I just played Metallic Red; it’s pretty interesting. I got very strong Howling Dogs vibes, but less dark and dystopic and more nostalgic. I quite liked it, and although there were quite a few full stop errors, there were no typos.
One thing I didn’t understand though: were the dreams meant to be reflective of past events? The Coke/Pepsi dream was pretty weird.
I played it yesterday and liked it. Really atmospheric, and I’ve also got a weakness for scifi stories about being alone and isolated in the cold frontier of space, etc. But despite the concept, it had a comforting feel to it. It felt like the protagonist has gotten used to living alone in a tiny ship with no real-life human contact for months and somehow learned to enjoy it, or at least accept that this is how life will be. Less “depression hovel” and more “Henry David Thoreau doing his hermit thing”, finding freedom within a narrow, solitary existence.
It’s been a while since I played Howling Dogs, so I thought of Skulljhabit, another Porpentine game that has the same structure of a repetitive day-to-day cycle broken up by unique events. There’s way more daily variation in this game than in Skulljhabit, though.
The ending was cool too: At the start I thought there was no specific goal, but the end puts your actions into context. This is the story of someone who braves the vacuum of space for months, just so they can talk to people who care for them a lot, and consider them part of the community, to say “I’m no longer interested”. The compound felt warm and inviting, which made the decision at the end more of a twist. At the same time, I can get behind that decision because of all the details gradually revealed throughout the story: the wobbly relationship with the father, the ambiguity of the dreams, and the general sense of fatigue permeating the entire story. Even in the compound itself, there’s a disconnect between you and everyone else. The protagonist is someone suited to isolation, who wants to cut a specific tie connecting them to a life they no longer want, and they put in the effort to make that happen. I guess I’d describe the ultimate mood as “pleasantly melancholic”.
I’m a fan of how the game doesn’t reveal information about the protagonist until they act, so you’re left guessing about the wider context of who they are and what they’re doing until the end. Even a bit after the end.
I read the dreams as intended to reveal something about the protagonist’s mental state. So like all dreams they’re probably based on things that actually happened, but not completely accurate to real life.
Also, huh, I didn’t mean to write that much. I guess this could be an official review or something.
Very nice game. Here’s what I wrote in my review thread, much of it in line with what @anon7585926 wrote above.
cross-posting my review
Interestingly, I wasn’t particularly reminded of Howling Dogs until I saw others mention it–yes, you eat dispenser-food etc. but as Victor points out the mood is very different.
If there was any specific connection between the plot and the dreams I’m not sure if I got it, but I thought they were more conveying the PC’s mood / anxieties.
Good point! I also enjoyed that although I hadn’t thought about it as such. And it’s satisfying because what the PC ends up doing feels like it matches what we’ve learned about them.
Adding my review here:
Tagging in my review here too, since I think this is a game that benefits from multiple perspectives (like for one thing, I’ve never played howling dogs so I totally missed these echoes! But also I have a more downbeat reading that, after checking out other takes, I kinda hope I’m wrong about 
)
Thank you all for engaging with my game, it’s a tremendous gift to me and one I receive with gratitude.
A few others from around:
(I like organising things)
I’ve played this one twice now, once before reading other reviews and once after, and reading other players’ takes has given me a lot more insight and appreciation than I had on my own. Mike’s interpretation is the one that rings the most true to me, as I didn’t get the sense that the protagonist was particularly happy with their life on the Metallic Red; there was a feeling of stagnation at the beginning, and even once they clean up and exercise and start taking care of the plants again, it felt like they were just doing what was necessary without taking much joy in it (or feeling much at all).
In addition, my reading was that this journey was undertaken for the purpose of traveling back to the compound and revoking their initiation, rather than out of any desire to start doing life alone in space on a small vessel. I’m curious if I missed this, or if it’s just not mentioned—was their any indication of where the protagonist was coming from and what they’d been doing before beginning this journey? I was curious what they might be returning to after completing their mission (and what may have spurred them to undertake it). What sort of a life are they hoping for after cutting these ties?
An intriguing piece with lots to think about! Will likely write a review or share more thoughts here later.
Cross-posting my (pretty gushing) review
Definitely see the howling dogs parallels too!
I’m in the “I didn’t get howling dogs while playing this, but definitely get the comparison after the fact” camp.
I found it kind of fascinating that the protagonist seems to have hopped from one monastic existence to another, if somewhat more secular, one. It feels ambiguous whether they’re truly happy about their new normal. They seem to have more of a sense of agency and control over the Metallic Red (and I feel like the dream where they get uneasy about their father making a mess underlines this), but it’s not clear if this is something they’ll be happy with long-term, or if they’re projecting their unease with their religious history onto the space and the anxiety will lift now that they’ve left.
None of this is a criticism. I really enjoyed this game, and I want to try that salad dressing.
One final review to add to this thread!
And then why not put the post mortem here too! Vague spoilers but I would assume that goes without saying…
Thank you all for playing my game. I truly appreciated all reviews and feedback. As it’s often the case with things like this by the time I had submitted the game I was pretty sick of it and couldn’t bring myself to do any more work (certainly not more work under a strict deadline) but plenty of the reviews gave me such food for thought that I really wished I could have got such feedback earlier in the development cycle. Ideas, approaches and angles I would never have thought of myself were all graciously offered up so again, thank you. I was flattered by how much thought people put into their interpretations.
I have written a few twine games before (they’re on my website http://riazmoola.com/games.html ) but primarily as experiments for myself or friends, as fun projects, toys, portraits of our relationships, etc, which were generally only played by irl friends. As such a lot of it is pretty naive by the standards of this community (though I would have entered Perndemonium 2 if the timing had worked out). Metallic Red started out like this also, but around the time it was nearing beta test stage I realised that if I pushed to get it done in time I could enter it into the IF Comp. An event I was aware of but not something I really “took part in” so much as used as a big list of notable and well polished games that I could peruse.
I am glad that I did that push. Having one of my games in the hands of strangers was a novel and enriching experience for me. I can spend a lot of time in my own head, doing projects just because I’ve told myself they need to be done and then not really sharing them outside a close circle of IRL friends. Entering the comp gave me a chance to try something different and I’m really glad I did. The difference between a friend saying “cool game I liked it” and a total stranger writing 500 words about it is vast. So if there’s a learning here I would say, getting things finished is important, but getting them seen by a caring audience is also important.
That said, getting the game into my testers hands a month before the deadline gave them enough time to play it, but didn’t leave me enough time to act on the feedback on anything except the technical / polish level. I actually got feedback quite similar to some of the reviews that I basically agreed with, but didn’t want to try and act on close to deadline for fear of adding a bunch of bugs/typos/inconsistencies. So another learning is I would say don’t underestimate the amount of time it might take to get tester feedback, but in addition don’t underestimate the time it might take for you to be ready to work on the tester feedback, and the amount of time the actual work might take.
On the more nitty gritty side of things, I really wish I could have added a lot more on the visual design side of the game. Working with my friend
Dain Kaplan (@dainkaplan on Instagram) to create the cover image was an absolute highlight of the process, and I wish I had the graphic design skills to get the rest of the game to the same standard of polish. Sadly my handle on visually pleasing or novel layouts is sub minimal, so maybe a skill I could work on. (My previous Perndemonium game got a look over by a graphic designer friend of mine and I think it made a huge difference)
In terms of the game itself it was a bit of a hodgepodge of ideas. If you’ll allow me to write self indulgently, I originally planned it during COVID (big surprise) as a game where you spend your time in your space ship, reading tarot, exercising and tending to the hydroponics array, but with a much gamier feel, IE maintaining various well being meters. In the end I ditched this idea because I couldn’t figure out how to make the chores… Not feel like chores (yes I did read that fallen London article). I’m really pleased that people liked the salad dressing minigame, because I was quite proud of the fact that it was realistic, fairly self explanatory, couldn’t be messed up, didn’t gatekeep content, but also provided a little feedback. I think in hindsight I should have worked a bit harder to have some of the ship based chores play similarly, maybe a bit more work in the hydroponics system somehow, or maybe adding a ping pong or Antikythera mechanism mini game. (These sound like really fun ideas now but if you asked me about them 8 weeks ago I would have told you to leave me alone)
Originally I also wanted to keep the game entirely on the metallic red (just as a self imposed limit, my previous game had a lot of galavanting) but I think getting out of there was probably the right call. It’s a small thing but I’m proud of the little compass mini map technique of navigating around the site and I hope to use it again some time. I like the idea of mapping a space out, but I always find it stupid when I want the character to leave a room but I’ve forgotten which compass point has the door so I ask them to walk into a wall. I stole the idea of the mini map from “The absence of Miriam Lane” which implemented it much more elegantly.
A bit of blunt self criticism: I wasn’t quite happy with the emotional arc of the ending. I don’t mind the pc’s actions being inscrutable (it’s the will of the gods, baby) but I didn’t feel like the impact was where I wanted it. I did enjoy the way the game wrapped up, but the pivotal conversation was a bit lacking somehow. Obviously this is quite a hard thing to judge, in the end I just ran out of both time and gusto to workshop it. I think slipping more back story in would have been the way forward, but I can only really see that now. Which is annoying, but less annoying than working on something forever because it isn’t quite right and never calling it done.
Anyway this is long enough. Again, thank you all for playing and interacting. I feel really proud of myself for getting it out there. Next year I’ll release Metallic Red 2, a prequel colony sim where you play as the pc’s father making decisions about how best to run your underground cult base whilst alienating your child. (Joke)
Genuinely would love to play Metallic Red 2: Underground Cult Base Boogaloo. But seriously, Metallic Red was one of my favourite games of the comp this year and I really hope to see more of your work in future!
Thanks for the postmortem, and congrats again on the game - it was on my shortlist of favorites this year so personally I’m very glad you took the plunge into the Comp! It’s interesting to see how all the pieces wound up being developed and fit together, since I did feel like the gestalt was really effective, with the strong contrasts in gameplay and approach in the various sections having thematic heft. Definitely looking forward to playing anything else you make!
I would unironically play this.
ooh, I was hoping there would be a post-mortem on this one!
haha. alienating a child = not enough of a challenge
I look forward to seeing whatever you do next!
Add me to the “I would definitely play more in this setting” list!