Zero Chance of Recovery
This was a cute tiny game that managed to frustrate me. The basic schtick is that it’s a chess puzzle, and by playing around a little, I discovered two different ways to draw. And then… well, OK, spoilers:
At this point, the game kept going and asked me to ‘be clever’ and I truly believed that this meant there was a way to actually win the game using only the rules of chess. But no, there’s a bit of framing story I had completely forgotten about (because it isn’t mentioned in the play loop, only at the Actual Beginning Of The Game), so if I caused a draw in a particular way, the framing story kicked in and I ‘won’ even though it was Yet Another Draw. I mean, I also found a way to Actually Win Due To A Bug (S, P, P), which I think should also count. But as it was, I used the walkthrough in the end, after looking up (and finding!) the puzzle on chess forums.
So, I dunno. It’s very competently implemented, the interstitial commentary was fun but not overwhelming, and the final twist, in retrospect, was cute. But I spent so long barking up the wrong tree that the final impression the game left on me was one of frustration.
Did the author have something to say? : Not particularly, but also didn’t claim anything and not follow through.
Did I have something to do? : I figured out one puzzle (or two, kind of) and the third just defeated me.