The Eidolon’s Escape by Mark Clarke
The Eidolon’s Escape tells the story of an otherworldly spirit that has been trapped by a mage. Now you finally have a chance to use your powers of possession to escape from her tower. Success is not predestined, though, as there are at least three different endings (and possibly a fourth), some of which are clearly better than others.
The first thing I want to compliment Mark Clarke on is the strength of the writing. Setting and characters are deftly defined; the prose flows smoothly; and while I would in general prefer shorter pieces of text between choice points, I found that I didn’t really mind the longer prose passages in The Eidolon’s Escape because they were always interesting and well-written. The characterisation of the protagonist as a spirit who doesn’t really understand human communication and finds human bodies rather disgusting was strong, without ever becoming ridiculous.
The game’s structure is also well-done. I believe that most of the game is on rails, so that you’ll always manage to end back up in the laboratory with the password; but then it starts branching, in ways that make perfect sense. Does the eidolon attempt to reign in its anger or not? Does it attempt to satisfy its curiosity about the mage or not? The choices you make about this will lead to entirely appropriate endings. I also loved the fact that the possible endings were foreshadowed in the game’s opening text: the revelation that the mage has kept you in captivity because of a mistaken hope that you were their long lost love was no revelation at all, but something that was clear from the beginning. This adds to the sense of player agency.
In conclusion, I found this a delightful little tale.