Short Game ShowCase Mini-Reviews! (Complete!)

Competitions
47

The Last Mountain, by Dee Cooke

First submitted to the ParserComp

You’re out on the mountain again for the Merrithorne Mountain Race, your friend Susan by your side as ever. But something is different this time. Susan is struggling, and your chances of finishing the race in good time are slipping away.
Run your race along the mountain route and see where it takes you. How will it end this time?

I could not be furthest from the intended audience for this game: I absolutely hate running. I just don’t get the appeal or why people would push themselves to exert themselves this way. Anything related to it will give me the hives… :woman_shrugging:

Yet, I found myself engrossed with the story. Your will to finish this gruelling race, hopefully getting a good time too. Your frustration with your running companion, who is unusually lagging behind and whose condition is starting to worry you. And your struggles with the path, not quite as safe as you hoped.

While you are the character advancing the story, I felt it was more about Susan (or your relationship to Susan) that mattered most here. There are hints through most of the game to why your companion doesn’t seem like herself – though her condition is only vaguely mentioned in the ending, it is easy to assume what’s what. Depending on your actions, the ending you get is heartwarming, even if a bit bittersweet, or pretty tragic…

The game is pretty short, with three and half room and hinted puzzles, branching into multiple endings (I think I managed to get three by myself?). One branching choice seems to have a random component to which path you’ll end up taking (with the correct direction potentially changing with each playthrough).

It was a good well rounded short game!

We love games that make things accessible for newbies! :green_heart: walkthroughs

4 Likes
48

Thanks for your reviews Manon! I was a bit resistant to walkthroughs when I first started making games, but nowadays I usually try to include one to make it easier for people trying to get through jam entries as quickly as possible (having often been in that situation as a player myself).

4 Likes
49

Zombie Eye: Campfire Tales, by Dee Cooke

First submitted to the EctoComp, La Petite Mort category

Since the game hasn’t been updated, I’m linking my IFDB review (more stuff that the review thread):

A cute and short parser, with the Dee Cooke ™ graphics and vibes, a sequel to last year’s entry, with simple and limited commands. Listen to some spoopy tales around the campfire with your friends, but watch out, some are more dangerous than it seems…

Though it might not be obvious, there is a way to get to a winning state. I had tried a bunch of actions but only reached a bad ending, which was frustrating (it felt like there was no way to “win”). But there is one combination of conditions that will work. Talking to your friends before the story starts is the way…

Still silly, and a bit campy. Really like the 80s “horror” vibes from the UI/writing.
A tiny parser perfect for a bite or a little break!
I still haven’t played the main game… (it’s in my wishlist!)

~~
There are 24 entries left :partying_face:

5 Likes
50

You’re amazing, you know that?

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51

I am a bit cheating though… I’d already reviewed like most of those games before :joy:

The last quarter of the list will mainly be new games for me tho… Looking forward to that!

4 Likes
52

Three Things, by Lapin Lunaire Games

First submitted to the Anti-Romance Jam

There hasn’t been any update to this entry… BECAUSE IT DOESN’T NEED ANY!
I am very biased, because Jinx is my friend… but also because the gameplay revolves around translation - how words can be translated differently, giving specific vibes/tones/meanings depending on what is chosen. Having done some myself, worrying about which word to use to fit the context best, struggling when not finding the correct sets of words… it feels oh-so-familiar.

Word plays are often lost with translations, so it’s nice here to actually be playing with words ~ even if you don’t understand them!

Anyways, more of translating games please!

5 Likes
53

I super appreciate both you and @AmandaB doing these, and so quickly! I had wanted to do a quick look at all of them, but 1) as a comp organizer they’d need to be very bias free and thus take longer to write and 2) I had RL stuff going in the way. And now I don’t have to, because you two are doing it and doing it very well!

5 Likes
54

Kyrie Eleison, by Lapin Lunaire Games

First submitted to the Neo Twiny Jam

UGH! The Gothic Lusciousness from the writing… chef kiss
Between devotion and repulsion, love and hatred, life and death… it’s all about dichotomy.

It’s entries like these that makes me envious of some of y’all’s writing skills…

4 Likes
55

Now We’re Clickin’, Team, by Andrew Schultz

First submitted to the Neo Twiny Jam

Another welcomed silly entry, with an interesting focus on gameplay/mechanic. All the silliness of superstitious rituals determining (somewhat) how your team does is pretty funny.
You should still pray to the RNG god to be on your side…

3 Likes
56

InGirum_English, by BenyDanette

First submitted to the EctoComp, Le Grand Guignol category

I originally played this game in French (because I could), and while the English version is as spotless, I still prefer the French version anyway :joy:
One of my favourite game of the year, hands down. So well done. The fake-documentary setting, the game-within-the-game interface, the slightly tedious gameplay of “demos”… So, so good!

4 Likes
57

Put-Peep™, by Sean Huxter

First submitted to the EctoComp, Le Grand Guignol category

A pretty fun small parser with quite unconventional commands for solving the puzzles and hands. Good thing there is an in-game walkthrough.
I liked the slightly(?) self-deprecating humour and meta-commentary in there mixed the surrealism of the setting (what else do you expect from going to work in the middle of the night…).

3 Likes
58

Good Bones: A Haunted Housewarming, by Leon Lin

First submitted to the EctoComp, Le Grand Guignol category

A riot of a game this one was! Absurd from A to Z.
Run around a haunted house, try not to get kill, rethink your costly investment.
So many fun endings, and trying to hunt them all down is very entertaining!

4 Likes
59

Bittersweet Harvest, by DagitabSoft

First made for the Ludum Dare 52

Harvesters.
These otherworldly beings, having the bodies of humans, are tasked with reaping bad memories of these humans and purging them from their hearts and minds.
And in an era where mental health awareness is at an all-time high, these harvesters work hard to ensure the stability of the souls of mortals.
One such harvester will meet a young single mother, and he must dive deep into the mystery of why she became one before he could do his job of purging her bad memories.
But his task could be more complicated than what he initially imagined.

In the format of a kinetic visual novel (there really aren’t any choices), the story follows an Harvester - an otherworldly being who ‘harvests’ human memories - on a case: a young woman wanting to erase the memories of her former lover and the child she gave away.

I… don’t know what to take from the game honestly. I can’t say what the message of the story was. It seemed to be critical of one-night stands and loose morals - almost condescendingly, with pushing the almost unattainable ‘pure love’ - while dealing very carelessly with the situation of a child (in what world was the child given away without getting the father’s approval?? when the father was told about the pregnancy and birth? It seemed to hint the child was some months old?). It was as if the story put itself into a corner with having the child involved into the woman’s back story and just… yeeted it away when it became too cumbersome. That was… very uncomfortable.

As for the climax of the game, the story kinda pulls the rug from under you, by having the Harvester “seeing the light” and becoming a human because of what he witnessed with that case. I don’t really get how this was the turning point for them to change this way. It felt a bit cheap?

I did like the introduction of the game, with the exposition of Harvesters and one of the humans who used their services.
I thought it could have been more interesting following that person after losing their memories…

EDIT: I’m a fairly fast reader, but I’d guess more peeps would end up spending more than 30min on this.

4 Likes
60

Occhiolism, by DagitabSoft

First submitted to the Ludum Dare 54

John Oscar has just rescued Patty Nicole from a traumatic experience, and the two stick together like glue ever since.
However, during one of their dates, he discovers something distressing about her, which has something to do with limited space.
Time is of the essence for this couple.

In the format of a kinetic visual novel (you have one choice that doesn’t affect anything), the story follows an almost fusional couple, brought together by a traumatic event. With surprisingly similar principled values (pretty conservative and somewhat condescending views on relationships and intimacy), the couple faces a bump in their relationship when Patty Nicole starts behaving strangely.

Unable to go to certain spots or to talk about what is bothering her, the games makes it obvious what happened to her (CW: attempted assault), though it does it with a twist ( the assault wasn’t physical at the end, because she escaped him, but he cursed her by “removing space” with magic???). Honestly, it feels like trying to make some sort of allegory for sexual assault on pure/virginal women, but spoiling it with its implementation of an otherworldly/fantastical element. SA is a very touchy subject, and the game handled it carelessly.

The games lays it on thick on the critique of society, especially the loose morals, individualism, and the focus on money rather than relationships. It comes out as pretty patronising, especially when opposite values are presented to the couple – if you don’t follow their principles you are bad – and almost childish.

And that’s without going into the last third of the game, where the couple deals with the Patty Nicole’s issues, which weirdly turns into some sort of anime-like fight, with the big baddy monologue before the “power of love” punch ends it all. It does cheapen the whole thing…

EDIT: also an entry that took me more than 30min to go through… About an hour and I went through each “page” pretty fast.

5 Likes
61

I am ending here for today. I have 16 left…

4 Likes
62

Murder at the Manor, by Jkj Yuio

This is an independent release

Major Stephenson has been shot dead in his study! A case for the indomitable Detective Inspector Lance Picton, who gets the cases no one else can solve.
Who shot the Major?
Charles, his brother and business partner, his wife Charlotte, young Master Jimmy or even Jeeves the family butler? I don’t know either because the villain is selected randomly for each game! See if you can solve it.

Murder at the Manor is a short pulpy murder-mystery game, where you play as Detective Picton, tasked to solve the an unsolvable case. The game, however, only lets you interrogate the different suspects. The corpse and murder weapon have been sent for testing, and you don’t even get to investigate really where the murder took place. You only get information about the case through the suspects’ answers (who give very little, throwing blame on one another).

With the murdered chosen at random with every game, the whole mystery relies on a he-said-she-said about each other’s alibis - each suspect never changing their location but sometimes changing their stance on whether they saw the other NPCs. After talking to everyone (which you are forced to because the butler is weirdly invested in being part of the investigation), you can accuse someone and the game ends. You are told whether your choice was correct or not in an ending sequence, which, if you were successful, mention how tight your investigation was, with a folder full of evidence (WHERE?).

Because of its length, and the surface-levelness of the investigation, neither the good or the bad ending feel quite satisfying. You accuse someone and thrown forward in time to after the court case, told only of the result. Not knowing why the suspect would murder the major, or even how they could have done it… what was the point of it? Where is the conflict? Why was there a murder in the first place? How could they have done it?

I restarted the game a handful of times,randomly picked a suspect without going through the whole interrogation… and managed to get the correct murderer half the time. I think it would have worked better if you could actually do some investigating, searching for actual clues, maybe get the coroner’s report or more information about the weapon, or pressing for motives.

On the interface side, the chosen colours for the links made it pretty hard to read with the dark background. The “Undo” button wasn’t working either when you reach the end. There didn’t seem to be a “Restart” button either.

3 Likes
63

Door, by Dev Vand

First released to the Delete Unity and Try Something New jams

improvised experimental narrative
inspired by a bio from discord
that turned into a poem
to test music with broken repeated additive loops

Door(s) is a tiny game where you are shown doors on the screen, which you can click open or close, and throw them off the screen. Mess around enough with them and the screen will change, showing a different bit of text. Though it is obviously interactive, there isn’t much narrative wise - the text only amounting to a sentence.

I guess the concept is interesting in a philosophical way, in that doors can open and close before us (opportunities/paths), or we can leave them behind (changing direction), but that they can still be there? There is only so much you can extrapolate from just a sentence…

3 Likes
64

The Good Weapon, by Madeline Wu

This was an independent release

A malevolence lurks outside your bunker. Fathomless, omnipotent, and deadly, it devours the world with each passing day.
The three of you swore to kill it–no matter the cost. Even if it means you’ve got to nuke everything. Ordinary (good) people won’t do it. They can’t fathom the horror.
Evil acts out of necessity. Villains know what must be done.
Yet your leader’s having second thoughts. She’s getting cold feet; and if the two of you can’t convince her to use the weapon, then maybe it’s time to take matters into your own hands.
Are you ready to save the world?

This almost kinetic visual novel follows three (vigilante?) fighters inside a bunker plotting against a controlling (otherworldly?) organisation called VIRGIL (Big Brother-vibes). The latter’s control is so spread and wide that the only way to fight it would be to essentially nuke the Earth - or it would regenerate. Away from “real life” to ensure their safety and so their plan wouldn’t get discovered, the three characters uphold different view on how to approach the issue - discussions turning more into arguments with the “weapon” being ready.

While there aren’t meaningful choices, none that really affect the story at least, the story is quite engrossing. The story sets up enough to get an understanding of the conflicts, but stays vague, forcing you to piece things as you get more information. The culminating scene is satisfying even if as a player I barely has anything to do with it - putting an end to the MC’s struggles with their goal and their wavering will.

The visuals, with the limited palette and sprites looking like they were sketched, complements the writing and the scenes, with blinking and shaking elements, and an interesting focus on gazes.

I stiiiiiiilll… wished we could have had one choice at the end, rather having the PC making that choice for us (even if it made sense story wise).

4 Likes
65

bl.ink, by bubez

First submitted to the inkJam

I’m gonna put this into spoilers:

This is a joke game. You blink and the game ends. There really is nothing else to the game. It’s funny in the context of the inkJam’s theme (in the blink of an eye), but yeah… nothing more than that…

3 Likes
66

Time’s Gap, by mxelm

First submitted to the Orifice Jam

This is a game about holes. In time, in body, in memory.

Time’s Game is a short body horror story, where you conduct a magic ritual aimed (?) at breaking the fabric of space and time (holes). As you get ready, snippets of strange memories (yours? someone else’s?), also orifice related, rush through your mind, debilitatingly so. Your body, unable to take it all, breaks and rips into multitudes.

The writing is very evocative and gross (in a good, Porpentine way). It makes you uncomfortable, but in a way you can’t really take your eyes away from it. It crawls up your spine…

NGL I wish the design of the game page was also included in the game itself. Maybe in a desaturated form?

3 Likes