Grayson's Review-a-thon

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(Image ID: a multicolored banner decorated with a number of sparkles, hearts, and other shapes primarily in shades of pinks, blues, purples, and yellows against a black background. The text, arranged in a circle reads “Grayson’s Review-a-thon” in a white handwritten font. End image ID.)

Inspired and frankly in awe of the support I have received from this community in the short time I have been in it, I’d like to ply my hand at reviewing for the first time. So, here goes nothing.

I’ve RNG’d the order of games to be played, and am trying to work my way through each, excluding my own games. In addition to my review, I’m including a little metric, inspired by past gimmicks in last year’s Spring Thing and other competitions. Each game will have a brief description, a play time, a purely qualitative and never numerical rating out of an abstract 10, and then, the coup de grace: a vibes-based fish comparison, owing both to the banner in the initial post and my current special interest in marine biology.

EDIT: Thank you so much to @sophia for the banner!!!

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My Girl, Sophia De Augustine

Love/Violence jam, Anti-romance Jam, and Bluebeard jam, 2024.
Play time: ~30 minutes, played through twice for 1hr total
Rating: unsettling/10
What fish is this?: Anglerfish. With its bright aesthetic and alluring prose, the horror within is only revealed when you are already enraptured, too close to escape.

I am, admittedly, unfamiliar with the Bluebeard story, with this game and a brief Wikipedia visit serving as my only exposure to how the narrative is formed. My Girl is a linear story whose pastel aesthetics offset the pure, unadulterated dread that seeps in over the course of the game. The contrasts between Santiago and the narrator, Carmilla, are stark, and make the story that much more terrifying as he looms, a spectre over the narrative. He seems equal parts cold and aloof like his beloved sea and yet painfully possessive and controlling, less a man and more a ghost in opposition to Carmilla’s at-first demure nature, bound by promise and key to wait for him as he comes and goes faithfully/unfaithfully.

Poetic prose paints a picture of a relationship fraught with ghosts, even the moments of quiet intimacy feeling like condemnation, a warning, foreshadowing what skeletons hide in the basement. Carmilla’s pain and frustration at being third party in her own marriage – to the sea, no less, feels a force of nature, the winds driving the ship onwards – as well as her morbid curiosity, the key around her neck more of a noose – are well expressed, tangible enough to sink your teeth into, something that adds to the seeping dread.

The ending feels somewhat abrupt in comparison to the stellar pacing found throughout, the story building and building to the horror of revelation, bodies and bloodstained hands, keys and secrets – and then a lack of catharsis. The body is in the sea, where it belongs, and that is the end of things, decisive in its finality, albeit a little hollow in my eyes. Then again, futility in the face of the sea or nature – both the nature of man and nature itself – or the looming ghost of Santiago feels all too fitting.

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How to Make Eggplant Lasagna (With Cats!), Emery Joyce and N. Cormier

Recipe Jam, 2024
Play time: ~15 minutes, played through three times for 45 minutes total
Rating: agonizingly accurate/10
What fish is this?: Catfish. Sorry, couldn’t resist.

I was not prepared for how realistic of a simulator this would be, to say the least. As someone who does a lot of cooking and grew up with a herd of seven cats who liked to “help” with the cooking, the frustration I felt at my best laid plans for eggplant lasagna falling apart because I forgot to cat-proof one singular little step was palpable, strikingly realistic, and spurred me to try again.

Trying again is the most delightful part of this game, with the sheer amount of variation encountered in the game being beyond impressive – despite playing through more than once, I felt as though each time was unique, despite having the same end goal. Each choice presented felt as though there was substantial weight behind it – the looming promise of ruining your lasagna either through feline intervention or through neglecting the recipe provides significant impetus despite the lighthearted, humorous tone. Overall, I managed to make a Ratatouille, feed the cats eggplant lasagna, and make one extremely triumphant lasagna, at the devastating cost of ignoring the cats. Perhaps they’ll forgive me if I feed them another lasagna…