Wolfbiter encounters Spring Thing 2025

Competitions Spring Thing
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OK, let’s do this!

Last year I reviewed all of the games in the main festival—completing the main festival is once again my goal this year, but no guarantees: unfortunately the last few months in my non-IF life have been, err, challenging.

:fork_and_knife_with_plate: A Spring Thing benediction:
In a world that can be dispiriting and oppressive, thank you to authors creating fictional worlds.
In a world that can be lonely and unkind, thank you to organizers and community members coming together in a spirit of joy. :candle:

To lightly change it up, this year’s reviews will be presented via nominative determinism, in decreasing order of %-letters-in-title-also-present-in-my-display-name. Only time will tell if pre-commiting to a posting order is hubris! Can’t wait to find out what caltrops will be thrown in my path!

Thus:

Table of Contents
1. Retool Looter by Charm Cochran (–> 100% my display name)
2. For Lila by MUSE
3. Interview Interview by Ronynn
4. Hell Ride by Dana Montgomery
5. idle phone simulator by summsalt
6. blackberry bloodbath by Melany Socorro
7. Stowaway by Nicholas Covington
8. As the Fire Dies by Alex Carey and Deborah Chantson
9. The Goldilocks Principle by iris
10. The Little Match Girl Approaches the Golden Firmament by Ryan Veeder
11. Radiance Inviolate by DemonApologist
12. Chronicles of the Moorwakker by Jupp
13. Starfish & Crystallisation by Colin Justin Wan
14. We Stole a Ship to Run a Scam by Peter M.J. Gross and Donald Conrad

I love hearing what other people think, so if anything I post spurs a a thought feel free to reply in this thread.

Note: I try to blur egregious and specific spoilers, but generalized spoilers are unmarked, and the assumed audience for these is people who have played the game.

17 Likes
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Retool Looter by Charm Cochran
Playtime: 1 hour 20 minutes

This made me want to talk about:

  • Counterfeit Monkey is listed on IFDB as an inspirations for the game, which makes a lot of sense gives this game features a wordplay mechanic where you can reverse specific nouns present in the environment (i.e., you could turn a LIAR into a RAIL). To compare on just one element, I really enjoyed the scope of this game.[Prepares to dodge thrown projectiles, but] I always found Counterfeit Monkey bigger than I wanted it to be: SO many options that I had to use more of my brain than I wanted just keeping track of words I had encountered and how to spell them, which left me with less processing to enjoy the plot, characters, or other elements of the game. Ymmv, but I thought limiting to just anadromes was a good choice for the scale of this piece.
  • This kind of wordplay invites existential questions about why the parser’s specific phrasing is of cosmological significance (e.g., why can the device treat “oatmeal” as “oats” but it can’t treat a “dumpster” as a “bin”), but given the limited scope of the game it didn’t come up too much
  • I enjoyed Kay’s verbal tic
  • I appreciated the quality-of-life features, like the list of agents to rescue (although I kept thinking the plot would reveal why there was a gap in the list [perhaps a surprise agent to rescue?] but that did not happen), and hints from Kay’s conversation (at a few points it provided hints I didn’t really want, e.g., telling the player directly when they find Mac).
  • Overall the game is just well implemented and polished, and felt pretty frictionless 90% of the time.

Notable line: I quite enjoyed the increasingly implausible reasons that the player character refuses to reverse any other agents: “Besides, you know [Mac] would insist on de-reversing the other rescued agents, regardless of the rules about creating life. He has his roguish image to maintain, after all, and you just don’t have space for that kind of energy on a mission so delicate.” and “At this point, it would be too much work to catch Neil up. You might as well just finish the mission on your own.”

completely irrelevant digression about similarities between games by the same author

Subjectivity alert, but in ruminating on whether I thought this was “entirely unlike anything [the author has] written before,” I was getting vibes of:

  • Studio - in the thoroughly implemented kitchen and ability to carry a knife around (although I didn’t need to stab anyone)

  • Gestures Towards Divinity - in the concept of people becoming inanimate objects

Of course I’m influenced because I know what else Charm has written (has there ever been a 100% blinded IF event? I think that would be fascinating for several reasons, although perhaps also impractical)

My one fervent wish:
I would have loved if the ending was expanded to include 1 or 2 more scenes—it felt a bit cramped/rushed. I want to reunite with Kay and make sure she’s OK! (especially given that the game opens with the PC together with Kay, it would give a pleasing feeling of symmetry to end that way, too). I wouldn’t mind seeing a brief entertaining reveal of the rescued agents either. And maybe some explanation of any consequences from the PORTS incident [do I feel guilty, does anyone else have any relevant anecdotes to share, etc]).

Overall, A well-scoped, cleanly-implemented puzzler with a fun word-play mechanic.

wolfbiter transcript retool looter.txt (138.0 KB)

Gameplay tips / typos

Long time readers of this space will know I am an enthusiastic booster of hints and walkthroughts. This game doesn’t ship with a walkthrough. I got through OK, but I did spend some time feeling stuck right at the end. Accordingly, here’s some invisiclues-style hints for the [name of location] beach (you will feel that you are very near the end when you get here).

  1. Have you checked your inventory? Maybe something you have had for a while but not used?

  2. Yes, I’m talking about the emergency kit.

  3. Have you tried reversing both items in the kit? What happened?

  4. Hmm, so we have the ethically-fraught PORTS, and a GREEN LOOP and a RED LOOP. Have you tried reversing these?

  5. This is where I just kind of spent a while thinking . . . are there any words that suggest themselves as useful and using a lot of those letters? We’re on the beach, so one certainly imagines sailing away . . .

  6. Eventually, the key thought may occur to you that you want a SLOOP. This can be created by reversing plural POOLS.

  7. But once you’ve done that, you will find you need to get it into the water somehow. What would be useful would be . . .another POOL. Honestly I’m not totally sure how this happened, but the first time I had 1 loop as a LOOP and the other as a POOL, and then reversed the POOL, it generated another loop (blue), leaving one pool that I could still reverse into the original loop. Thus giving 3 loops total (red, blue, green). This will let you make two of the loops into POOLS, make the SLOOP from those two, and still have the third loop to make into a POOL afterward which will appear under the SLOOP, connecting it to the ocean.

  8. Finally, try ENTER the sloop.

7 Likes
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Thank you for this review! I hadn’t considered those connections to my previous work—I felt like I was exploring unfamiliar territory rife with monsters, but it’s cool to still have people seeing my “signature” on it.

Re your fervent wish: I may or may not have some ideas percolating, but who knows if they’ll see fruition any time soon.

4 Likes
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For Lila by MUSE
Playtime: 9 minutes

This made me want to talk about:

  • Not sure I’ve specifically verbalized this before, although I’ve probably come close, but you really can’t go too wrong with telling me I’m a [martial artist, cyborg, warlock, etc.] on a quest for [bloody vengeance, to avoid someone else’s bloody vengeance, redemption after past incidents of bloody vengeance, etc.] and this is a case in point! I enjoyed exploring all the endings, which was pretty quick and punchy to do.
  • I enjoyed the killing Marisha scene. “SQUELCH” indeed.
  • Like many, I’m not a fan of timed text. There was only a limited amount here, but it did grate, particularly on re-play.

Notable line:

My one fervent wish:

One thing people talk about with regard to writing is the “causal chain,” or the idea that everything that happens should be connected in a series of causes and effects (A happens, which causes B, which causes C, etc.). Readers like this because it connects events, makes developing events feel satisfying, lets the reader anticipate what might happen next, etc. (Of course like all common writing structures and tropes this can also be subverted for effect.)

I think in general this game is following that model, but there were a few places it felt less believable to me because the it didn’t make as much sense why event A caused event B.

further spoilery explanation behind the cut, spoilers not further marked

For example, if the player chooses to shake Marisha’s hand on the train, then without further player input the player-character recognizes Marisha, confronts her, gets into a physical fight with her, and loses. (If you do not shake, you get the same reveal but then have the option to not fight.)

Now I assume the intention was for the player to feel a bit surprised about that outcome (“oh no, look at what this choice I made led to”). It’s totally valid to want to surprise the player in that way, but I think it requires a bit more on-the-page work to justify what happens so that the player feels more like “oh wow, I did not realize events would develop like that” and less like “now the author is just arbitrarily making things happen.” (To again digress, the author Brandon Sanderson talks about how plot events should feel both (1) surprising and (2) inevitable. Although it can be tough to hit, I do think that’s a good zone to stay in–events are not the MOST OBVIOUS thing the reader might expected, but also feel earned / logical. Of course this can be a hard zone to hit.)

Even a small amount of explanation can go a long way. Still thinking about that specific scene, maybe Marisha holds on to the player-character’s hand during the handshake and won’t let go during everything that follows so the player-character has to fight to get their hand back (whereas if they hadn’t shaken the hand they wouldn’t have that problem). Or maybe things go as they do in the game, they talk for a bit and then the player-character feels emotionally overwhelmed and attacks, but right before the attack the player-character recognizes the distinctive smell of Marisha’s hand lotion, which is a substance she wore because it specifically enrages vampires or something.

Double-checking the causal relationships of each choice and bulking some up would really help the plot feel coherent and help events hit that surprising/yet inevitable sweet spot.

Overall, a short, energetic, campy piece exploring cycles of violence that doesn’t wear out its welcome. Would benefit from another few passes of polish.

Gameplay tips / typos

There are many typos, for example, I corrected two just in the pull quote above:

Plopping the complete text into a text editor like MS Word or google docs would catch these.

7 Likes
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Interview Interview by Ronynn
Playtime: 18 minutes

This made me want to talk about:

  • I’m gonna be honest, showing me a 4 act structure where the 4th act is named “Reptilian Reverie” is a quick way into my heart (and the reptile art was also great)
  • The basic concept of this game (loosely connected vignettes about “interviewing”) was definitely ticking for me. The variation between the scenes provided a feeling of change and movement, yet there was a feeling of coherence from the shared theme.
  • Sort of like most poetry, the ideas expressed hit a range for me from working to not working, but some of them were absolutely working.

Notable line:

My one fervent wish:
In thinking about the lines from the game that stuck with me / I particularly liked, I noticed that they didn’t come from the player-character’s dialogue options. (Probably the closest in the dialogue options was, in a dark way, “Confidence, sure, but mostly I just want to stop embarrassing myself every time I open my mouth.”)

A lot of the dialogue options had a slightly samey, glib tone (“ridiculous” and “cringe / amorous” blended together a lot, particularly). I think creating a greater variation in the dialogue responses, and giving space for some of them to be emotional gut punches / insightful would really take the game to the next level.

Overall, a lightly surreal, quick game about how we present ourselves to other. With reptiles :lizard:

Gameplay tips / typos
  • It should be “reptilian” instead of “reptillian” (it’s spelled correctly everywhere but on the initial TOC)
  • “The other two, stare at you with a look of tiredness and dissapointment.” should be “disappointment”
6 Likes
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Hell Ride by Dana Montgomery
Playtime: 2 hours 21 minutes

This made me want to talk about:

  • Buckle up, this is a big game. It’s got several interlocking puzzles, a big map, plenty of locks and keys, and even some red herrings.
  • I would say it’s at a moderately hard difficult level, less because any specific puzzle is brain-breaking, and more because the complexity/size of the game means that keeping track of everything you’ve seen and how it might interconnect is challenging.
  • Everything has been crafted with a lot of care. Other than one cosmetic issue noted below the final cut, I didn’t come across anything that wasn’t “working” or missing responses. (And there was a cool moment when I was trying to understand the layout of a certain area, and realized that the rooms were numbered as they would appear on the face of a clock.)
  • I have the magpie desire to run around collecting things, and that was definitely satisfied. (Bless whoever made my fanny pack, which I think I finally encountered an inventory limit on after pretty much an entire game of shoving things in there.)
  • The carnival scenery and theming was enjoyable, most of the things you’d want to do are represented here (ride a ferris wheel, get a tarot reading, eat sugary food, etc.)
  • This isn’t really relevant to anything, but after one specific scene I was musing if we are meant to think the narrator’s obscure knowledge has 100% overlap with the player character’s . . . “The Mercury dime is a ten-cent coin struck by the United States Mint from late 1916 to 1945. Designed by Adolph Weinman and also referred to as the Winged Liberty Head dime, it gained its common name because the obverse depiction of a young Liberty, identifiable by her winged Phrygian cap, was confused with the Roman god Mercury. It is 90% silver, 10% copper, and has a weight of 2.50 grams.”
  • I was very glad to see that the game ships with a hint system and a walkthrough—I think that’s the better choice when a game has any puzzle elements, since otherwise people who want to finish the game are going to find themselves gated out. Regrettably, several of the places I had trouble actually weren’t covered in the hint system (more thoughts under the first cut).

Notable line:

My one fervent wish:
This is perhaps not a 101-level request, but I think what would really have taken the experience up a notch for me is more cueing the player, especially through error / failure messages. When there’s not a lot of that, then I spend a lot of time not only not being able to do x, but also not being sure if I am having a guess-the-verb problem (and should keep guessing) or if there’s some additional puzzle necessary before it’s possible to x.

a few spoilery examples, spoilers not further marked
  1. I had a hard time figuring out how to initiate the pitcher’s mound game, trying things like “buy baseball” and “get ball.” The correct command is “give dime to attendant,” but different messages would have helped me realize that my problem was lacking dimes, not phrasing the command.
  2. I also had a lot of trouble opening the panels to insert the fuses, I think exacerbated by the fact that trying to open the panel gives the default error message “You lack a key that fits Electrical Panel 3,” although the intended solution does not involve a key.
  3. Based on the blurb and intro the game about writing an article, I expected that at some point I was going to have collected enough material to write an article and leave (maybe by getting back in my car? Since I started in the car?) (and maybe part of the game would be deciding when I had “enough” material?). As things developed and it became clear someone could get killed on the ride, it seemed obvious to add trying to make the ride inoperable to my goals. But I never understood exactly the different “levels” available of collected evidence—the levels refer to arresting people, pressing charges, and getting a conviction, but these aren’t things journalists usually do. Was I supposed to be figuring out how to contact the police? Was there a way to “end” my investigation in-game and I was supposed to be weighing tradeoffs in how early to do that? In the end I think it was just a progress bar, and the police showed up on their own at the appropriate point, but this could have been signposted more.

I realize that this kind of smoothing the rails is time-consuming (and more difficult in a long and complex game!) and not strictly necessary for a functional game, but it’s probably what would have elevated my experience the most.

Overall, a fun fair-themed game with engaging scenery and puzzles, perhaps a bit underclued in aspects

wolfbiter transcript hell ride.txt (432.2 KB)

Gameplay tips / typos
  • Not sure why, but invoices started showing up under “show evidence” before anything happened that would make me expect that
  • I set images on, but never saw any images. Not sure if an image would help, but I didn’t have any way to figure out that the coupon was for parking.
  • In the control room, the following kept happening:

This didn’t seem to prevent me from playing the game, but it did make extracting any information from the control panel fairly annoying.

  • Late in the game, my inventory stopped listing how much money I had left
5 Likes
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Thanks for playing Hell Ride. As a first time competitor and author, I appreciate your feedback!

1 Like
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idle phone simulator by summsalt
Playtime: 10 minutes

This made me want to talk about:

  • The art is very cute, and there’s a lot of fun quirky background details
  • The PC seems to be a cat-person who has a pet cat (not a person), and the PC’s friend seems to be a bunny-person who has a pet bunny (not a person). Much to ponder
  • I love that we have a 7 step skincare routine (that is actually one step: moisturize)
  • I appreciated the thought given to quality-of-life features, like the ability to skip through scenes and view history.

Notable line:

:rofl:

My one fervent wish:

Personally, I wanted more to do as the player. This game has a very strong concept of what the player character is like (can’t cook, reads internet stuff on their phone and then regrets it, speaks french to their cat, etc) and the game presents that person’s morning without needing much input from the player.

Overall, a cozy morning-routine simulator featuring a charming cat-person.

3 Likes
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I find it really funny that this sounds more like something from Radiohead’s song Fitter Happier than a cozy game! :joy: Does have me intrigued though…

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:joy: I guess it depends a lot how you imagine the line delivery . . . in the game I was very much imagining it upbeat / a bit tongue-in-cheek meme referencing

1 Like
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blackberry bloodbath by Melany Socorro
Playtime: 19 minutes

This made me want to talk about:

  • We’ve got a take on adolescent girlhood here that’s both highly specific (offerings to satan, the PC’s particular glooms and neuroses of the PC) and also a bit timeless (some of the broader neuroses of teenagers, meeting up in bathrooms, spin-the-bottle). (Most “oof” incident: “throw your phone”.)
  • The faux-vintage-computer-desktop styling added a lot. I especially enjoyed the changing alt-text on the icons
  • The slang and the usernames struck a believable note. Bellamy talked about the usernames and noted how a username can capture at most an aspect of a person. At one point you meet someone after a period of time has passed, and they’re still referred to by the same username from before, and I felt such a high amount of instinctive “ooh something’s weird about this” that it really made me think about how contingent and specific a username can be, tightly tied to one specific time / context.

Notable line:

My one fervent wish:

Image description: the meme opening heart locket, inside it says "timed text my beloathed"
Image description: the meme opening heart locket, inside it says "timed text my beloathed"400×300 53.1 KB

Overall, an evocative and poetic glimpse of teen age

Gameplay tips / typos

A few times the bottom of the text (and where you had to click) was off my screen, complicated by the fact that scrolling is not possible . . .

3 Likes
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Stowaway by Nicholas Covington
Playtime: 7 minutes

This made me want to talk about:

  • This pacey game about an unusual night delivers the joy of immediate impulse fulfillment—you can pretty much immediately implement any idea you have, it was very easy and non-frustrating to try all available ideas.
  • There’s some nice humor generated by mentioning surprising elements like they were normal.
  • I enjoyed exploring the different possible endings—although it’s a simple game the paths interact in ways that spark joy.

Notable line:

My one fervent wish:
I would have liked more of this! I think it could have maintained the same quick feeling and still incorporated maybe 1-2 more areas and questlines to experiment with.

Overall, a short game that carries itself lightly and proceeds quickly, delivery some unexpected/fun plot beats.

3 Likes
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As the Fire Dies by Alex Carey and Deborah Chantson
Playtime: 20 minutes

This made me want to talk about:

  • This game is sort of two games merged together—one in the waking world where you try not to freeze to death, and one inside a dream where you solve some light puzzles—and you’re required to switch back and forth between the two. I found it interesting how, although both games are pretty straightforward, combining them and creating some basic connections between the two was effective at generating more interest and feeling of novelty in me.
  • I enjoyed that there is some logic in solving the dream puzzles (i.e., it’s not completely “dream logic”). The nature setting was soothing (somehow despite the continual threat of death, it was a very hygge threat of death)

Notable line:

My one fervent wish:

I kept expecting there to me more of a thematic connection between the waking world and dream sequences, where the dream puzzles would relate back to the player character’s life / problems in the waking world / etc. more, but I didn’t notice much of that.

Overall, a mostly-soothing, puzzle-light take on dreaming in the woods.

6 Likes
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The Goldilocks Principle by iris
Playtime: 12 minutes

—Below, I’m discussing a meta-element of the game that’s somewhat spoilery without spoiler tags.—

My confused thoughts and wishes:

  • So, I had a lot of thoughts about the main meta-element of the game, which is that you can pick from 1 to 5 how “triggering” you want the game to be, and play a different game for each. (Except for 3, which does not exist, because, in the game’s words “Unfortunately, the perfect medium has yet to be invented. Who do you think you are, Goldilocks? No dice, sweetheart. No one’s managed to get it just right. Pick again.”).
  • Ymmv, but I found the 4 games on offer to very much be 4 different games, not one game toned-up or toned-down. (Version 1, for example, is probably under 40 words [exclusive of however many words the game uses judging your choice]).
  • The game also comments cynically on the level you choose (also based on where you are in your session). These comments relate back to appetite / eating habits (“you want to consume it all” / “maybe you’re not that hungry [for details]”).
  • This was all very effective in terms of feeling fresh and exploring disordered eating (and I particularly liked the bit about level 3 not existing, which reminded me both of how disordered eating can include the loss of moderation; and how disordered eating can involve a sort of illusory control, where the person with the disordered eating feels like they’re making a choice, but others feel like that person has lost control.)
  • I guess the lingering concern I had is that writing the paths so that the player is strongly encouraged to try all of them, seems like it’s also reducing the effectiveness of offering options in the first place?

Notable line:

Overall, a short, stylish, incisive treatment of struggling with an eating disorder.

5 Likes
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The Little Match Girl Approaches the Golden Firmament by Ryan Veeder
Playtime: 53 minutes

This made me want to talk about:

  • We’re back with Ebenezabeth, the compelling main character from other games in this IP. (“She is a strong young woman with flaxen curls and hard eyes, a woman who rarely smiles, a woman whose conscience forbids her any rest.” I did just say I found this compelling, although also: concerning vis-a-vis Ebenezabeth’s mental health!).
  • This game is a maximalist melange of genre elements that—somehow—coheres. The gun-toting protagonist travels through time and space as she contends with her adversaries (slime creature, evil unicorn, prince, etc.). Said adversaries snark relentlessly as they try to enslave a mythological bird-spirit (?), and destroy a planet of prebiotic soup(?). The combination of all this truly went down delightfully.
  • The writing is very funny, especially the dialogue, especially especially the overheard dialogue from the villain cast. (Fortunately I play mobas, so I’m accustomed to trying to use my abilities while my enemies are trash talking me.)
  • Ok, let us discuss Timed Elements.
  1. I was glad the blurb flagged this up front! I also agree with the game intro, which recommends playing in one uninterrupted chunk of time.
  2. Now, thinking about what a time limit changes in a game. It’s interesting. Most obviously, a time limit is a constraint: if you cannot x within the time limit, then you won’t be able to complete the game. But also, a time limit is an ASSURANCE, a promise to the player: it will be possible for you to x within the time limit. There’s one type of timed game that expects that the player will need to replay multiple times to perfect their run, and ideally this type of game is streamlined and non-frustrating to re-play. But I had the tentative read (partly based on the amount of plot, and length) that this game was the other type—where the intention was that most people “on-sight” the whole game, and that meant the game was making an additional promise to the player—it will be possible for you to complete this game within the time limit and you will do so on your first try. Can we tell that I am very impressed that the game, indeed, accomplished this? (!!)
  3. I generally found the timer more on the fun-burst-of adrenaline side than too stressful, though I’m curious how others found it, since I know from reading reviews that reactions to timed elements vary a lot. (And that said, I definitely do think the timed nature degraded my problem-solving ability some, and I didn’t try to map out the ship because I wasn’t sure if I would have time.)
  • Segueing from that, in general I found the game a master class at meeting the player where they are and motivating the player to take required actions. This begins with the design of the layout and the puzzles (the map is very navigable even by a mildly frantic non-notetaking person, and I take it the hand of a kindly creator is responsible for the fact that the navigation system is on the Nigredo deck and the reactor core is on the Rubedo deck), and continues during play when the game gently draws your attention in the right direction if you seem to be struggling (e.g., “The scanning lens subtly moves its reticle over the coolant pipe.”). I found it very appropriately tuned to me to be in the sweet spot of very achievable feeling but also providing a sense accomplishment.
  • In past games by Ryan, I have definitely sensed a pacifist-adjacent agenda, which is out in full force here (not a criticism, I like that)
  • I appreciated that “thank ____” is implemented. I often find I want to thank people!
  • Did anyone find a useful time to RAGE? Or perhaps we are to conclude that raging is never useful? :thinking:

Notable line: There were many contenders, but because of its absolutely GUT PUNCH intensity in context, I will take [major spoiler] “His gauntlet is stained with blood and dark smudges.” DARK SMUDGES! DARK SMUDGES!!!

Honorable mention:

My one fervent wish:
actually, no notes

Overall, an engrossing and hilarious romp through space and time that made me feel taken care of as a player the entire way

wolfbiter TLMGATGF - Copy.txt (104.0 KB)

Gameplay tips / typos

For the record, I think there are contextually available hints (under the command “hint 2”) although I didn’t try them.

That said, the one place I found the in-game cueing a bit insufficient was at the finale. Specifically, I was mildly annoyed that, when the intended solution *is* having Hrieman carry your mouse form, the parser reacted neutral or disfavorably to attempting ”hrieman, carry me” and “ask hrieman to carry me.” [I assume this is covered in the hints, but a solution is to just turn into a mouse and then “jump on hrieman”

5 Likes
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I used it to get out of the animal meeting! But having peeked at your transcript, I see there are alternative solutions to that.

I also struggled here. The wording “Hrieman is waiting for your guidance” made me think I had to instruct him, and it took some flailing before I hit on the intended solution. But on the whole I had a very fun time with this one!

3 Likes
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Ahahah! That does make sense, thanks for scratching that itch in my mind . . .

1 Like
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Radiance Inviolate by DemonApologist
Playtime: 15 minutes

This made me want to talk about:

  • This was a lovely, atmospheric piece with a kind but unclouded view of people. (In-game warning label for vampirism: “Maintaining your existence will cause pain to others. Perhaps you will become numb to inflicting this violence.”) Everyone gets a fair amount of nuance
  • I enjoyed the fae in-universe explanation for vampirism, and the general focus of both that and the rest of the game on how people make choices and do the best they can with what they’re given
  • I learned a new word (“affineur”)
  • I don’t always feel this way, but the ending I got felt precious to me so I didn’t replay at all.
  • There’s a short debrief at the end of the game that summarizes your experiences in a supportive way (aftercare for IF?)–this was charming

Notable line:

My one fervent wish:
I emotionally connected to the PC, Lysander, but I could have connected more (especially in the front half of the game)—this is the kind of game where I want to be emotionally tormented because I care so much! I wonder if more sense of what Lysander’s goals / desires were right before starting the game starting might have helped. (I did have the sense that, right before the game starts, he’s supposed to be depressed / at loose ends / disconnected from everything and the game is about addressing that. From a craft perspective, it can be a bit more challenging to get the audience to connect with a character who is at an uncertain, apathetic place, but I think it’s accomplishable.)

Overall, an evocative, moody vampire story with a lot of love for people

6 Likes
19

Chronicles of the Moorwakker by Jupp
Playtime: 7 hours 57 minutes

This made me want to talk about:

  • A technically-accurate description of the premise I couldn’t get out of my head: socially ostracized young woman catches animal-based necromantic magic after falling into her basement with inadequate PPE

  • To contextualize my playtime—this game is not that big in terms of the number of locations or amount of words. If I was invulnerable in combat I think I would have completed it in, maybe an hour? The playtime reflects a LOT of reloading and trying to “pass” the same combats.

  • This is a combat-heavy RPG implemented via IF.

  • I was a big fan of the setting, magic system, and general vibes. If my theory that the name is a riff on “moorwalker” is correct, it’s certainly appropriate because there’s a *lot* of moors to be walked. I really liked the dark “everything hurts but what hurts more” feeling of the magic system, and the protagonist’s “seems like she might be evil” vibe was refreshing.

  • The art and sound effects were great and really increased the grippiness of combat. All the opponents and most NPCs had unique portraits, as did the animal spectres you summon. (And not sure if this was intentional, but it cracked me up that the cat, Tallamoor, who I definitely used to straight up murder plenty of people, had the appearance of a normal housecat.)

    Tallamoor's skull form and the art for two of Tallamoor's abilities
    Tallamoor's skull form and the art for two of Tallamoor's abilities730×339 145 KB

[love you, Tallamoor. Ok, actually I’m also a big fan of Krull and Immersturm. Or just all of the spectres.]

  • The combat system is most of the meat of this piece, and I thought it was really well done. There was a steep learning curve at the beginning to figure out how the different attacks and abilities on offer interacted with my stats and the opponents’ stats. The game’s built in combat display has all of the information you will need—and very useful hover-over tooltips that will explain, say, every modifier—but it is a lot to pick up initially. (And I was a huge fan of the “forecast” section in the combat display, which really cut down on the need to remember a lot of numbers at the same time.)

  • The individual combats were well balanced (and also pretty challenging on hard mode) to be barely achievable. I spent a lot of time tensely wandering around the map on my last 5 hp hoping I wasn’t going to encounter anything aggressive, and I had to try several times at a lot of the fights, but it was all fair and accomplishable with the right strategy. (Which, as evidenced, is an addictive combination for me!) The game really delivered the classic knife-edge moments of “wow I’m going to lose if I don’t roll at the high end of this range right now” and “wow, I’m going to die literally on my own turn if the roll for this self-inflicted penalty comes up anything except 2.”

Notable line:

My one fervent wish:

I thought the combat was really well done and well-balanced throughout. I wish that I had felt that the choice-based aspects of the game (what do you ask the character to do, how do you interact with or talk to NPCs) felt equally developed. There was definitely some of this, I just would have liked a bit more.

For example, there were stats tracking “love” “will” and “fate” that I think were tied to player decisions, but I never had a clear sense of what I was doing or not doing that affected those stats.

In general, the “fight everything” path through the game felt a lot more developed and like it was the intended path. (After the game foiled my attempts to not kill the first two people I came across, I certainly took the hint.) I see that there is an achievement suggesting you can avoid most fights—maybe I’m missing something, but the ways it seems to me you can avoid fighting is (i) not visiting some locations at all, thus avoiding the bandit / angry bear / that is at that location or (ii) maybe rarely (but not always) by surrendering or agreeing with what the person wants; and in aggregate this didn’t seem like it would be a particularly satisfying way to play (I guess I should have tried but It’s particularly hard for me to imagine how to avoid fighting anyone in the final confrontation.)

Overall, darkly-atmospheric RPG that may suck you in with well-balanced combat mechanics

moorwakker end 1 - Copy
moorwakker end 1 - Copy1141×2065 296 KB

Gameplay tips / typos

Others mentioned the game gates you out of some areas—that may be the case but I did also end up in one area (Oythe) and wished I hadn’t because I hadn’t done the prerequisites, so I maybe wouldn’t count on the game stopping you.

Gameplay:

Here’s a couple of general tips about how the gameplay works that I would have liked to know, but that I don’t think rise to the level of full spoilers.

  • they’re not kidding about hard mode having limited save points—I think I found three altogether
  • other than combat, the main form of puzzle is a “memory tests” on prior text from the game
  • Speaking of combat:
    • you generally will want to look at the opponents stats and modifiers, which you can see at the beginning, and then formulate a specific strategy in response. For example, if the enemy has a very high “defense” stat, you might design a strategy to use spectres that have “critical” attacks because those bypass “defense.”
    • your “turn” is first, but normally the enemy still gets a turn even if you’ve dealt them fatal damage on your turn. Some attacks have a “fatal” modifier which means an enemy defeated by that attack will NOT get its turn after, which is very powerful
    • you always have the option to increase how much damage you take to summon / sustain summoning. At first you’ll probably notice that sometimes you need to increase this or else the summoning won’t succeed. Keep in mind that you may also want to increase it at other times to make the summoned spectre’s abilities more powerful (i.e., you want to have fewer turns of more powerful abilities)

A few typos I saw:

  • “Murder of Crows looses 9 Points of Vitality [Infection]” should be “loses”
  • “mysterious und exotic?” should be “and”
  • when fighting the snakes in the moor, “Vitality Loss: 5 Points <span style=”font-variant: small-caps;[-1]” probably not intended to discuss style
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Nice! A deathless Hard playthrough with only 6 discoveries? Must have been without the strong talismans :face_with_monocle:. Seriously rough and rare! :flexed_biceps:

I must say, your technically-accurate description of the premise is spot on! :grin: The review was a genuine pleasure to read. :heart:

On the topic of ‘Moorwakker,’ the old German term combines “walking” (swalken) and “waking” (waken). Given the historical context of moor burials, it beautifully evokes the image of “the awakened (undead) one who walks in the moor.”

Kind Regards
Jupp

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