I was scared to go places that didn’t seem plot-necessary! 
2 Likes
oh wow, 7 hours! I don’t generally like combat and skipped most of the encounters, my playthrough was only 90min. Although, this did make me feel more free to poke around everywhere without worrying about dying.
2 Likes
Starfish & Crystallisation by Colin Justin Wan
Playtime: 9 minutes
This made me want to talk about:
- a well-sketched exploration of a specific grief (complete with opening instruction to play with a glass of vodka and the musical stylings of Liszt), the details of the PC’s life etc. are nicely fleshed out
- I may be overreading, but I thought the connection between the complex nature of the PC’s grief and the sort of oblique asks on the player was effective. we’re circling around something the PC doesn’t fully understand either. The little check-ins for the player create player interest, and also generate a “huh, what are we trying not to think about” vibe.
- I had somehow escaped pager code thus far in my life, but that was a fun tidbit!
- it’s a piece about an emotion, and, you know, it did make me feel something
Notable line:
My one fervent wish:
Although I’ll generally go to bat for the unorthodox styling choices and bold colors here, I found the aquarium-inspired scenes very hard to read (even at night, on a full monitor, so I suspect it could be even worse for some). Making the text more readable (perhaps by choosing a thicker & bolder typeface?) would be a great step.
Overall, a short requiem with a mildly self-destructive mood
5 Likes
We Stole a Ship to Run a Scam by Peter M.J. Gross and Donald Conrad
Playtime: 24 minutes
me, mid-way through: I wonder where we got this boat
also me: remembers title of game
This made me want to talk about:
- The sprite art was charming, especially the costume changes (although sadly our more-legitimate counterpart only gets one outfit)
- The biggest joy of this piece for me was replaying and seeing all of the clues scattered in the village (since you can only visit one location per play)
- Very low friction, contains maybe half of a light puzzle but that was fun and casual in context.
- One thing I was thinking about was (spoilers about the ending) the treatment of colonialism, particularly in the ending. The framing is that the island has been colonized so outsiders can exploit its natural resources (sea eggs). At the end, the PC can choose whether to aid, ignore, or prevent an islander revolt. On my first play I was a bit surprised at how light of a touch the game takes with the ending—as it turns out, they’re all fairly symmetrical and each has a short “well that’s what you did” wrap-up. But on further contemplation, I like that the game lets players reach their own conclusions.
Notable line:
My one fervent wish:
I like having hints available, and have no issue with using Patrick to fill that function, but I think the his insistence could have been toned down. Sure, compel the player to talk to Patrick on the first page so they understand his deal, and later he can give advice if asked. But it detracted from the fun to be forced to listen to him in spots where I already knew what I wanted to do.
Overall, a quick, very light adventure about some in-over-their-head scammers
6 Likes
Wayfarers by Gina Isabel Rodriguez
Playtime: 48 minutes
This made me want to talk about:
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Wow, the writing in this piece is really a standout. The author is a very skilled prose stylist (excellent at putting together sentences, paragraphs, pages).
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This game is dealing with the aftermath (and duringmath?) of war, with a good serving of real versus virtual worlds and the nature of memory and identity.
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the cast is really well-described and packs emotional punches, from the pal who is initially referred to as “Duracell” (who we later learn does nothing but move flailing and send “aaaaaaaaaaaa,” which, I mean, very dark implications there), to salty Ada (“no trigger warnings needed, sweetheart. we know all about evil”)
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I’m not sure I totally understood some of the plot points, although that could certainly either be a flaw in my reading or the intended effect. One reveal is that the sister programmed Ada as a bit of herself to help people envision a future outside the military? But if so, why would Ada be programmed to mysteriously vanish in a way that makes the PC consider seeking her out by re-upping with the military?
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OK, tangent alert, but I’m fascinated by poetry translation (all the same challenges as prose translation but even more so, because each word is doing so much). I’d read the Machado poem before, and I think I’ve seen the addressee (in Spanish “caminante”) translated variously as wayfarer, wanderer, and traveler. It’s just interesting to consider those—I don’t know nearly enough about Spanish to have an opinion, but I think if the game-within-the-game here were called “Travelers” or “Wanderers” it would give me a different vibe.
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I enjoyed the scene with the sky background.
Notable line:
My one fervent wish:
I wholeheartedly agree with the suggestion from others to make saving / loading / undoing / trying all of the paths easier, but in the interest of throwing something new out there:
. . . what if I could play all of the minigames O_o (they have such great titles!)
Overall, a beautifully written, magic-meets-sci-fi story about the effects of war
Gameplay tips / typos
Somewhat ironically, the instructions for restoring from a save trail off “If you would like to continue from a previous save, you can ”
4 Likes
Three-Card Reading by Norbez Jones
Playtime: 10 minutes
This made me want to talk about:
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I have played Yancy At The End Of The World! I think it would be pretty hard to connect with this game if you haven’t, as there’s not much set-up on the characters or their situations. Actually, since I didn’t play the specific ending referenced here, I was also definitely getting info that didn’t mean much to me.
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The portraits for the characters were cute and engaging, and the voice acting gave me a better sense of personality without introducing too much friction. I generally liked the layout with text in the middle and it was always clear who was speaking.
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As a quality-of-life feature, I like that you can always scroll back up to see earlier text, since sometimes I’ll want to check that I understood something based on what happened next
My one fervent wish:
So, I had a bit of a rollercoaster experience with this one.
My preference is generally for characters to feel realistic, including different characters having different perspectives and priorities. For about the first 90% of the game, I struggled with Mack, who narrates this game, because he is incredibly focused on Yancy, to the extent that it read to me as “it’s a law of the universe that Yancy is the main character.” For example, Mack’s first thought, which opens the game:
Mack continues to filter the whole game through a Yancy-centric lens:
Mack when he sees his first tarot card: “me before I met [Yancy]”
Mack when he sees his second tarot card: “me after meeting [Yancy]”
Mack when he sees his third tarot card: decides to finally ask Yancy what’s going on with them
But! The game absolutely bodied me at the last line, which brings me to:
Notable line
Like YES, this is the tension I was feeling all game—what’s Mack’s deal? What does he care about beyond Yancy? So in a way I loved the turn to addressing that, and I think the game would have clicked well for me as say, the prologue to a Mack-centric game where we see how Mack wrestles with this realization and what conclusions he reaches.
But, of course, roller coaster, because none of that happens, the game just ends.
Overall, high production values boost this short follow-up to a previous work, but you may be left cold if you haven’t played the first one, or if you’re looking for more info about the other characters
Gameplay tips / typos
One of the “smart quote” style quotation marks is angled the wrong way on “spooky season”—my nemesis.
3 Likes
Elaine Marley and the Ghost Ship by Logan Delaney
Playtime: 27 minutes
This made me want to talk about:
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Fair warning that I haven’t played any Monkey Island games. To prepare for this one, I skimmed the wikipedia article, which informed me that “The games follow the adventures of the hapless Guybrush Threepwood as he struggles to become the most notorious pirate in the Caribbean, defeat the plans of the evil undead pirate LeChuck and win the heart of Governor Elaine Marley. The plots often involve the mysterious Monkey Island and its secrets.” Ok!
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I liked the concept of the overall structure (author’s commentary interspersed with puzzle sections), which gave good scope for the author to provide thoughts, and I enjoyed hearing about the author’s enthusiasm for the Monkey Island series even if I didn’t share it
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There were some twine choices with real verve, like hovering over different body parts to reveal descriptions (also too much timed text, womp womp)
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I enjoyed the chance to give the instruction, “Form a geological theory”
Notable line:
My one fervent wish:
After playing “hour one” the first time, I clicked on the wrong link, which compelled me to play the first’s author’s note and hour one again. Since there is no opportunity to load a save, this also happens if you want to replay to see something again / click something different. I also had a technical issue (described more under the final cut) that took me several minutes to progress past.
It would be great to clean up these technical issues–I was *able* to play the game, but the issues felt pretty punishing in a game of this length, which doesn’t serve the creativity on display elsewhere
Overall, a very light (in terms of puzzles) meditation on Monkey Island, made with a lot of love for the source material
Gameplay tips / typos
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On the LeChuck description page, the bottom text is off the bottom of the screen and there’s no way to scroll
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The first time I got to “the door creaks open slowly” page, it kept spawning error messages that were continuously bumping the button to continue down the page so I couldn’t click it. I was trying to click for maybe 2 minutes. (I tried to replicate this later to get a screenshot but it didn’t happen on the next playthrough.)
4 Likes
Spring Gothic by Prof. Lily, Kastel, Lacunova, Nitori, Noelle
Playtime: 58 minutes
This made me want to talk about:
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I was glad that I had at least some control over the text-advance speed. (I chose fast.) I also like that there’s a back button—sometimes in text-advance style games something on page 8 makes me realize I want to re-read page 6 and it was nice to have the option to do so easily.
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Interesting visual design—I was mildly frustrated on the initial pages, thinking “I want a clear view of the character portrait, but it’s blocked by text and this gray box!” and then when I got such a view at the end of the chapter, it occurred to me that it may have been intentionally withheld.
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Very of the moment (refers to Donald Trump as president and his policies)
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Nica and Chun were both very well sketched, incredibly realistic characters, chock-full of idiosyncratic beliefs, insecurities, etc. At times it was almost painful to me how realistic I found them (one reaction that I have sometimes is a feeling of discomfort when playing/reading something where the characters feel extremely realistic but are also expressing views / doing things that I find inimical—which happened frequently!–I think probably akin to how some people feel strong secondhand embarrassment during media).
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There was an interesting push/pull in the way I identified with Nica and Chun—on the one hand, being closely in their perspective and wanting them to have good things and find happiness, on the other hand a recurrent feeling of “oh, the kids are not alright” (around, e.g., serious problems expressing boundaries, communicating about relationships, unrealistic / unhealthy / not shared expectations for relationships)
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most horror beat in a non-horror game: the horror of living in a gated community with your parents without access to a car
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there is a real fascination in seeing the interactions from both sides (and in some pretty subtle ways, e.g., Chun is a lot more concerned with money than Nica [perhaps fitting with the fact that Nica’s parents seem loaded?]
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I felt a real sense of recognition when they went back into VR, it’s definitely the case that different media affect how we communicate, and there are some types of conversation that are much more likely to happen in IM, text, or email.
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I was a bit surprised as what a high % of the game occurred in basically “real time” (i.e., every action described, dialogue presented directly, as opposed to presenting things in summary). At times this was gripping, and it helped with giving a view of the exact same events in the alternating POV sections, but it also dragged at times when I was less interested
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Made me look up the referenced Sophie Lewis essay (although in perhaps an interesting example of indirect characterization, I didn’t get the sense from the in-character summary that the essay was funny, but it is very funny!).
Notable line:
My one fervent wish:
I would have liked something to do! This is very much at the “visual novel” end of the spectrum, and I didn’t feel super engaged as a player (other than in the ways I engage with static fiction) and would have appreciated the chance to interact.
Overall, a very specific exploration of two characters with a real feeling of verisimilitude and rootedness in the current time. May create feelings of second-hand discomfort?
4 Likes
Espresso Moka by Roberto Ceccarelli
Playtime: 18 minutes
This made me want to talk about:
- This game draws a lot from Breakfast in the Dolomites (BitD). Both games play like a slice-of-life simulator, although the extreme granularity of BitD has been scaled back considerably. The game has a lot of fun Easter eggs calling back to BitD, see, for example the notable line below, and also:
lengthy excerpt
(bold added by me)
Reader, I laughed.
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I thought this was a solid dialing in on the parts I enjoyed of BitD (interacting with a thoroughly implemented world, at least when it wasn’t too thoroughly implemented), and some gentle humor, without much frustration. (Although I may only have managed to turn over the paper because of my BitD experience . . .).
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I was also more vibing with Monica’s personality here
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Sadly this game did not answer my most pressing question as a non-coffee-drinker: is the thing we make coffee or is it espresso? Or are those the same?
Notable line:
My one fervent wish:
OK, I realize I may have occasion in the future to rue these words, but. I am ready to be challenged in this franchise! Like, intentionally! Assign me a task to execute where I do not immediately conceive of how to do so!
Overall, a nice refinement on the ideas from the prior game, perfectly pleasant and lightly funny
wolfbiter espresso moka - Copy.txt (23.4 KB)
4 Likes
Lol, our experiences with this franchise are VERY VERY DIFFERENT. :]
2 Likes
Thank you very much for playing my game and leaving the review.
The coffee extracted with the moka is subjected to a lower water pressure than that extracted with the espresso machines, but the mechanic is similar (the coffee extraccted with the moka is less concentrated). The trademark of the moka cup is “Moka Express”, but to avoid problems with the trademark I modified it in Espresso Moka.
2 Likes
The Hound of Ricsige by The Bentomologist
Playtime: 15 minutes
This made me want to talk about:
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I’m not sure I’m against this mechanic generally, but I found the implementation of having the player make choices for both people in the conversation to be confusing.
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I played for a number of loops, and there was more stuff to discover in there than I initially expected e.g., you can be invited elsewhere, although you don’t seem to be able to go; you can do your psionics homework
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It made me think about how simply adding a looping mechanic is a very effective tool to invest the conversation with significance. Although I didn’t see this explicitly spelled out anywhere, over time I kept wondering if one of the two conversants committed suicide afterwards or something like that. If that was the intention, I do think it could have been more interesting if there had been actual clues about the future in the text.
Notable line:
My one fervent wish:
I wanted the game to feel more finished, to reach more of a thematic end point.
Overall, a short timeloop story with a questionable payoff
3 Likes
Social Democracy: Petrograd 1917 by Autumn Chen
Playtime: 58 minutes
This made me want to talk about:
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this has very similar game mechanics and topics to the first game, Social Democracy (SD1), right down to the cheery old-school soundtrack, although we’re now simulating the political parties in 1917 Russia instead of 1928 Germany
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the central mechanics (selecting cards to take actions, responding to choices presented by the game based on the progress of in-game time) make it easy to pick up this game in the sense of “know where to click enough to finish the game.” But both are quite “heavy” in the sense that how the game’s rules interact with each other and victory conditions is opaque—it takes significant time to understand how your choices are affecting all of the stats and it therefore takes significant play time to develop a successful strategy. Note that there are multiples tabs of info on the left sidebar that you can keep track of
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in contrast to SD1, where I had the immediate reaction of “oh, we’re supposed to try to stop the rise of the Nazi party,” I felt a bit more uncertainty in settling on objectives here. I think I maybe had the vague idea that it would be good to try to avert the Red Terror and the Holodmor, if we got that far. I went and skimmed some wikipedia articles, and the game covers a [mild spoilers about where the game ends in time] pretty limited run of time from March to November of 2017, where in real life tsar Nicholas II abdicated, leading to a period of government by a provisional government, and running until in November the bolsheviks dissolved the constituent assembly after losing an election. You can play three political parties initially, but not the bolsheviks, which also implies that the goal is to prevent their rise to power. (And I didn’t play enough to unlock playing the bolsheviks, but I note that somewhat contrary to the in-game explanation there is some condition beyond “completing” the game as another faction).
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Ultimately the game came in a bit heavier than I really felt called to unravel, but I could see this being catnip for someone enjoying teasing out all of the tacit linkages.
My one fervent wish:
I would love some more unpacking of the assumptions behind this simulation. (And I think this is exactly the same thing I thought about SD1, so at least I’m consistent.)
I think it’s fascinating how these types of simulations make very strong assertions about the nature of reality in the guise of fiction. I.e., when you play a boardgame like Terraforming Mars, and the game tells you “if you have built the card Research Outposts, every card you play costs one less,” this is an entirely fictional fact and it wouldn’t make sense to wonder if it corresponded accurately to something in the real world. When Social Democracy tells me supporting striking workers in their demands has increased monthly inflation from 5.8% to 6%, this makes me very curious to what extent this reflects things that would be true in our world
(Or another example, a big part of the game is modeling how policies would affect support for each political party—the United States recently completed a contentious election, and you can very much start a fight in a lot of places with “well if [candidate x] had supported [policy y] it would have [result z]"–these are not assertions that everyone agrees about.)
I realize this is firmly outside the scope, but I would love say a citation-heavy essay by a historically-minded person about which choices in this game they thought there was the most scope for agreement / disagreement about.
Notable line:
Overall, a complex political simulator of the beginning of the Russian Civil War, with a lot to unpack
Gameplay tips / typos
I think you are supposed to be able to look at advisor actions, decide not to take one, and go back to the main page without expending an action, but this only worked sometimes (other times going back to the main page would advance time, skipping my action).
5 Likes
Echoes (an anthology) by Ben Jackson
Playtime: 2 hours 16 minutes
This made me want to talk about:
I’m discussing the three games here in the order I played them (which I thought was effective, would do again).
1. THE LABYRINTH
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I recruited a friend for this one, and I played 87 and Baz (formerly Ruby and Emerald), while he played Jarl and 88 (formerly Sapphire and Citrine).
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I initially expected we might have to try to lobby match or something, but actually you can just tell the game which characters you are controlling and everything works seamlessly (I take it it’s all actually happening locally, meaning the game wouldn’t know if you were lying and had no friend, but also that would be self-defeating since you wouldn’t have access to some of the clues). Structuring the game so we both could progress this way, without actually requiring any connection between our games, was an elegant solution, I thought.
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A fun escape-room implementation, not too hard but made using all 4 characters a necessity, which was nice.
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Strangely, I had real difficulty converting my two maps into the correct sequence of directions, and I ended up sending them to my pal (we swapped after the game and I had no problem with his, so not sure what the disconnect was).
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I loved the quality of life features in the status bar, like the chance to call up previous clues / info.
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We both enjoyed the final fight sequence! It was (my irony credit is never going to recover from saying this) fun to work together
2. TREASURE OF THE DEEP
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This is a linear narrative that, I take it mostly serves to provide lore and context for the setting
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I enjoyed the sound effects and their subtle changes, and the art
3. STICKS & STONES
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Opens with a very funny intro to Torin and Belgrub (I particularly enjoyed the pairing of Torin’s limitation as “has no fear” and Belgrub’s skill “good with glue”)
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all of the interaction with the game can be done through the arrow keys, which was fun! (At times they represent cardinal directions of travel, and at times conversation options or other options for interacting.) It was great for quickly navigating rooms, and the lock puzzle in particular I think would have felt a lot clunkier with a different interface
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the combat wasn’t really too hard even on the difficult setting (not a criticism, just observing)
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It was nice that there was multiple options presented to solve the lock puzzle
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a nice execution of an arc with an initial anticlimatic result followed by a retread of some of the same areas in a very different tone. After the intro to both characters, I was definitely jonesing to play Belgrub, so that was satisfying when it happened. (Amused that, for example, Belgrub can identify the health potion dispenser.)
Notable line:
OK, I’ll allow myself two since there’s multiple games:
My one fervent wish:
I wanted the chance to be nicer to the orcs in Sticks & Stones, or at least not be compelled to kill them for doing their jobs (I looked for an alternative but didn’t find one). This leaned a bit towards one of my pet peeves, where the hero nobly spares the single named enemy, after having killed a bunch of security guards without, apparently, feeling anything about it. And given the generally lighthearted tone it didn’t seem like the intent was to torment the player with ethical dilemmas.
Overall, a very fun collection of games that connects into a larger narrative. I particularly enjoyed the light comedy/adventure of Sticks & Stones and the collaborative gameplay in The Labyrinth
Gameplay tips / typos
I’m not sure if this was intentional or not, but during the endgame back in the central area after completing the three games, when the 4 players from Labyrinth began to appear again, their names initially appeared as the custom names I had assigned them, but then went away and came back as the default names.
5 Likes
Hey, thanks for playing, and thanks for the review!
Thanks for spotting that minor bug at the end, I was dithering with whether to keep any custom names or not at that point, but it’s probably clearer to set them back to defaults – will be fixed in the next update.
Re. killing Orcs, yeah you start off playing as Torin, and he’s a bit of a fight-first ask questions later kind of hero, this sets up more of a contrast with him and Belgrub’s play-style. I’d like to think that Torin softened a bit by the end and changed his ways going forward!
Really glad to hear you enjoyed playing ‘The Labyrinth’ as a co-op game. Want to know a secret? One of the inspirations for trying an actual multiplayer text game came from someone who reviewed my previous game…
2 Likes
Ahaha, wow, honestly shook up. I will redouble my efforts to provide high-quality thoughts. 
I did enjoy Torin’s arc! (I kept wondering for a l-o-n-g time if Belgrub was going to name the sword Collaboration, which I’m sure I was meant to wonder, but I thought it was a great twist and way of showing Torin’s journey that he and Elara are the ones naming a sword that in the future . . .)
1 Like
Terra Nova – The Mystery of Zephyr’s Landing by P.Rail
Playtime: 49 minutes
This made me want to talk about:
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this is a fun, slightly pulpy, scary sci-fi adventure story with classic vibes. It’s got a lot of story elements that really pop off—scary monsters, nefarious cyborgs, and you can dump lava on things.
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The main “engine” drawing you in is the combo of revealing lore while also exploring a dangerous new place . . . it’s a classic for a reason, I was intrigued
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I enjoyed the art, which really added to the menacing atmosphere (minor quibble, I would have preferred if the PC either never appeared in the art, or appeared near the beginning—since he appeared only near the end I had long since developed a contradictory mental image). The sound design was also great in feeding the atmosphere
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The puzzle aspect was also satisfying. It wasn’t tuned at an extreme level of difficulty, but there’s a real hunter-gatherer satisfaction in seeing an item in one place on the map and realizing where else you have to use it, and that was definitely present here
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Very glad to see the game ships with both contextually available hints and a walkthrough, which I love in any game with puzzle elements. (I used the hints once, about the restricted area).
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Also, I read the walkthrough after completing the game and would recommend looking at it—it contains some interesting notes from the author in addition to typical walkthrough content. (“Egyptian curse” is an interesting lens to view the story through, I hadn’t thought of it while playing but I do see it in hindsight, there was that feeling of awakening a power better left to slumber).
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OK, I carried this hunk of obsidian around for most of the game and failed to find anything to do with it. If I had a transcript (which I don’t think works in the web version) it would show me futilely attempting to hit a lot of things with a rock. If anyone figured out a use for the obsidian, let me know, I’m curious! (I only had 570 out of 600 points, which perhaps is related.)
Notable line:
My one fervent wish:
So, I enjoyed the format of discovering a bunch of revelatory lore. And there’s also a lot going on with LAYERS of lore where the player character thinks A, but actually B. Unfortunately these twists didn’t fully land for me since I, the player, didn’t think A in the first place, so A and B were both the same amount of surprising to me.
So for example, pretty early on I ran into “Kael the Liberator” and hear “Your amazement turns to horror as you come to realize the truth. Kael the Liberator hadn’t died a martyr in the rebellion after all. He had suffered a far worse fate.” Dark. But also–this is the first time I heard the name “Kael the Liberator” or knew we had a rebellion, so I’m too busy chewing that to be surprised that he’s still around.
Or, for example, when looking at the assembly line: “Each station along the line reveals a step in the forced conversion of settlers into cyborgs.” The fact that settlers were forcibly being turned into cyborgs is huge news to me (the player), yet as written I guess the player character knew that already?
Verbatim from my notes during play I have “am I a cyborg? Is that normal?” It’s not exactly bad, but being at that level I was equally surprised by a lot of things I learned.
This might be complicated because the player can get the lore in a lot of different orders in the game, but one thing that might help is delivering key background facts before the twists (e.g., this is not elegant, but if the player character had been musing on the way in about admiration for heroic martyr Kael the Liberator, I would have been a lot more surprised to run into the guy).
Overall, a fun, atmospheric sci-fi puzzler delivering lore and atomsphere in a interesting adventure package
Gameplay tips / typos
- I think the lava is slightly bugged—once in my playthroughs it suddenly vanished from the crucible (saying it was empty) and I had to go back and get more.
1 Like