TOITŪ by Adam
I had to start Toitū not once, not twice, not thrice, but FOUR TIMES. It is my own fault really. The first time, I downloaded the file and began it on the end of a flight and ran out of time. Since it was merely a downloaded file, I had no cache to save my place. The second time, you think I would have learned my lesson, but no, I did the exact same thing on a different flight. The third time, by god, I knew better than to start it on a plane. I played while actually online, but then my tablet, sad and old as it is, went from 10% to dead in record time. I guess if your tablet dies, your browser doesn’t get to save? Or maybe there is something inherent to the game file itself that prevents caching. But either way, my progress up to about ¾ of the way through was gone, and I had to start a fourth time. The game unfortunately requires a lot of clicking to advance. So…even though I do think the prologue was a bit lengthy, and maybe a few other parts felt like they dragged, I really can’t help but think my perspective is skewed, since I had to click through it 4 separate times. It might have been nice to have the ability to save, but I am not sure I would have used it anyway, and it makes sense why the author wouldn’t bother to include it. There is no story branching as far as I could tell. Who can foresee your device dying like that?
My other technical critique of this game was that the mechanics around collecting items was very unintuitive, maybe even buggy. I had to try multiple times to correctly pick up a key, and then I tried very hard to pick up a magnifying glass but never got it to work, so I guess I missed out on some microscopic text in the monument. Or maybe I was never meant to read it? I don’t know. But it was a point of friction for me.
On the positive side, the subject matter of the game was really captivating. The summer before last I picked up Pentiment, a narrative heavy game based in 16th century Bavaria. Coincidentally, a few months later I was on vacation through Germany, and I was delighted to connect the historical references from the game to what I was seeing in museums, or looking at in the streets. I feel like Toitū would probably give me the same experience should I coincidentally find myself in Dunedin, New Zealand (NZ is high on my vacation bucket list, but alas, nothing is on the books yet). The blending of storytelling with historical references is interesting and informative, and the titular stream is potent grounds for commentary on various forms of imperialism. I am also keen to look up Janet Frame and her writing after playing. I think there’s some good stuff here, and overall I do suspect there are some UX tweaks that could be made to improve the mechanics and the pacing of the game that launch it from pretty good to very good.