Kaboom by anonymous
TLDR: An poignant, slightly melancholy puzzler about a toy trying to save the life of its person.
Gamemechanical notes: Choice based. Focuses on puzzles, I got the sense there was one “main” ending and then some “fail” endings but didn’t experiment exhaustively. (Note that sometimes interacting with things is under “examine ____” and sometimes it is in your inventory under front or back paws, e.g., “touch ____ with front paws.” Saving is also in your inventory and only available after a certain point in the game.)
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a really creative and unique concept—you’re a toy using your limited powers (you can barely move small objects) to try to save your “mistress,” a little girl, after her home is struck by some kind of bomb
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excellent combination of player character / plot and accompanying themes. The player character has no concept of war or bombs and understands very little except that the girl needs help; whereas the player will have a pretty good sense of what’s going on. That distance gives a lot of power to the message; you know, war is senseless and it looks particularly senseless from the perspective of a toy. (Think the choice to use Scout, who doesn’t understand racism, as the narrator in To Kill a Mockingbird).
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this is a story about a toy but it’s pretty emotionally hard hitting. The bit at the end where I had to expose myself to fire, my greatest fear, to save the girl . . . oof, very effective
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[about the main ending] I really enjoyed the ending. It’s bleak, but that felt appropriate to the subject matter.
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- I struggled with some of the puzzles. Fortunately the game includes a walkthrough so I didn’t get too frustrated. It also helps that there’s pretty limited areas / possible items. Two things that might help– when you enter an area you get a snippet of description but it’s not a full “look” and in particular, it doesn’t tell you what items are present there. This creates a surprising amount of friction for key items that you move around because if you forget exactly where you left them now you are going place to place “looking.” And for me, the idea of needing to look at / access the bottom of the cassette player could have been signalled more. I think I would have gotten there more easily if any of the text during the initial view or examination of the cassette player had hinted that there was something about the bottom that could / needed to be interacted with.