Puny Seeds

Competitions
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In Strike Force:

This is now a three-puzzle game since you and I tested it. One to get into the underwater complex, then you change character. One to get the Ice-X and one in the dunny. The first puzzle was new in the release version and I hadn’t completed either of the other two during my rudimentary testing.

Like you said, each of these has multiple elements and, apart from some guess-the-verb and needing to get killed to learn, I thought they were all very clever. It’s just a pity that there wasn’t more to do in the other areas.

In Submarine Sabotage:

That’s the same criticism as in Strike Force. I agree with you, but I ran out of time and ideas. I’m not sure if you noticed, but I did add one of your suggestions in the galley related to the ice pack, but it’s not essential to use this to solve the game.

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I’m assuming “dunny” refers to a toilet stall or an outhouse. If so, I count that as the final cathartic part of the IceX puzzle. The other one is the airlock door.

And yeah, I was pleased that you picked up my suggestion. I felt bad about leaving a wounded fellow sailor just *lying* there.

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You assume correctly. I couldn’t remember what it was called in the game and I was too lazy to look it up. I just did and it’s called a latrine.

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  • The Magic Word -(SeedComp)-

This game is based on an idea of mine that had been lingering in the back of my mind for a long time. SeedComp seemed like a perfect opportunity to put it out there and see what might come of it.
B.J. Best took the intro/starting room I wrote and ran with it, expanding my vague outline to a full-fledged puzzle game that far exceeded my expectations.
I tested it intensively, and @bjbest60 and I had an interesting exchange of PMs about it, sometimes making fun of some features, sometimes brainstorming more seriously. Playtesting while in close conversation with the author can be a blast, and add a lot of fun and depth to the playing experience of an almost (but not quite) finished game.

All this to say that I’m hardly an objective judge of The Magic Word's merit.

I loved it. I was teetering on that fine edge between challenge and frustration the whole time, without (and this is the brilliant bit) ever slipping into desperation. A feeling similar to playing MarioTM and falling from an unstable platform into a spiked hole for the sixteenth time, but still being convinced you’ll get it next time.

The puzzles require very careful observation and very thorough experimentation, but they follow a reliable cause-effect chain and are perfectly fair.

There are a bunch of independent timers and turn-based puzzles to tackle, lots of buttons and a myriad of levers and wheels. The more I discovered during playtesting, the more I stood in awe of the complex technical mechanisms under the hood.

I felt like I could completely put my trust in the game, and that any blockades I encountered were logically solvable. The pleasant frustration I had during play came from the feeling that I could almost touch the solution with my fingertips, almost grasp the mechanics underneath, but not quite yet.

      ----One more test, one more variable to check...
          What happens if I pull this lever first?----
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This the game I paused on! I was doing three a day until I got to this and thought, ‘I’m just going to do other stuff for a while before coming back to this’ and haven’t been back in a couple of days…

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  • After the Accident -(SeedComp)_

(I put off replaying this game and posting this review because I already got teared up when testing, let alone when reading it fully engaged. I’ve started editing it a few times, but in the end I just stuck with the words that poured out after my first replay of the finished version. An impressive feat of delving into la condition humaine by @AmandaB )
(Spoilers are inevitable)

♪ ♫ Love me tender… love me true… ♪ ♫

Hush… Be still… Be tender…

This is a story to be read with quiet care. Until vicarious anger kicks in. But also sympathetic understanding. And most of all deep empathy.

Ending a story about a love-relationship with a car-crash is about as subtle as an anvil-drop.
Beginning that story with the car-crash however, and then working backwards is a deeply captivating narrative technique.

After the Accident’s detailed and thoroughly implemented opening scene serves as a gateway to an ever expanding exploration of memories. The more the main character observes what is left of the car, the deeper she delves into the debris of a broken relationship.

Memory by memory, scene by scene, the twisted dynamics between her and her lover become apparent. Apparent to the reader, that is.

The protagonist herself, she has flash-backs. Dropped in the middle of defining episodes of her life with her lover. While these episodes cause caution, perhaps alarm, in the reader, the protagonist is caught in an anger-but-love forgiveness cycle.

The author captures these ambiguous feelings in a series of small storylets. She uses everyday objects (the water bottle…) which convey a depth of information about the ambivalent nature of the protagonist’s feelings. Particularly strong story-writing is the description of a present from the lover. It’s an object imbued with contradicting symbolic meanings. The sweater is soft and comforting in itself, she accepts it as a token of love, but the smell of the fight that came before still lingers. (Amanda, I don’t have the words to emphasise enough how strongly this sweater ties all the emotions together. Superb writing.)

I am very impressed at how deeply Amanda Walker can see both sides of these feelings from the protagonist’s point of view (and even give a glimpse of the lover’s perspective), as well as translating them with deep-felt empathy to the reader.

This piece shows a deep feeling and understanding for the intricacies of love, even when that love is skewed.

The car-crash, symbolic and real, is a cathartic ending. I wouldn’t have wished for the protagonist to endure more of the loving manipulating gifts.

Amanda, thank you for this great game/story.

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Aw, shucks. Thanks for the review, and even more for being such a great tester.

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—blinks tear away in hope for a happy future for “the protagonist”…----

I’m still waiting for a good moment to read Of Their Shadows Deep. I’m scared and drawn in equal parts now, mostly because my Mother is doing so well now. (Lust for Life describes her perfectly, even if she’s forgetting our names.)

I really don’t know what my review of that story will be like…

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Oh, this part is so hard. My mother calls me Susie, which is her sister’s name and one of the only names she can still say. Even though I’m used to it, it sometimes still makes me so sad. I’m so happy that your mother is having a ball with life. Something that I have to keep remembering is that this isn’t really hard for Mom; she’s happy. It’s hard for me and I can’t always be projecting my emotions onto her, which is kind of what OTSD is about. You should definitely be in a solid emotional place if you play it, which I’m not sure I recommend for you at this point.

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