Note: I’m not even going to bother to spoiler the review at this point, there’s spoilers everywhere. I also don’t think I’ll be posting this to the IFDB page because it’s extremely long and I’d have to edit it down a lot. But if the author wants a (very slimmed down) version of this review on there for good press/some other reason, I could probably find the time at a later date.
Summary
Resurrection Gate by Grim Baccaris really does have an absolute bonkers level of polish. While I’ve never played anything by this author before, it seems this is well in-keeping with their other titles. I’ve seen Twine games sold for money that have had less attention paid to the graphics, visual design, and general UX than Resurrection Gate boasts. Even the subtle details stand out – the stranger’s eyes being animated while all the other portraits are still, the way the scenery pictures rotate slightly when you hover over them, the collapsible menu and visually pleasing undo/move forward buttons, the UI improvements to the SugarCube save menu…
One of the great things about Twine as a development platform for IF is that, if you put a bonkers level of effort into the UI like this game does, it’s a very quick way to signal to the player that you know what you’re doing in some capacity. After all, if you as the author have put a hell of a lot of effort into the way the game looks, there’s a good chance you’ve also put that same amount of effort into everything else, right? – the writing, the gameplay, the characters, the story, etc. So it’s just a nice way to draw players into the game and promise to them that, look, this game will be good!
And Resurrection Gate lived up to that promise, I feel, for the most part. It is clear, to me, that the same effort that went into the UI also went into the rest of the game, too.
First off, I thought the gameplay was engaging and intuitive. It feels like typical visual novel fare but more upscale – more distinct graphics and a stats system that is clearly signaled to the player. For instance, it was nice to know which options were disabled for me and, most importantly, why. This provided a bit of replay value but also indicated that real thought had been put into the stats system and its implications, which I appreciated. I think it’d be really cool if we could even gain traits along the way due to decisions we make/don’t make – we start out with some in-born traits and one extra trait we get to pick, but I hope that in the final game we can customize our build even further as we progress.
I also liked the idea of different icons to denote different types of links. One of the things about Twine that is both a blessing and a curse is that, by default, every type of link looks the exact same. This can introduce a nice sense of tension in the game, because the player doesn’t always know what a link will do – will it reveal information, will it actually change the game state/make a choice, is it just a clicky clicky so I can cycle through options to amuse myself… But in other games it is nice to let the player know exactly what each link does, so there’s no anxiety about accidentally making a game-altering choice. Very nice design decision there by the author.
Furthermore, I loved the prose! For me, in choice-based IF, the prose really has to shine in order for the game to work. And I definitely felt I was in good hands with Resurrection Gate. The prose knows when to take a step back and describe things simply, when to zoom in and give some lush detail, when to let the sentences ramble on a little bit and when to keep them short. The rhythm and sentence structure are consistently very good, too – I don’t think newbie writers are ever able to do that part well, so it’s clear that the author has spent significant time honing and refining their technical skill. (Also, I noticed the author liked the word “sluice” a lot… I didn’t mind. It’s a very good word.)
More than that, I was continually impressed by the attention to theme, to the little details of dialogue and introspection that hooked back into the larger motifs, messages, and lessons of the work. (I could go on a rant about how I think so many modern writers care so little for theme and how annoying I find that attitude, but I’ll leave that mess to my tumblr vent blog…) For instance, I first noticed it in this line here, when Yasha is talking about the horse he found in the woods:
“Rheya calls his mount Saga, but Yasha still has no name for his unfortunate beast.”
And I paused for a moment, because I really loved that line – but moreover, I knew it was far deeper and more poignant that the simplicity of its words might suggest. And I thought for a bit, about Yasha as a character, and really about what this line was saying about Yasha and about the world and about the larger morals of the work… about Yasha and his lack of connection to others, but also to himself. There feels a great and terrible distance between him and the monk – but also this distance even between him and those he is supposed to know well, like Rheya. Rheya offers him little comfort about Vasily, instead trying to be rational and grounded. But Yasha can’t hear him – he’s stuck in the past, in the trauma of losing the life he knew. I think it means something that he can’t even name a horse. It means something that, perhaps, he cannot bear to connect so closely with something out of fear that he might lose one thing more.
Other quotes that stood out to me that I copied down:
“This was a well-trained beast once, and it remembers its training. It wants to serve. Yasha understands.”
“He never possessed it in abundance, but what he could summon once is gone now. There is only hunger left.”
I liked all the characters, too – I felt the characterization was consistently good throughout. The standout, for me, however, was The Stranger. I loved their introduction – I especially loved that first portrait of them which implied what they really were before it was revealed in Laurence’s route… But I felt that first appearance was very well-drawn: There was a sense of mystery there, a sense of intrigue and subtle danger… but also, I think, it was made clear that there was something genuine to them. They weren’t cruel or evil, but maybe just… misunderstood. When they came back in Laurence’s route, it was a great, wonderful moment. Here we get to see them as they really are: not the aloof but kind stranger, but Besarius, the walking corpse, the slowly wasting undead who can feel nothing… or can they? 
I sense romance in someone’s future… Very tender scene on the balcony, one of my favorite scenes in the game…
All in all, very nice experience that I really enjoyed. It worked well in small chunks for me (which I had to do as I’ve been very busy this past week). I could easily save my game, then come back and load it up and get immersed all over again. And it’s incredibly immersive – the graphics, the music, the writing, all of it came together to make a very cohesive and enjoyable whole.
However, I did have a few suggestions/issues as I played the game, and I feel it would be helpful for the author to state them.
Suggestions for Improvement
-
I tried to click on the pop-ups in the corner (the ones alerting me about a new memory, for instance) because I wanted to see the new memory that had just been added. However, this didn’t open the memory menu like I expected, but instead progressed the current scene. Just as a general UX improvement, I would consider opening the memory menu (or whatever the actual relevant menu is) whenever the player clicks on a pop-up so they can actually take a look at whatever the pop-up was talking about.
-
Another thing was that I wanted a bit more indication about conversational paths I had already completed. For instance, even after talking to the monk and telling them to go gather firewood, I was able to play that same conversation again and presumably was able to tell them to take first watch instead. I’m not sure if that meant I was functionally able to “change my mind” and just make it so that the monk had always taken first watch and never gotten firewood, or if it would have caused a bug and they still would have gotten the firewood no matter what. Either way, I would have liked some indication that I had already gone through a path and made my choice – maybe new text of the monk telling me to stop bothering them so they can go gather firewood if I try to talk to them again. (Or, conversely, text acknowledging that I had already told them to gather firewood but saying I can tell the monk to take first watch instead if I wanted.)
-
Sometimes it felt I had two choices in opposition, but I was actually able to select BOTH of them one right after the other. For instance, after I had just escaped the dirigible with Sully and the stranger, there were two dialogue options to say before I left: “Works for me” and “I don’t trust you.” I first picked “Works for me” because I wanted to be conciliatory and I didn’t want to get on the stranger’s bad side in case I needed their help later in the game. However, to my confusion, once I clicked out of that dialog pop-up, I was able to select “I don’t trust you” as well – which to me seems like a design flaw, maybe? For instance, if the choice I chose here affected my relationship with the stranger in any way, what happens if I do both? Does it null the effects out (+1 to my relationship stat, and then a -1 to the stat to just be at 0 again) or will it cause some bug later on? I wasn’t sure, but it did confuse me.
-
I was torn about the conversation between the Auger and the Bloodletter. On the one hand, the positives:
-
The art for the Bloodletter is so fucking cool. Like, honestly my favorite portrait in the game. I will always stan a rotting, desiccated Catholic nun!!! <3
-
The Auger and the Bloodletter did seem like interesting characters, and I was able to get a small sense of each of their distinct personalities. I liked the Auger a lot, she seemed like a pretty cool villain/antagonist (I assume that’s what she’ll be) who’ll be a very capable and intelligent thorn in the hero’s sides… <3
On the other hand…
-
I think there wasn’t enough set up to this scene. There are a lot of vague references to things – “Crucible”, “Devourer”, “agon”, “Always so dramatic. Must we structure this farce like a tragedy?” (…suggesting some fourth wall breakage…??? probably not but that’s what popped into my head???) But so many of these references in one passage was a bit too much to wrap my head around, and since I had no idea what any of these terms referenced (save The Devourer, whose name feels self-explanatory 
) I was more confused than intrigued.
-
Also, I think they got into talking about business a little too soon. I couldn’t connect to either of them before they started speaking in these vague terms and phrases, and didn’t really have enough context for who they were or what they were talking about to appreciate it.
I feel perhaps both bullet points 1 and 2 here might be solved by: lengthening this scene in general so that the introduction of new terms/concepts comes at a slower and more comfortable pace; and having an intro where both of them talk/banter around a little bit first so we can figure out their personalities and connect emotionally with them.
- Also, minor thing the author is probably aware of by now, but I thought I’d put it in the review just in case: there’s a stray center tag at the very end of the memory menu for Laurence.
In Summary
Because this is a demo, I get the sense the author wants to make this into a full-fledged game and charge money for it. Well, I’ve seen far worse Twines be put up for sale than this one. I personally think that, with a few changes, it would absolutely be at the level of polish and general quality that I would expect for an experience I’d be paying money for. Phenomenal effort.
I am new on the forum but have been playing IF for years at this point and wanted to start actually writing reviews for the games I play, haha. I heard about the Review-a-thon that Tabitha is hosting, so I thought I would participate!