Manon's Reviews Rewind: Ectocomp [31/Back!], Partim500 [DONE*],

The Column, by Passerine

Play the Game - Twine (Chapbook)
La Petite Mort

The Column is a Cluedo-like game made in Twine, where you embark on an expedition to explore a desolate island, with a strange and cursed structure. To life the curse and save themselves, the team must trust each other - though the curse will try hard to break those bonds. There are two endings, which can be easily found (the game lets you skip back to the first choice to retry).

It’s beautifully written, with a very enticing introduction. A rag-tag team, each with its own specialisation and personality, stuck together on an island with no other choice but trust each other to get out? Sign me up! And the reveal of the column really built up my expectations for what was to come. That introduction does a pretty good job at laying down what you need to get to the mechanic.

And it’s an interesting mechanic, as a social experiment, focusing on your deduction skills from the information provided - though it doesn’t really punish you if you miss the mark in the combination of choices, even for the high stakes. Not knowing is the hardest thing, and the game forces you to rely on your assumptions to make a choice… and accept you might fail.

It’s a pretty tightly built game overall, but the selfish part of me kinda wished there was a bit more (especially with the introduction being about half of the game) - like getting a few more in-game days, or talking to the NPCs before/after the choices and make them sweat a little. Then again, there was a lot already for a made-under-4h game!

I do wish the backdrop in the dark mode was also a dark colour

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