A Quiet Scurry, by Moss & Quill Studios
Micro Night
Love that opening passage, the stark truth of the first sentence, the proceeding sentences written like zooming in birds-eye-view style on this random little mouse. The writing continues to be simple and short, emphasizing the animal senses and traits without making them overbearing, and I could visualize what it could feel like to be in this viewpoint.
The mouse is hungry. So is are its predators. Its life can end in many ways, the moments thankfully brief and not drawn-out. There is no back button and every death means starting from the beginning. Each playthrough is very short, so I personally didn’t find this to be an issue.
A excellent vignette of nature observation rather than a character study, one worth your time. It reminded me of the short chapter book pamphlets I read when I was a child that talked about the basic facts of the animal, with real pictures and diagrams.
Crier, by Antemaion
Underground Absolution Ecosystem
I was optimistic when I learned that this visual novel was by the Saltwrack author, who made quite an impression through the survival game filled with just enough information of lived-in worlds to leave you with a vivid picture, but with ample open room and ambiguity. My interest grew when I read the description on itch speaking of the assassination of rulers, underground societies with unorthodox and twisted beings and beliefs, and “antierotic obscenity.” They sure delivered.
Upon opening the game, I was immediately greeted with a background image resembling an entrance to a mossy cave, a gothic font (I eventually had to switch to a more readable DejaVu Sans from the accessibility menu on repeated playthroughs), and music that I can only describe as “sparse chime-y drone BGM” with occasional concerning-sounding human(?) vocalizations. I kept the game open for quite a while just because the title music is nice to listen to.
Crier is weird and gross (praising), perilous for yourself and others, just enough information on a the world that made me yearn for more drip-fed cave lichen lore, and a motley collection of Creatures. It is absolutely not for everyone - the presentation and a lot of the characters’ speaking habits and appearances (looking at you, proxydrone, but you rock that stinger dick) can be off-putting - but you don’t necessarily have to be a Person Who Enjoys or Is Interested in Being Enveloped in Cave Mildew While Attempting to Become a Cyborg to have a productive time discovering the nuggets of insight from this deliberately unpleasant presentation.
Descend into grime and meet homuncuslime queens, chitin drones, and blorbo from our chemicals! Tap into life-threatening violations to make deposing all-powerful leaders a reality! Listen to minimalistic ambient sounds! Sometimes there’s a Menacing Piano of Anxiety when you run into a real creep (and I mean it, one character’s description made me do a double-take over a certain word)! Appreciate the drippy lichen cavern aesthetic from a distance! Experience many gruesome game overs (the visuals fade to black thankfully)! Embrace and interpret imperfect communication in order to destroy the unjust world order!
Our Lady of Thorns, by Joel Burton
Just a little while until the color of sins is brought to light
I was intimidated from looking at the long (relative to other entries in the Thing) length and that you could mess up due to improperly managing the many moving parts like monks moving around and a strict time limit. But the setting intrigued me, so I bravely ventured forth.
Turns out, managing these parts is intuitive once you get down to it. The monks spend the entire game staying at their assigned locations until it’s time for them to go and sing choir. I personally found the schedule to be generous, starting in the wee hours of the morning until seven in the evening. You can freely look at the current time and when events take place through shortcut commands, and can wait until the hour choir offices start to minimize entering “Z” repeatedly. I meandered around a lot and was stuck in a couple of spots but finished with 30 minutes left before the deadline. Most people will probably get to one of the endings at a faster pace than I did.
To progress, you solve puzzles around the priory to get evidence, so you do have to look under several nooks and crannies, but thankfully you don’t have to find absolutely everything in order to accuse someone. I was stuck for a while on two parts, both related to getting into guarded places by giving gifts, and had to use hints. Although, to be fair, one of these instances was because I completely forgot the flashback hint when examining basil, so I didn’t know what to say and the hint seemed to come out of left field until I did a replay. And as for the other, I just didn’t know you could give a cat to somebody (I did “SHOW CAT TO WILFRED,” assumed that was simply a moment of characterization fluff and moved on until I saw the gift hint). I also had to read hints about searching the barrels. Additionally, the first time I went to the crypt I didn’t catch a vital piece of evidence, thought “that was cool but pointless” after I escaped, then looked at the hints and saw I missed a thing, after which I reloaded a save right before going down there in the first place.
In my first playthrough, I spent a large amount of time having information about one person in particular, but didn’t find any connection to the game’s inciting incident. Ultimately I pretty much stumbled into a solution by being somewhere I wasn’t supposed to be. The person who found me, who was also the culprit, attempted murder after seeing the evidence I was holding but divine intervention saved me. So my process of discovery went from “how does all this stuff lead to poisoning a kind old man” → Hugh tries to kill me after seeing I had the evidence to report him → “well if he reacted like THAT I guess that’s how there’s a corpse.” After getting the mercy ending, I started a new game to do things more efficiently and to see if I could get him to confess, incriminate himself, or open up to me, but after a while concluded that there’s no such thing implemented (and that it’s not that kind of game).
No game breaking bugs were encountered. You can turn part of a wheel dial to a number bigger than nine (you can continue to interact with it without issue), one of the box quotes gave “Inform Error: 25” but continued without issue, and the ending state assumes you kept a piece of evidence (I gave the psalter to its original owner, but both endings were written as if I kept it)
A hefty parser IF that should be appreciated slowly. It would be best to play it not as a deduction game or a cross-examination of peoples’ alibis, but as a free-roam exploration with object manipulation as the primary element. Joel Burton is definitely an author to watch!
Transcripts for the author
Playthroughs 1 and 1.5 are in the first transcript. Playthrough 2 is in the second.
hmlog_thorns.txt (311.2 KB)
hmlog_thorns2.txt (105.4 KB)