Drew Cook's Spring Thing 2022 Reviews

The Wolf and Wheel
Words by Milo van Mesdag, illustrations by Angus Barker, and programming by Jason Ebblewhite

The Wolf and Wheel is a collaborative work running on the Ren’Py engine (used to make Doki Doki Literature Club), and it has a polished look. It is a visual novel with 11 endings, featuring many aesthetic choices and a smaller number of impactful ones.

I love the world of this game. It takes place in a small town that has recently been plunged into unending darkness, as the sun hasn’t risen for weeks. It isn’t clear why this has happened, or what–if anything–can be done about it. Many events go underexplained in a deliberate, curiosity-inducing way. The world has an only hinted-at history: forgotten deities, lost traditions, and historical truth subsumed within folklore. In this ambiance, murderous wolf-men do ask psychic barmaids about the nature of happiness. Much of the narrative–interlinked vignettes scaffolded by a episode-spanning interloper–is dreamlike and fabulistic. Everything seems invested with an unnamed and elusive significance.

The authors declare that The Wolf and Wheel is a demo. I do hope that writer Milo van Mesdag does not fill in too many narrative blanks in its larger, final version. I think the quantity and nature of information delivered about this game world is very well calibrated. What this demo needs more of is art. While the few pieces on display are of high quality, they are insufficient. Scenes are not dramatized, and in climactic moments we see the same bar or forest illustration that we have been seeing all along. It’s simply not enough for a visual novel.

I’ve seen the prose criticized, which I think is fair. While entirely correct from a technical and grammatical perspective, the English is not always idiomatic. A sentence here or there will deport itself awkwardly. Unfortunately, such moments usually occur during more philosophical passages where rhetorical efficacy is crucial. I still rate the writing very highly, since style is only one element of storytelling. Hopefully close attention can be paid to such issues in revision.

I do think The Wolf and Wheel (IFDB page) is worth a look for readers that enjoy dark fantasy and/or visual novels. I enjoyed my time with it, and experienced 4 of 11 endings before writing this review.

7 Likes

You, Me and Coffee
Florencia Minuzzi

I was attracted to You, Me and Coffee (it’s so hard not to add an Oxford comma!) because of its Game Boy aesthetic. The art and interface are attractively constructed in two-bit color using Bitsy, an open-source development platform that characterizes itself as a “little editor for little games or worlds.”

YM&C is, in fact, a little game (a brief conversation) set in a little slice of the world (a coffee shop). Possible outcomes–seven in total–are dictated by the order in which the player selects three topics of conversation: the titular you, me, and coffee (pictured below). For those of you doing the math, the seventh ending is unlocked when all six possible combinations have been tried.


While the prospect of multiplicitous outcomes may suggest a large game, the possibilities can be exhausted in a half hour or so. This is not necessarily a bad thing, of course. Some observations on the text:

  • The order in which the player selects these choices do not have a clear causal relationship to their outcomes. I cannnot imagine someone playing through YM&C once and feeling that they had reached “their” ending. A “full” playthrough requires seeing all possible outcomes.
  • The goal of the game seems to be cultivation of the protagonist’s contrition. We learn that our conversation partner feels mistreated by them, and, in the secret ending, the protagonist comes to regret their behavior.
  • As a player, I did not feel the protagonist’s regret. Instead, I witnessed it.

I wonder what this structure implies about the nature of ethical or moral development. The protagonist has not done the hard work of self-critique (not that we can see), nor have they witnessed the various possible conversations that we do as players–which may or may not appear equivalent to the feelings expressed in the seventh ending. How did they decide to say the things that they say?

I suppose I sound quite critical, but I shouldn’t let my comments overshadow how charmed I was by the look and simplicity of the interface. The author came up with an interesting and attractive way to present this text, and it is very well suited to that text. It asks very little (30 minutes) in return for a diverting story. It also invites us to think about Bitsy (IFDB search) as a platform for IF.

7 Likes

Hinterlands: Marooned!
Cody Gaisser

I am one of those weird people who still laughs about Pick Up the Phone Booth and Die, a sort of anti-game that (I think) has two possible actions (plus another that fails) and two corresponding endings. There is additionally one object to examine. It is a heavily-rated game on IFDB (101 ratings), and is sitting at a two-star average. It is, in essence, a one-move game, or perhaps it’s a sort of Andy Kaufman bit about gameness.

While I was thinking about what I might say about Cody Gaisser’s Hinterlands: Marooned!, I visited the IFDB page for PUP&D. This is not to say they are terribly similar beyond being one-move experiences (they aren’t), and it isn’t called Interact with the Q’udzlth and Die. I did, however, laugh after the tenth death or so.

For a game with one location and few nouns (though more than you might expect), this is thoroughly implemented. I was surprised how many actions were possible, given the constraints. I never found a way to survive, but perhaps that would be beside the point. After all, the only way I can think of to improve PUP&D is not deeper implementation, even though that seems to be the prevailing opinion. It’s removing the possibility of success.

The “play online” link provided at the Spring Thing page led to some irritating behavior in Microsoft Edge. The page constantly removed focus from the cursor, so I always had to re-click on it. I switched over to iplayif.com and everything worked fine. I’m sure this isn’t the game’s fault; just saying.

I recommend Hinterlands: Marooned!. It’s fun and funny and–so far as I can tell–makes no unreasonable demands on the player’s time. It’s impressively implemented, as well.

7 Likes

A D R I F T
Pinkunz

ADRIFT (forgive my omisison of the spaces between letters) is a small demo featuring two small puzzles satisfyingly grounded in Newtonian physics. An astronaut (perhaps I should say cosmonaut) has become untethered from their spacecraft and must somehow make their way back.

While I don’t feel I can say more, I do enjoy the sorts of puzzles featured here, and would welcome a science-focused space game from this author.

6 Likes

Fairest
Amanda Walker

I’m generally uninterested in repurposed fairy tales, though I enjoy lesser-known folklore from both the west and abroad. In fact, I’m not sure that I would have tried Fairest if I didn’t recognize the author from this forum.

Foregoing it would, it turns out, have been a mistake. This game has oodles of charm, and its puzzles–while not so difficult–feel fun. I like fun in my games, and I especially like talking to animals–a love that dates back to Enchanter (1983). Fairest also has an interesting fourth wall gimmick that elevates it above and beyond the typical bit of western fairy tale media.

The protagonist is Prince Conrad, an aimless bumbler who–we are told so explicitly–could never succeed without your (the player’s) help. He and his other princely brothers compete for the right to succeed their ailing father as king. Along the way, he will meet familiar figures from various stories, and each either helps or hinders him on his path to success. He–no, not he. You, the player–can look into a mirror for insight into any woman character’s personality and history. The endings–there are 13–all explode typical fairy tale outcomes in interesting and entertaining ways, turning a critical eye to the customary roles of women in these folktales. The author makes it easy to see all of the endings without massive amounts of rework.

This is a very kind game, too. If there’s a way to be locked out of victory, I never encountered it. Major mistakes are easily undone. There is a command that keeps track of the player’s current objectives. It has built-in hints as well.

The prose is well-wrought and often humorous. Fairest is an easy game to recommend, and a fine choice for any first-time foray into parser IF (IFDB link).

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Thanks so much for taking the time to play and review my game! The mirror thing felt like a huge gamble, so I’m glad it paid off.

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My third and final essay about Spring Thing is up. Thanks to everyone who read and engaged with my stuff.

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