I prefer the more cultured approach of PLAY HURDY-GURDY.
But I was talking more about the greater problem of getting rid of the damn thing once and for all!
I know it has something to do with the contents of the knotholed barrel, but I can’t get to them. So maybe I should direct my rage there instead. The plant is just such a deserving target.
I got stuck there as well, the hint you probably need is that now that the captain no longer has a gun, you can examine him in more depth and liberate some items from him.
I did empty his pockets, but it hasn’t clicked in my brain yet how to use any of those objects on the barrel or the knothole. The lens creates a short-lived thread of smoke, the penknife doesn’t help in prying open the lid, and pouring snuff down the knothole didn’t work.
Oh, in my review I forgot to mention this brilliant moment of groanworthiness:
When betting with the captain on who is going to observe bailing duties after a number of turns, I was grinning at the whole scene where one has to put one’s trust in the lesser of two weevils. I had heard the joke in Master and Commander with Russel Crowe so it wasn’t completely new. The setup with the captain lightly tapping the ship’s biscuit and comparing the critters through his lens was so delicate and funny. Also a fantastic way to introduce a normally hidden object to the player.
I believe he has more stuff in his bag, which you can get using one of the items you mentioned.
Right! The bag!
Thanks.
A very intruiging title. I didn’t know what to expect. The “tricks” part made me think of magicians or wizards at first. The game certainly has a magical air, albeit of a more realistic nature.
My parents’ house is surrounded by farmlands in all directions. A mile or so down the narrow road is a small forest. There were no children my age in the street where I grew up. My favourite passtime after school was exploring nature around my house, catching (and releasing) spiders, crane flies (we call them horse mosquitos), grasshoppers, etc… And no, my best friend is not a tiger…
Lara wakes up before sunrise and heads into the woods near the village with her sample box. She’s looking for stuff she might take to school for show-and-tell, and also just out of curiosity and wonder.
At first, Tricks of Light in the Forest comes across as a slice-of-life walk in the forest. Your sense of touch, smell, taste, are as much part of the experience of your surroundings as sight. Nature in all its forms is described in loving detail. Trees and flowers and moss in terms of their fragrance, colour, soft leaves or hard and brittle bark. Bugs up close with shiny beetle shields, dew-glistening spiderwebs, larger animals mostly heard instead of seen.
During the long walk, more and more images and memories and stories about Lara, her parents, the village’s history are triggered by the surrounding forest. These are personal to Lara, showing just a small part of her life here. Put together however, they lead to a fragmented realisation in the player of the broader setting. (Twenty, maybe fifty years into the future. Global warming is in full effect, though not in a dramatic post-apocalyptic way. Trees are dying in the drought and uprooted by sudden rainfalls. Species have disappeared and others have migrated into the area. The cities are partly abandoned, skyscrapers are crumbling down.)
The subtle and gradual introduction of these elements into the story has an unsettling effect on the player, but for Lara they are part of her life in this place. She is aware of the changes through stories her parents tell her, and through events during her lifetime, but these things are simply part of the natural flow of things in her experience.
We get to share her view on the woods through an intimate first person viewpoint, with her fears and delights intertwined with her observations of nature.
Later in the game, some puzzles are introduced in a spontaneous manner, blockades and obstacles one might reasonably expect in a forest that has been returning to its wild state for many years now. Their solutions are not that hard, they serve more to force Lara off the beaten track and penetrate deeper into the forest where she witnesses more of the changes to the environment.
Tricks of Light in the Forest is beautifully illustrated, with drawings reminiscent of images out of old natural history books. When Lara reaches notable landmarks, a handdrawn map pops up and shows her progress on the forest path.
Most impressive and impactful are the subtly changing colours and intensity of the background, depending on the lighting of the location (bright sunlight, overshadowed by the canopy,…), or reflecting the time of day (early morning fog, noon sun,…).
I did have the idea that a subtle, non-intrusive background soundscape might be included to fulfill this role for the visually impaired readers.
A deep, slow, thoughtful piece. Beautiful and detailed descriptions of nature. Themes of loss and wonder and inevitable change. Nature in all its flowing resilience.
This title caught my attention with its simple yet catchy rhythm:
TaDum TaDi TiDaay!
That, and it made me think of Fry from Futurama, which is always a good thing.
An explosive eruption of puns, many LotR-inspired, some actually really good (I had to laugh loudly at the mention of the Which King?). A mountain of culinary-themed reality show references, over the top but still funny because they’re true-ish. (Gorgon Ramsayer making demonic hoteliers break down crying!). A storm of fiery slapstick action comedy. (The top tier of benches toppling backwards into the flaming pit of Mount Boom!)
There’s some sort of plotlike thing to string it all together, but I didn’t mind that too much. I had fun.
I already liked the sound of this title before I knew what it meant. It has an inviting ring to it. Then I looked up “barcarolle” and found it’s a Venetian gondoliers’ folk song. That got me interested even more. A bit more searching learned that the “yellow” refers to an Italian murder/horror/mystery film and literature genre, named after the distinctive yellow (“giallo”) covers of the pulp novels that started the style.
An actress travels to Venice to star in a Giallo film. On her first night, she barely escapes a murder attempt. During filming the next day, a similar attack happens.
Barcarolle in Yellow is set up as an interactive movie script, blurring the lines between what is the scripted movie world and what is the in-game real world. Failed commands are met with an angry director’s voice telling you to focus on the part, descriptions of the player character’s actions make reference to an unseen audience, people around you are viewed as through a camera lens,…
Eva, the PC, is filming in Venice, so we also follow her during her acting work, and have to enter the commands according to the prewritten script she has to follow, adding another layer of confusion as to which world we’re engaging with.
As I noticed in the author’s work 1958: Dancing with Fear, IF is a genre that lends itself very well to a cinematic scripted style, allowing the player to direct the main character and decide on the action. Here, in Barcarolle in Yellow it seems that a perfect opportunity presents itself for a suspenseful murder mystery. The story is divided in scenes and acts, each with its own pace, atmosphere and tension. We can almost see the camera cut from one location to the other in the transition between scenes.
The writing is good, with a nice balance between attention to the surroundings (or the set…), and the events happening to our main character Eva Chantry. I like the use of space, with part of Venice condensed down to a handful of locations without feeling cramped.
I love the idea of the game.
But, however much I want to, I do not like this game as it is entered in the Comp. Perhaps aiming for next year’s Spring Thing would have offered the author more time to make it as good as it can be.
A game that’s modeled after a suspenseful film should move. Half the time I spent with Barcarolle has been struggling with the parser and unclear directions.
A game that depends on smoothly following the course of action, dragging the player along with the action and putting her on the corner of her seat with tension needs a generous, forgiving parser.
Synonyms for all the nouns should be abundant, every action should have half a dozen alternate commands, the player should be able to trust that her intuitive commands will be recognised and have immediate consequences that hasten the story forward.
Instead, half my commands were met with that angry director’s voice yelling at me “No, no, focus on this scene, don’t start dissociating again!”. And that’s a great story-appropriate customisation of the default rejection response! But not when the game recognises so few of the player’s commands that it comes up again and again.
I really liked Dancing with Fear. I have good memories of its main character Salomé. I’m starting to like Eva too, this game’s main character. It would be a pity to keep playing while frustrated at the implementation, and missing a great story with a great character unfold.
I’d love to play Barcarolle in Yellow again once it’s gone through at least one more thorough round of testing and editing. The way it is now, it doesn’t do its protagonist honour.
@Victor_Ojuel , I really hope this is not too disheartening. I do like your style and I sincerely hope to see more of your work.
We seemed to hit similar notes at the same time…
“Ye devious dog! That specimen might o’ made my name! A modern Newton I’d o’ been, prancin in a periwig through the courts o’ Cambridge, by th’ powers, wi’ people callin’ me ‘p’fessor’ and ‘your cleverness’ an’ sich! Or else I could ha’ sold it and bought a mess o’ grog. I’ll crack ye like a flea for this, wi’ a wannion!”
… is what Captain Booby said when I finally threw the bastardly plant overboard!
’ * Salomé
Thanks for taking the time to play it! 
I’m glad you finally managed to get rid of the plant, and thank you for your review! I hope you were able to get to the end of the game!
I’ve been intermittently playing in short bursts, and now I’m stuck at the very end (I think).
Only the chest is still weighing the ship down, together with my inventory. It’s too heavy to move, and I can’t open it without the key. I even peaked at the hints. They say that I have already encountered the object needed to solve this puzzle, but it’s out of sight right now. I’ve been thinking that the key to the chest might be inside the hurdy-gurdy’s soundbox. I just threw the hurdy-gurdy overboard and so far the kraken hasn’t brought it back…
Complete spoiler for the chest The key is hidden in the tea caddy. You’ll need another object, a small one, to open the tea caddy. That other objects is the lens.
In the ClubFloyd session we saw the game did not allow us to throw the tea caddy overboard, and that kinda hinted at something of importance hiding in it. Its description reminded me of Japanese puzzle boxes, which are intricately decorated precisely so the seams are harder to find.
Here’s proof of how right you were about my avuncular waxed moustache! It’s a new thing, too, so it really made me laugh when I read it in your review.
Now comes the challenging period of training to express complex emotions like bitter sarcasm, mild amusement, or silent disdain with a single twitch of the whiskers.
Finished! The post-game text suggested AMUSING, so I tried
KICK BUCKET about a dozen times. Hilarious, especially when coming down after winning the game. Small typo: Davy Jones" locker → quotation marks instead of apostrophe.
Very funny, solid and consistent narrative voice, nice twists here and there.
Funniest: even though I saw it coming (and at least partly because I saw it coming): replacing Captain Booby’s snuff with cayenne pepper…
I had a dream: The Doors were performing a sweaty, breathtaking drawn-out version of Riders on the Storm when David Suchet’s finely mustachioed Poirot appeared onstage and pointed accusingly at Jim Morrison. Jim jumped off the stage, right into the arms of the waiting Hastings.
It’s safe to say this title intrigued me, while at the same time expert-fingeredly tickling my funny-bone.
In reality, Death on the Stormrider has more in common with Poirot than with The Doors.
Your brother has found passage on the cargo-airship “Stormrider” for the both of you, provided that you make yourself useful onboard. The ship’s cook is found murdered and your brother is the only one who had the keys to the mess at the time. He’s locked in the brig until the ship boards at the next harbour.
It’s up to you to find evidence of your brother’s innocence.
Since your brother’s locked up for murder, you yourself are eyed with some suspicion. Nevertheless, you remain free to roam most parts of the ship. A number of passageways and rooms are off-limits, and you are severely limited in what you are allowed to carry around with you. (Or so the game keeps insisting. You are limited to items small enough that they could conceivably be concealed in your hand or clothing. However, given the amount of small stuff I was carrying by the end of the game, I suspect there’s a limitless hammerspace somewhere under your character’s suspenders of disbelief…)
The ship left the harbour in a hurry , running on a skeleton crew (which was also the reason for your hasty recruitment). Even then, with the cramped spaces between the cargo and the crew all having their own rounds and routines, having to do several duties at once, it’s hard to conduct a thorough investigation.
You do need to get into the off-limits spaces and carry around pieces of evidence, so you have to find ways to get past and around blocked off entrances and working crewmembers unnoticed.
The objective of the game is finding evidence. The core of the gameplay is hide-and-seek. Get to know the crew’s routines, find hiding spots on their routes or hidden passages around their locations. Time your actions so you can slip through the gaps between the other crew members. It gets even more complicated and exciting once you try to manipulate the others’ circulations through the ship to create your own opportunities for espionage and investigation…
The many independently moving NPCs, the different consequences of open/closed containers, the machinery of the ship having sometimes far-off effects,… These things are dependent on a great number of moving cogs and chains and toggles under the hood. I found some hiccups, but mostly the gears interlocked as needed and turned smoothly. The bugs I did encounter were minor, and the suspense of the game was good enough that I could overlook them.
This gameplay of hide-and-seek had the effect that the considerable suspense I felt was aimed at my own (the player’s) success, rather than being directed at the protagonist’s troubles or the fate of his brother. While sneaking around, I felt tension about finding a hiding place in time. I wasn’t very concerned about or emotionally engaged with the characters though.
The mechanics of the gameplay have their consequences for the writing too. It’s important that the player has a good idea where the NPCs are relative to the PC’s location at all times to be able to avoid them or hide in time. In the desfriptions, the bottom few lines are reserved for a list of distinctive footsteps the PC can hear. A single line of text has information about which character’s steps they are, how far that character is away, and which direction the character is going.
“Just forward, you can hear sharp, measured footsteps approaching.”
These lines are actually very well-written, condensing a lot of information into smooth prose. They are repetitive though, and when there are several characters within earshot, there are also several lines of this in the location descriptions. For a while, this can be a bit annoying. Soon however, my brain just started glancing over this text while filtering out the necessary information.
For an unavoidable trade-off between pleasant prose and indispensable game information, I think this solution found a good balance.
I absolutely loved finding my way around Death on the Stormrider's map. The (beautifully drawn) map in the feelies already gives an impression of how much rooms have to be crammed in a small space on an airship. It was only by exploring the decks myself during play, drawing the map room by room, with all the barriers and hindrances in full effect, that I became aware of the whole complexity of the game world.
The author employs a simple yet effective tactic for avoiding conversations with the other people on the ship: they speak another language and can’t understand you. Also, they’re busy working and wave you away if you interrupt them. Talking to them is not necessary to get a good impression of their character though. Everyone has distinct mannerisms (evident in the way they walk), their attitude toward you is quite obvious through a mixture of body-language and unintelligible-but-clear-in-context speech.
For each character, the X command also prints a beautiful drawing, which together with the text-description gives a good picture of their personality.
All these drawings, with the accompanying text, can be reviewed at leisure in the wonderful tablet you find in the very first room of the game. It serves as a notebook for clues, a reminder of tasks to do and places to visit, and a recapitulation of your investigation so far and the people you encountered.
Great addition, and well worth taking a number of turns near the end of the game to look back over all you’ve learned.
The endings (yes, there’s more than one!) felt a bit luck-of-the-draw to me. It’s not clear (ar least not to me) what the consequences were of showing this or that piece of evidence to one of the various crew members. Their behaviour toward the PC, dismissive, neutral, or halfway friendly, didn’t offer enough (any) clues as to how they would react to my revealing of the evidence.
An exciting investigation, with some unexpected complications and a bunch of different endings, depending on how meticulous your search is. Good game!
