Manon passe en revue un thon 🐟

Playing IF Reviews and Essays
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Manon reviews a tuna - Manon’s reviews-a-thon

The Neo-Twiny Jam is finally wrapped so I can play some less recent games again! :partying_face:
Which might end up being the shortest review thread from the whole cohort because
 for half of the game, I’ve either already reviewed them, or I submitted them ~ ~

So I think I will alternate in this thread between games I’ve already reviewed (link to the OG thread) and the ones I haven’t yet.
Also, in the spirit of the event, I won’t count my old reviews in the spreadsheet

Review-a-thon 2024:

Review-a-thon 2025:

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A Collegial Conversation, by alyshkalia

This was a SeedComp! game, which I reviewed after the votes were cast (no organiser bias here!). Posted here, or read below:

A Collegial Conversation is a short Twine interactive piece, lasting the time of a conversation during a fancy party. Two couples of different social classes, but linked with their workplace, exchanging some
 words. While the story is fairly linear, and you may not affect it, it is told in an interesting manner: each scene can be read from the point-of-view of each selectable character. By clicking on the different names, you can switch POV and read what the next character sees, hear, or feels. All scenes can be read from one POV at a time after reaching the end.

It’s not just fun to read about an event from different POvs, to see how differently they view one same situation, but explore their motivations for doing a specific action or saying a specific thing, their wants and worries, their pride and insecurities - but it also puts a lot of things into context. You get to understand the relationships between the characters, the politics happening in the workplace, and the tribulations of each characters. Even with so few passages, each character get a lot more depths than you’d expect.

I think I ended up keeping the spiciest of characters for last (it was a treat, I really enjoyed that POV’s commentary), that was delightful. I was kind of wishing after going through all possible POVs to be able to get more of Seira’s, the commissioner.

A fun use of the seeds too!

(Just for fun, I replayed it, and it still stands!)

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Welp
 It’s a full year and new edition later. A bunch of new games were submitted. I’ve played and reviewed a couple already. But quite a few are new to me!
Let’s get to it!
I’ll get back to the 2024 entries eventually
 whoops


Habeas Corpus, by Grim Baccaris

Originally submitted to the 2019 subQ Jam, restricted to 1000 words and with the theme Environment. Made in Twine.

Habeas Corpus is a short interactive surreal exploration through an abandoned wandering fortress. You awaken in its centre, only sure that you were meant to be in this space - even if you are not quite sure where you are, or even who you are anymore. In this unfamiliar and perpetually moving construction, you are prompted to look around the 5 different available rooms and its contents. Rummaging through those, you may find objects which can unlock further interactions. Depending on your actions, you may end up with one of two endings.

The highlight of this game is its atmosphere: a mystery shrouded in its incomplete description and minimal exposition, continued through an exploration that reveals little still. You won’t solve the mystery, but might manage to fit some of its pieces together - though you’ll still be left with more questions than answers. I kept wondering what we had done to end up here.

Relating back to the title, Habeas Corpus, I imagined the building your find yourself within to be some sort of dystopian machinery imprisoning its residents. You seem certain of your place in this environment, but who says whether you came here with your own volition or you were brought here against your will. If only you remembered things clearly


I think the styling of the interface influenced this sci-fi dystopian read on the story, with its pixelated font, the shaky cycling text, and the old school 3D buttons. It made me think of computer interfaced you’d find in sci-fi movies like Aliens or The Matrix.

Overall, this was an interesting game to play, if just for the exploration and the atmosphere.

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Lazarrien: A Love Story, by DemonApologist

Originally submitted to the 2024 SingleChoice Jam, restricting authors to only provide one choice to players. Made in Twine.
I still have to play those entries
 I’m behind on my own stuff


Lazarrien is a fantasy story that follows the eponymous knight journeying through cursed land, as he attempts to recover his memory, particularly why he roaming these lands, and what he has to do with the curse. During his travels, he meets a child, a priestess, a musician and a king – the order differing per playthrough – each, he finds, having a link to him and each other. And a demon, trailing behind him, never approaching until the ultimate hour.

For most of the story, I struggled to see what made it a love story. None of the characters on Lazarrien’s path display romantic feelings towards him, some being far from friendly, and one even hunting him. So how does it even relate to love? Is our knight going to love himself and change his fate? Will we find one of the aforementioned characters at the end, because it turns out they fell in love with the knight? Or will he turn back, return to one of them, and damn the curse and the quest? Is Lazarrien going to find a happy ending?

I think I should have known from the start it was going to be more tragic – my first playthrough started with the priestess, who warned me of sins that unravelled the world. And what better sin than forbidden love, the one that cannot be, the one you fight against and for regardless, the one that never ends well.
Lazarrien’s reticence to accept his feelings in that fateful meeting changed everything, about who he was, what he was trying to do, the meaning of the others’ words, and ultimately, what I thought I would choose when faced with the curse. I’m a sucker for love, even if I can see its end a mile away. His change within gave me hope – how he describes his body, how his true words escape his mouth without realising, tout semblant comme une Ă©vidence – you want to hope for him, that things will work out, that he could get his cake and eat it too.

So, when faced with that single choice, I did not hesitate once. I didn’t consider the other option to be an option either. I think Lazarrien would not suppress his feeling – the morning after’s regret told me so. I hung to that hope, even with the nagging feeling in the back of my mind that this was a love story, not a happy ending story. There was no surprise when it happened, for tragedy always makes its entrance when you want it the least: so close to your goal you can taste it.

But there was still a glimmer of hope, even when we were past the eleventh hour, even as I was grieving what I wished would be, when all the pieces finally fit and the picture was complete
 There was a way, she said. Things might be different if we’d go back to the start. If we’d tried again. Lazarrien had done so many times before, but maybe this time will be the right one. I could go back to the start and lift the curse. I just need to remember the—

A little accessibility point: the dark-orange/brown colour is a bit too dark against the black for the text. It would need to be around rgb(140, 116, 83) at least to be readable While checking for a passage, I saw the game was updated.

Anyway, it reminded me a bit of the webtoon Room of Swords, with the literal room of swords, and the looping, the forced memory wipes, etc
.
And by the time I reached the end, I selfishly wanted the twist to be similar to Another Round of the SingleChoice 2023, where each new playthrough builds on the previous one, and gives us the actual opportunity of getting a happy ending. It probably wouldn’t have made the message of the game as strong as it is though. :stuck_out_tongue:

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Thank you so much for taking the time and care to review Lazarrien: A Love Story! :purple_heart: (Sorry for the backlog-upon-backlog reminder though :sob: )

I don’t want to overburden people with my emotions (how gauche of me to feel things! my goodness!) but I’ll just say it warms my evil little heart to see readers discovering the story and characters and twists. If I do ever end up doing more than just a cosmetic/UI overhaul of the story, I would probably want to add a more optimistic route. But it’s also interesting to me that when my story idea collided with the Single Choice Jam rules, the way I navigated the restrictions resolved toward the story being this grim. It would fundamentally change the nature of the story to move past the SCJ format. Not sure how I feel about that! But I do agree that Agramith deserves better :pleading_face:

Take care,
DemonApologist

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The Sword of Voldiir by Bottlecap Rabbit Games

An independent release, recently completed, with a free demo. The full game is $2.
I’ve only played the demo. Made in Twine

The Sword of Voldiir is a D&D inspired text adventure made in Twine, where you play as a mercenary with the task of recovering the eponymous sword for riches and reputation. Like in true D&D fashion, your quest is not without trials and tribulations: what seems to be a quick and easy task turns into an ambush that almost leaves you in your breaches, and a series of fights to recover what was stolen. And this is where the demo ends (about halfway through the story, looking at the word count - which is also where I stopped).

The D&D influences are obvious in this one, from how you create your character, to the turn-based combat, and the general flow of the story (aka get together, agree on a plan, try to execute it, something goes wrong, and repeat until you succeed). Though it streamlines the more obtuse rules of the game: you don’t need to worry about your walking abilities, or spell slots. Which is awesome, because D&D combat can be pretty tedious.
However, it might be a bit too simplistic: at the start of a fight, you only pick your weapon and hope for the best. Even though the fight itself is turn-based, and you see the health bar tick away as you hit your enemies, you can’t change your weapon or develop a strategy between turn. I think it’s a bit of a shame, because variety in actions make combat fun! Even if you end up only smashing your sword, the option to have a choice is what makes it interesting.

Story-wise, it also felt a bit rushed at times, especially outside of the “beat” moments (going from one scene to the next). I think it makes sense when playing a campaign when playing with other people because scenes can drag on and on and on, and you don’t want to linger on the side of the road when the big baddie still need to be defeated (and we’re already 5 sessions in and nothing of note has happened). But in this context, I think it removed a bit of the charm of the adventure.
What about an encounter on your way to the city after being robbed for a meal and a listening ear? Maybe even letting you borrow their rusty sword because the forest you need to cross can be treacherous (and BAM tiny combat)?
Or between Act II and Act III, during the week before getting the sword back, why not getting your affairs in order, maybe buying equipment or scouting the building? Similarly to getting information around the city when tracking the woman who robbed you.

While it wasn’t really my cup of tea, I can see some solid bones inside. I think it needs a bit more muscles on it, like adding more player agency (in the combat, during the story), so the player isn’t just strung along, but an active participant of the story, or fleshing out some “down” moments, to make the combat/action/exploration more energetic (like the meal scene in the inn). Dare I say
 maybe a puzzle?

Just a final point for dark mode users, the palette is not super accessible.

Sorry, but I couldn’t take the name Edmond Francais seriously :joy: it looked like a typo for Français and I couldn’t read it any other way lol

Some typos/bugs/formatting issue I collected along the way

Some accessibility points seen in the demo (assuming it’s also applicable to the full game, bc of the screenshots on the game page):

  • red/dark-red on dark grey is very hard to see (<2, when WCAG recommends +4.50)
  • same with light-blue on cream/beige for the sidebar
  • you also may want to add the darkmode to the sidebar, so it’s more consistent

I think the formatting for the buttons in the popups is neat! I think it would work very well for the in-game choices, give it a little humph.

Also formatting: around conditional statement, and interactive elements that are not links, there are often large empty space on the page

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Passage: Enter The City
Aenwyn? Aenwyn is standing between the two, clutching his robes away from $ahimself due to the heat. Even he succumbed to the heat, finally.
For some reason, the variable didn’t have a value

Passage: I’ve Been Here Before
There's a decent in that I have enough coin left for from the stash in my boot.
in → inn
"Yeah, lets," → let’s

Passage: Antigone Inn
Are you look for four rooms? → looking

Passage: A platter of vegetable

Dinner is a quiet fair. → did you mean maybe affair?

Fight against the Chimera

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Why does Cassian manage to deal damage, but the health doesn’t change here?
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You can’t really get into the negative, even in DND, you might want to have the variable return to 0 if it goes in the negative, and have it so that party members can’t deal damage as well, when the monster is off.

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The Deluge by Lionstooth

Another independent release, from 2022.
Made in Twine

The Deluge is an emotional exploration of your recently-flooded hometown. Trying to gather supplies to safely leave the town, you can (re)visit some major spots, reflect on the years behind you and the relationships that were, and give yourself one last chance to say goodbye. Leaving is inevitable – you always had plans to do so, voiced so far back that people you meet are surprised you’re still lingering around. But this time, it’s for real. It only took you a literal deluge for you to move forward.

It took me a while to figure out the underlying mechanic of the game, and the steps needed to complete story in the way it’s meant to me – like the protagonist at first, I erred around, not knowing how to accomplish my goal, visiting spots without being able to connect with them properly, believing once was enough. My feet would take me times and times again into the northern road, thinking this was the only way out of town.

I only have myself to blame, for the game clearly points out multiple times you should come back to this place later, or that you shouldn’t forget to get a specific thing, or that you still have unfinished business. I thought one goodbye was enough, even if the ghosts of the past still lingered, even if I didn’t deal with my feelings. That what mattered was to turn the page and close the chapter regardless. Life is full of badly closed doors anyway. Because
 the town is flooding, why the heck would I put myself in harms way???

Well
 turns out, you have all the time in the world to mend your broken heart, to untwist your torn feelings, to iron out the crumbled pages of your past. You shouldn’t linger and forget to actually leave town at some point, but you won’t find yourself washed away by the water either (just by your own thoughts). I got there eventually, patiently combing through each location in town, and taking the time to internalise what was going on (be patient! or you’ll miss something too!).

Loss is prevalent throughout the game. Obviously, the town, ravaged by the floods. Your apartment by proxy, the sanctuary you’re leaving behind. The people who left before you, leaving you behind, something you both grieve and envy. The people still there but changed, with unrecognisable relationships. And inside your own heart, the loss you never dealt with, keeping you from moving on.

All this to say, it paints quite the melancholic atmosphere. Taking the time to process and accept loss before moving on makes all the difference. Will you drown in your sadness or bittersweetly float above it?

I didn’t know how to include this in the review, but the walk in the northern road felt so apocalyptic. Like your town is breaking down and people left too, but they left behind a bunch of their stuff. You don’t know if they’re ok or even alive, but a trace of them is still there somehow.

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Office Temptation by HHRichards

Independent release again, from 2024. Also it’s porn-ish.
Made in Twine.

Office Temptation is a demo for the larger pornographic game Lewd Mod, where you “converse” with Maddy, a train-wreck of a coworker in your office. She is trying really hard to flirt with you, teasing you with snapshots and hinting at a sexy surprise at the end of the day. And she won’t stop talking to you, whether you accept those advances or not (well, you can’t really say no, it just translates as playing hard to get). The only big difference is whether you get the sexy surprise at the end or not (and even then, it’s a tease).

This was
 weird. There’s no way around it but weird. I tried to play as the reticent co-worker first, that just wants to get through the day, see if Maddy would leave me alone (she doesn’t, and the game kinda shoehorns you into giving in), and the one who’s all into the whole thing. And both times, it left a bad taste in my mouth. Sure, it’s porn. But gosh darn, I have standards!

First of all, you have doughnuts and you don’t even make a porn joke with it? Stack em or lick em, there are so many ways of using the treat smartly and smutly. But no, Maddie just doesn’t know how to eat them and ends up with jelly on her chest. Which
 WHY? Why the doughnut?? when you have the phallic Ă©clairs right there, or the booby religieuse or profiteroles or choux right there! If the MC is not gendered, the religieuse work even better, in the game’s context too (with the AC and Maddy)! Such missed opportunities.

Second of all, Maddy has a boyfriend. She’s actively cheating on her boyfriend by essentially sexting you at work (and then at home if you took the right path). What’s sexy about cheating? How are we supposed to be ok with being the affair partner? Why can’t I call Maddy out on her actions??? As soon as she mentioned a boyfriend, I was out of it completely. I was ready to call HR and report her. Which you can’t, because the game is hell bent on responding positively about Maddy’s advances.

Most egregious of all, and that’s not even touching the whole office affair, which its whole canworm, the way the game deals with Maddy’s relationship with food is just
 questionable at best. Maddy refers to herself as disgusting if she eats the doughnuts during the day, that she ate a whole box of cookies the day before and it made her feel bad, that her boyfriend essentially fatshames her when sending him sexy pics
 and she urges you to fatshame her so she won’t eat the doughnuts she obviously want to eat. In the year of our Lord 2025
 why are we still doing this? This is not sexy to restrict someone to not eat something, especially you can pick the options of calling her a GREEDY PIG. Even as some sort of degradation/feeding fetish I don’t buy it. It only reads as a woman who has some sort of eating disorder and not dealing with it (and you can make it worse to get sexy pics yay! /s).

Smut can be fun, smut can be flirty and cheeky, smut can titillate with neat graphics. This
 was just uncomfortable throughout. I kept wishing for a Report to HR button so I could stop the game early. But, in retrospect, this would have been like monkey paw’s request: instead of HR, I’d have Horny Resources on the line, and end up in a whole new layer of corporate hell.

NGL: this needs trigger warnings for the food stuff.

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Lewd Mod: Noir by HHRichards

Independent Release, from 2023. Written/created by Cisco Donovan and illustrated by Soft. More pornographic than Office Temptation. I only played the demo (1/3rd)
Made in Twine.

Lewd Mod: Noir is “noir” spin-off to the pornographic series Lewd Mod, where you play as a new analyst in a spy agency called the Red Hats, which combs through sexy pictures for “reasons”. Your arrival also marks the start of an internal investigation, as you learn there is a mole in the agency, selling out its members’ information. Your two points of contact, Agent Scarlett and Agent Cyanne, have different motivations on how to deal with the situation. And you can side with one or the other.

Along with the usual phone chatting from this author, the game introduce another game mechanic to add a bit more interactivity: “analysing” the pictures and indicate whether a Red Hat agent has been photographed or not. Very simple, very basic, and as the days go one, pretty sexy. And if you make a mistake? the game makes you check the series of picture again.

There is also a Noir Mode, which adds a greyscale filter to most of the game, particularly the picture you swift through, which honestly adds an air of mystery (and sexiness for sure). And to the atmosphere of the spy setting.

Story-wise, you have your run-of-the-mill spy story: there’s a mole weaving chaos into an agency, putting all the spies in some sort of danger, and YOU get the figure out what happens
 eventually. You know, after you get to flirt with a woman or two. And there’s your very flirty and approachable “love” interest (usually blond), and the stern and sulry one (usually brunette). Shenanigans may ensue.

Now, there is some charm to the game. At first at least. The game sort of nudge you to play as some sort of himbo to get Agent Scarlett frustrated with you (and you get some funny back and forth), as a way to give some exposition and explain the main mechanic of the game. It definitely got some chuckles out of me.

But then
 It kinda fell off. I can’t pin-point the exact moment when it went sideways for me. The vibe of the setting just shifted and turned sour. I think starting by the end of Agent Scarlett’s backstory, where she essentially slutshame other agents for their bigger chests (making her insecure about her own B-C cup herself), it sort of became
 disappointing. And the cheating, again

Up until then, there was some tension between Agents Scarlett and Cyanne – a sort of frenemies with sexy undertone, the kind you keep hoping they will kiss at the end of the story, because they realise how attracted to each other they are.

But then this happened, and it threw the vibes all the way off. And there is nothing wrong with conflict, heck, this is what makes stories interesting. But the pitting the women against each other, with a good dash of misogyny and bodyshaming, almost fighting for you, the lowly newbie analyst, cooled me off completely. In an agency that uses sex appeal as their modus operandi, how is there space for
 this!
You’d think they would just treat it as the job, their body as a weapon, their actions the same you would filling a boring file in an office job. Instead, we get women hating each other’s bodies, some slutshaming and accusations
 What a bummer
 And it takes away from the whole sexy vibe too.

The end of the demo happens after the major choice of helping Agent Scarlett, while she’s targetted by a conspiracy, or selling her out to get into the good graces of Agent Cyanne, the boss. Follows a little conversation with whomever you sided, and a strip-tease of some sort. If only the women weren’t bashing each other during that conversation
 It would seem less sad.

The consequence of this choice, I assume, continue into the next chapters (but I stopped with the demo). Part of me sort of hope the Agents actually realise their feeling for each other, ditch you, and drive into the sunset for their cool lesbian on the road ending. But I’d probably bet on your regular spy story of their both got betrayed by a third person (let’s call her
 Agent Yarrow, and it’s the super boss) and team up to take her down (but then don’t apologise to each other, and make you choose again who should take the boss’ seat). That or the one you pick is actually the mole and you got to “save” the other one. Or they are both the mole.
With how the demo ended, I’m not tempted to find out. I’ll just stick with my fanfic of the two Agents making out on a beach. :woman_shrugging:

Honestly, I’m so glad I started with Office Temptation, because this game was a huge improvement. There are still some issues with how it handles women (objectifying but in a respectful way is hard, I know). But the visuals is nicer imo.
Still
 it’s hella weird the focus on the eyes, and the stares and so on
 when none of the illustrations HAVE EYES.

7 Likes
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The Butterfly Dreams by Ave Q Production

Originally made for the SuNoFes 2024, which is a summer-long chill jam where you make Visual Novels. I claimed one of the community copies.
Made in Ren’Py.

The Butterfly Dreams is a sci-fi game introducing the next big gaming tech: a virtual reality machine that brings the whole of you inside the game. No more clonky accessories or heavy headsets that give you nausea, just stick some patches to your head, and off you are to Dream Land. And while this invention, appropriately named Fantasia, is not yet available to the masses, you along with six other brilliant individuals from various fields are one of the lucky few to not just test it, but create.

You are introduced to each individual, through a short conversation (where you discover your name, Tom/Thomas), about who they are, their personality, their view on Fantasia, and what they might end up creating during this workshop. Through forced proximity, relationship blossoms and thoughts turn into concrete ideas. Or so your inner thoughts tell you, as the story doesn’t linger enough for you [the player] to experience it yourself.

Still, the story must continue, and you “play” through everyone’s creations, each relating pretty closely to their respective identity: the chef creates a virtual restaurant to test out ideas, the children’s author bring her characters to life, and the gamer revive old forgotten games.
Of course, nothing goes without a hitch, with one of the characters essentially breaking the machine (hinted at, but it didn’t marinate enough to punch
). But things are swiftly swiped under the rug - there are still creations to test after all, including yours!

And this is when the “twist” appears. I use quotes here, because it really came out of the left field. This whole time you were playing everyone - with your identity and background never revealed, you could have been anyone, it just so happen you’re a conman for some reason. The complete change of tone between your thoughts and the confrontation feels to disjointed, I kept wondering if I’d missed a whole section.
During my first playthrough, I didn’t see any reason for Tom to be inculpated with some crime - you are so bland and boring, and no one ever ask you any question about yourself. So I went and checked out the other options of the few choices (only because others mentioned hints in comments), and still, the vibe felt the same. Maybe once? there was a whiff of you having some sort of plan? idea? but you could easily chalk it off as “well, he’s just thinking of what to create for Fantasia”.
The only thing I can think of is Layna being curt and distant towards you. But that’s not enough to make a mystery interesting.

It’s a shame, really, because simulations concepts, dream within a dream, and dystopian/cyberpunk-y takes on technologies are really fun, and you can make compelling critiques of society through those. Even conspiracies of nefarious agents using technology for evil is a tried and true trope. But you’re not given enough time to explore the setting here (exploring a whole mansion and being caught touching something you really shouldn’t be touching, or finding someone doing just that), to interact with the characters and learn more about them (maybe even pit them against one another?) , to have them interact with you so you learn more about yourself (oh, why are you here, Tom? why are you special?). And in general, give time for the mystery to settle.

Slightly related, about using technology for wrong: there was a book of short stories I read a while back from the 60-70s, where telephone cabins were essentially turned into teleportation devices. Because those cabins were also installed in homes, the rate of burglary went up like crazy. And murder. SO MANY MURDERS. Man, I wish I rembered the name of the series, because I kept thinking of those short stories when the twist happened.

EDIT: actually, I remembered I wanted to note: all the sprites have butterflies in their designs. This was neat.

3 Likes
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return to home by dott. Piergiorgio

Independent release, from last month.
Made in GAGS (used Gargoyle to play)

return to home is a short walking simulator, doing exactly what it says in the title. The road back home is blocked, forcing you to leave your car and finish the “journey” by foot. Along the path, going up and down a hill, you’re given the option to sidestep and visit a grove, or go up a knoll and check out the view. There are also 4 objects you can find and pick up (just for fun, they are not used anywhere). And when you finally get home, you can enjoy a well-deserved rest.

Though the piece is short, and parse in its implementation (trying to X whatever noun in the description won’t give you much), it knows exactly what it’s about and doesn’t pretend to be more than that: an atmospheric little walk back home. Its strength lies in fulfilling the expectations formed by its synopsis, no more, no less. Though, part of me did wish you could examine a bit more your surrounding, as the game does nudge you to take little detours and take your time. I don’t know, maybe sit on the knoll and take the landscape all in, or interact with the items you find in some way
 But that’s out of the scope of a romp creation.

It’s an atmospheric tiny piece, that reminds you to enjoy the journey, and the little things you find along the way.

:pray: more of this dott. P, please. It’s really nice.

6 Likes