JJMcC's 2025 R-A-T-A-T-O-O-T-Y

[jjmcc]

Lewd Mod - Noir by HH Richards
Style: choice-select
Played : 7/21/25
Playtime: 30m demo, 2 playthroughs

Some erotica embraces a kind of “alternate universe” vibe. A world very much adjacent to our own where physical pleasure is never more than two moves away from any, and I mean ANY social interaction. When done poorly, its seams and artificiality can feel squicky or worse. When done well it has a kind of charm to it, where full character and inner lives are replaced by an irrepressible joi de vive and horny transgressions are embraced with a twinkle.

It is cartoony in the less-used sense of the word - people reduced to iconic shorthand, emphasizing (in this case) bawdy aspects for humorous and exaggerated effect. Like say Peanuts. We recognize the heart of the exaggeration and accept the abstraction and falsity as representative, not simpy ‘off’. I mean, imagine for a moment interacting with a child whose physiognomy and droll melancholy matched Charlie Brown. So unsettling! No, our brains are quite prepared to shrug that off given the emotional core that rings through the distortions around it. Once that leap is made, we play in this universe, knowing it is unrepresentative but able to carry the core of its resonance into new places.

LM-N seems to want to play in this space, but it takes its time trying to get there. You open doing photograph analysis work (remotely it seems? by VPN I hope!), notionally scanning images for evidence of entirely unsubtle espionage. Y’know amongst the nudity. The task is kind of shadowy and hand-wavy in a way that at first synchs with the singular drives of Earth-XXX. It quickly gets sharper as your two female superiors engage your work and deeper cross-purposes are exposed, where you will have to choose between ‘sides’ of a barely-sketched conflict. Both of these superiors are very happy to reward your allegiance with lewd selfies, y’know, like bosses do?

The dramatic conflict is very much aligned with its ‘Noir’ title and contrasted to the visual presentation of the piece, creates some unexpected… and this word may not be the best choice here… tension. Both dramatically and in the impulse of the game itself. Stories categorized as Noir are hallmarked by a deep cynicism towards humanity, starkly rendered. Where good intentions are mocked and punished by betrayals and cupidity. (Hey, how weird is it that CUPID is the root of that word? In the context of this review??) This tone is somewhat jarring against the otherwise gleeful Earth-XXX excesses. The mood it evokes It is not entirely unsuccessful, just unexpected and certainly unresolved. The lack of resolution is presumably due to this being a demo, an introduction to deeper plot twists and nudity to come in the full version.

It would be a disservice to the work, given how visually focused both the analyst mini-game and the erotica itself is, to ignore the art. The art is very distinctive. In Noir mode (where I feared I would lose color clues crucial to the proceedings! but didn’t, whew), it was 3-4 colors, large blocks of shadow and light, super iconic. All art is subjective of course, but I found this to be reliably well composed and pleasant to look at. It is a real strength of the game. Which it would kind of have to be, against its aims. The text is not (by and large) carrying erotic content, that all falls to its representational artwork. The art is every bit as abstract and representational as its narrative, and manages to bridge the gap between its fleshy and dramatic impulses, leverages its icon-oriented construction to unify the piece as much as it can.

After my second playthrough (exploring different sides of the conflict), that unresolved thematic tension was far and away the overriding impression - outweighing its female-body gaze-centered sexuality and the moody wheels-within-wheels plot mechanations. As a demo, designed to entice further engagement, I am hard pressed to imagine a better end state. It will all come down to how compelling you find that unique ‘noirotica’ flavor combination, and how confident you are that the resolution of that tension does not dissolve into dissonance. I honestly could see it going either way on that last score.

Also, sorry about your algorithm. Now that I have put Peanuts and ‘erotica’ this close together, you might get some interesting search results for the next few days.

[jjmcc]

machina caerulea by manonamora
Style: choice-select
Played : 7/21/25
Playtime: 15m, 3 endings

This word-limited Jam work, another sub-500 joint, takes an interesting tack on the challenge. What better way to save word count than to dispense with subject-verb-object and articles, definite and otherwise? That’s a lot of linguistic dead weight, right?? Think how many more sentences can you get with one and two word constructions!

Our protagonist awakens from sort of sci-fi sleep pod. The reduced language of the piece conveys a deep disorientation, like the world in all its detail is simply TOO MUCH for the protag (and us) to process and the best we can do is loose impressions and sporadic detail focus. It cleverly puts the player on the same footing as the protag, grappling with overwhelmed senses to understand the truth of our situation. Seriously, no notes, just a wonderfully deliberate and effective use of wordplay to underscore the dramatic theme of the work. It’s hard to tell whether the Jam spurred this particular mood, or the mood found perfect lodging in this specific Jam - either way it ends up being a super good match.

In a Jam game, this short, it is no criticism to say that this textual achievement is the showpiece and central achievement of the game. Its characters, and to lesser extent plot twists, are dispensed rather expeditiously in the three endings. Constrained by format to almost speed run its revelations, the work firmly embraces Twilight Zoney tropes and mood. (Or maybe Outer Limits-y?) It’s the kind of work that shows its limitations and mitigating strategy boldly, openly, but STILL feels natural and unconstrained in its discipline. It gets where it wants to go with precision and calculated effect, and succeeds extremely well at it. It feels for all the world like a super controlled narrative of intriguing mood that HAPPENS to conform to this Jam’s rules, not something force fit.

My only friction with this work was not with its narrative, not at all, but with its technical choices. As a link-select work, its links are presented inline, with highlighted words to expand or direct the story in specific ways. This is implemented as a continually-building screen of text, where clicking (when not wiping the screen for a new ‘scene’) adds lines of text to the display. Until it gets too big for the window where it must scroll. Yet subsequent links remain stranded at the top of the page and not repeated. The effect of this choice is to require a back and forth scrolling: click link at top of page, scroll to bottom to read, return to top for more linkage. This mechanically clumsy interaction mode forced a level of fiddly clarity that worked against the impressionistic language and mood it was building. My sense is the work would be stronger with a different, less deliberate and mechanical UI model.

Otherwise, pitch perfect.

Another sub-500 review achieved! I am powerless before my conceits.

[jjmcc]

(I had the weirdest dream ya’ll…)

Looks like lost my last two reviews! reposting…

[jjmcc]

Resurrection Gate by Grim Baccaris

Style: choice-select
Played : 7/21/25
Playtime: 30m demo

This work is a fantasy game demo, an introduction to a larger work to come. Its overriding strength is its graphical presentation and UI. The thing oozes with art-driven character and mood. From its deliberately unidealized portraits, conveying non-movie-star characters of flawed human features, to its RPG UI interactions, to its moody location background work, the whole thing blends into a very attractive and functional package that is a pleasure to interact with.

The game it is in service of is promising as well - you are walked through playable character introductions, including some assigned RPG-like traits and selected buffs to tailor your gameplay. Interestingly, in the short demo you are given opportunity to inhabit two (of three?) playable characters, nicely showcasing the breadth of the game system and narrative.

The story itself blends High Fantasy tropes with horror tropes. While the former often leave me cold, I am a sucker for the latter, and this combination (uncommon if not completely novel) worked for me. I mean, undead have ALWAYS been in DnD, why have we not been freaked out by it until now???

The demo is accomplishing a lot, showcasing a lot of gameplay. Just how much is driven home by the work’s somewhat abrupt end. I was actually surprised to see it took a full half hour, considering the relatively modest amount of story I ultimately consumed. The mechanical introductions were not DRAGGY, thanks to the UI and art, but they definitely consumed more time than the story. As an intro this is not a terrible choice. Showcasing gameplay, particularly when the mechanics are this capably implemented does seem like highlighting its strengths. It’s just, I’ve rarely (not never!) encountered mechanics that were so compelling it was the main reason to engage a work. Story, especially in narrative works, matters, and can provide a much more emotional, compelling hook than fun swipes of mouse. Other than showing its horror-leaning, heh, bones, heheh, the character beats, background setup and lore felt underserved here? Not given room to heh, flesh out, heheh into compelling elements in their own right. As a demo, I feel like there’s room to expand on this half of the work.

There are a few other burrs in presentation, mostly in text cleanup. At one point the text asserts: “footsteps do not echo” while the soundtrack is clearly playing echoing footsteps! Elsewhere, my character stats reported I was not particularly superstitious, only for incidental text to later inform me I was too superstitious for a course of action. These are not fatal oversights by any means, but make for glitches in the experience that run counter to the mostly seamless presentation.

All in all a very admirable and engaging demo that showcased its undeniably strong UI, but neglected its narrative core. Will be interesting to see where this goes.

[jjmcc]

Thousand Lives by Wojtek Borowicz

Style: Email!
Played : 7/18-26/25
Playtime: 12m over 6-9 days, bittersweet ending

Three years into my game review career, I sometimes think my body of work is actually a weird autobiography in IF review format. I have the vague sense that a motivated sleuth (or casually cruel AI spiderbot) could assemble a 100% complete picture of me by extracting offhand references in these reviews. Why do I continue to taunt the beast like that? I’m supposed to be a privacy paranoid, yet have sprinkled my life liberally into seemingly innocuous reviews. You have all the clues!

Anyway, here’s some more pieces for the life puzzle: I am a third generation Polish American who recently visited his ancestral homeland to reconnect to his roots. My extended family spent a week in Krakow (that my Dad’s misguided 23AndMe told us is where our genetic stock springs from) (I mean seriously Dad, I BEGGED YOU NOT TO) last year. This review is not about the joy (and weight!) that visit generated, well not fully. As part of our trip, we toured both Auschwitz and Nowa Huta - a Soviet-era Model Communist City. What was striking was the prevalence of FIRST HAND ACCOUNTS of all of it. This is not some abstract history, this is living memory that actual people actually lived through. People I COULD STILL TALK TO. Between the two sites, so close both geographically and historically, it is impossible to not feel the whirlwind forces of history and their uncaring abuse of people caught in their wake. It is probably some flavor of heritage-exceptionalism that wants me to say “Poland is a unique lens for the last two generations of social turmoil.” More likely, it’s just MY best lens.

And also this work’s lens! Starting in post-war, pre-Soviet Union times, the protagonist (and also you, the player) get to experience the torrent of history where your wants and dreams are so much loose detritus to the social pressures swirling around you. This could not be more centered on my interests and drives unless maybe it featured Cosmic Horrors. Though honestly, history itself embodies that terror just fine.

Its construction is uncommon for this space - a series of emails, each culminating in a single momentous choice that will inform the next phase of life. This is a form that evoked an uncommon, conflicted mindset in me. Usually when I talk about works “I wish I liked more” there is a vague sense of disappointment, of promise unfulfilled. This may be the first time I entertain that thought with a work I REALLY, REALLY LIKED ANYWAY.

Content-wise, I was captivated and invested. The broad passages of time that encapsulated all-too-frequent sea changes in lives at the mercy of historical changes. From Communist purges and generational labor struggles, to collapsing-order financial chaos and desperation, this work steadfastly centers personal experience of these events. Through specificity, it paints an extremely affecting portrait of history’s callous disregard for the people populating it. And of people finding their way anyway.

The form of it I think I unfairly wanted more from. As an email-driven story, that features presumably time-period-accurate postage stamps, the story was BEGGING to be epistolary, told in letters between principles. That approach seemed SO obvious and SO natural, I actually felt let down when that WASN’T the conceit! Only a little. The other area that felt shy of its full potential was the granularity of it. By encapsulating decades with each daily message, large swaths of life passed without choice. Where that lack of choice was driven by social and political forces, that felt quite natural and earned. There were however, large swaths of PERSONAL choices (most notably relationships with romantic partners) that lived on the same un-forking tracks. This I chafed at a bit. Yes, the overriding theme is clawing out dignity in a rigid world that is actively hostile to your desires. This was expertly conveyed. I just felt that it would be MORE keely felt and observed if the protagonist exerted initiative, however trivial, more than once every few decades. Most especially in arenas that were less directly at the mercy of history.

Even without that though, the frequently on-rails life I led ended in a strongly bitter but faintly sweet ending. In many ways, my fate was defined by forces outside my control, including consequences of decisions both unanticipated and unforeseeable. The denouement I earned was one presented as lonely and empty, but nevertheless nodded to a newfound initiative denied through most of my ‘youth’. That initiative itself felt remarkable and maybe, given what history taught me to expect, sufficient compensation. What a subtle, melancholy and satisfying end state!

Earlier this 'Thon, I lauded the benefits of a short work’s glimpse into the author’s preoccupations. This is a work that takes less than two minutes a day for less than a week. The amount of drama it packs into those minutes is staggeringly out of scale to your investment.

You get it. This one goes to ‘11’