you to regret “wasting" your money. I think attaching a small cost to optional items like this more rewarding than the alternative of getting it for free (in which case, as a player I value it less since it wasn’t that meaningful of a choice to look at it) or paying a lot for it (where I might be annoyed that it hindered my ability to cook the meal I wanted just to get some lore). I think designing a game with this mindset—to not penalize curiosity—was a good fit for this game, and I imagine, many games.
Quote:
- “The ingredients are simple, but the way they come together is almost alchemical in its brilliance; soft rice and nutty lentils, the warmth of cumin and those sweet, chewy onions.”
Lasting Memorable Moment:
- As mentioned above, when I had bad RNG for the snack randomization causing a chain reaction where I had to scrap a dish and plan a new approach to that dinner on the fly. This was the moment in the game that I felt most challenged to play flexibly and as a result, I found it immersive.