Thank you very much for your review! You’ve mentioned a few good points to think about in a post-comp release … Thumbs up! 
3 Likes
Where Nothing Is Ever Named by Viktor Sobol
Playtime: 9 minutes
The one where: actually the title pretty much says it
I had a good time with this–immediate grokking of the premise, some brain-wracking, insight. I wouldn’t have minded maybe another room or few items of content in the same vein, but this worked too.
Transcripting and save/restore didn’t seem to be working in the online play version. In a game this short, save and restore isn’t much of a loss—the transcript did stop everyone from seeing me pet a cat about fifty times.
My playtime includes however long it took me to read chapter 3 of Alice in Wonderland. This was an abject failure, both because it gave me no ideas for the game, and because, as an observant reader may note, the blurb actually calls out Through the Looking Glass. That’s right, I read the wrong book.
(The fact that I didn’t realize I was reading the wrong book perhaps demonstrates that Lewis Carroll is Like That for me all of the time.)
Before I exit confessional mode, I’ll throw in that when I solved it I actually thought the big thing was a big DOG but, thinking I was a small child, I still had the urge to ride it. So maybe the Alice in Wonderland helped after all . . .
| Front matter | ||
|---|---|---|
| Could better set the table for the game | Successfully sets the table for the game | Successfully sets the table for the game PLUS |
The art is very moody and atmospheric, and I like the way the title is doing some heavy lifting in conjunction with such a short piece.
Overall, a satisfying, short game of one puzzle.
7 Likes
Yup. Same here.
3 Likes
today’s theme, courtesy of the rng-gods: two games ft. titles that rhyme
The Master’s Lair by Stefan Hoffman
Playtime: 2 hours (ran out of time, did not reach an ending)
The one where: you try to rob your magic teacher’s house
- game is a custom executable
Fair or un-, these always prompt the question: “are the benefits [to the player, I’m selfish] of this custom game format outweighing the costs [time to download and install, etc.]?”
It sounded like people were having issues with the Windows download, so I played this in Android. As those who know me irl can attest, I hate downloading apps so this was a real sacrifice.
Playing on a phone dictated using the multiple choice input option (the game advertises that it offers a choice of parser or choice format), and also meant I was on a tiny screen and unable to copy and paste quotes. (I still brought quotes, dear reader, I just want you to appreciate the required effort.)
In an unfortunate turn of events, there ended up being a *lot* of lag with the game. Clicking a hyperlink resulted in a several second pause before any action was taken. At one point the app auto-closed—when I reopened it the delay was improved, but still notable. I’m not an Android power user, nor was I running it on The World’s Most Powerful Phone, but it was a bit surprising to me to have so many issues with a text-based app. I persevered, but I’m sure the friction affected my impressions, as well as how far I was able to get in the game, because . . . every . . . action . . . took . . . a . . . small . . . eternity. (For reference, I wrapped around 410 points in, which is not particularly far.)
Other than the delay issue, the game worked great. (Although I couldn’t find the mentioned in-game hints, but there is a separate walkthrough though, which was helpful).
So, to return to the “was it wort it” question–I take it that the draw of the custom executable here was (1) the ability to offer both parser and choice, (2) the ability to offer both English and German, and perhaps (3) the ability to offer an app. These aren’t particularly ideas that appeal to me (I mean, I like parser and choice but I’m probably going to only play one version of a given game), so I probably would have had more fun if this had just been in one of the standard formats.
- everything else
This is a classic fantasy set-up—the PC wants to rob the instructor’s house, which of course is chock full of magic artifacts.
I wouldn’t have minded a bit more backstory. There are actually some intriguing ANTI-sympathetic beats with the PC near the beginning, I was curious to learn more. And why steal this claw specifically? Feels like there’s a story there.
Generally I enjoyed the puzzling. It has that sort of puzzle-game “why would someone hide a key behind an illusory shower tile” vibe but what I saw of the puzzles seemed fair. Using items in the choice-based set-up was pretty easy (although at one point I was confused about the difference between “put A on B” and “tip A on B”).
The mechanic with reanimating the taxidermy animals and talking to them was also fun and added an interesting layer to previously visited rooms.
There’s the typical dose of anachronistic humor here, which was moderately entertaining.
I wish less scenery had been implemented. Perhaps I noticed this especially because of how painful taking actions was, but there was a lot implemented that didn’t yield useful or even atmospheric information:
(here both the “pentagram” and “paint” were hypertext)
| Front matter | ||
|---|---|---|
| Could better set the table for the game | Successfully sets the table for the game | Successfully sets the table for the game PLUS |
I think the cover art could connect more to the game. It has a sort of sleek aesthetic that makes me think of smooth, one-level games (e.g., Bejeweled or something), and it focuses on a gem. In reality our primary object is to steal a claw, maybe put that in the art?
Overall, if it works well for you at a technical level, a perfectly good parser puzzler, but I think I needed more of a “plus” factor
Gameplay tips / typos
I think this game was translated into English from German. There were a few cases where the game treated as synonyms words that I think are a bit further apart:
-
“cupboard” and “closet” – to me, a cupboard is a standalone (i.e., you could buy one at IKEA, you could slide a cupboard across the floor), whereas a closet is built of the same material as the walls and constructed at the time of the house
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“writing” and 'font" – people use “font” and “typeface” similarly (this simplification pains my inner typography nerd). So, say, Comic Sans is a font. The actual letters on a mysterious note are writing.
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“toilet flushing”—to me, flushing is just the verb of what a toilet does. Since this is a space we can open I think it would be the “toilet tank”
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“well” and “fountain” –generally speaking I think a fountain shoots a stream of water out of part of it (e.g., the Trevi Fountain). The one in the game is a deep pool of water that can be covered, so it sounds more like a well.
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“tongs” and “pliers”—if we’re talking about something used with food, it’s really only tongs. Pliers are heavy-duty items bought in hardware stores / used to pull out someone’s teeth as a form of torture in movies.
8 Likes
The Triskelion Affair by Clyde Falsoon
Playtime: 1 hour 6 minutes
The one that’s: a straightforward parser puzzler in which we retrieve a dangerous weapon from a necromantically-infested church.
Although the blurb very clearly states that you are a “medieval detective,” the title gives me such strong James Bond movie title vibes that I kept thinking I was going to be a secret agent. To be clear this is very much on me.
So! We are a medieval detective (OK actually, I still have questions about the detective part. Our rank is Lieutenant, the task we are given seems appropriate for a high-ranking military person [whispers: or . . . a medieval secret agent? just saying], and what does it even mean to be a medieval detective? Is this an official job title?)
I quite like that the game opened with an extended tutorial sequence (which, I’m not new to parsers, but seems like it would be a good intro for people who are). My pet peeve is games where the first thing you want to do is gated by a difficult puzzle.
Although, re: the opening sequence, I struggled to understand how the game was trying to characterize the PC. The PC experiences quite the mood shift in between these two adjacent rooms? :
The puzzles in the main game are also fairly straightforward, which was fine by me. The enjoyment is more about taking in the horror movie atmosphere and looking at creepy things.
I thought the game was very successful in creating a creepy atmosphere. There’s blood in unexpected places! At one point you go down some darkened stairs and the door you came through shuts behind you!
There are a lot of items around you don’t need, but I found that successful in creating a lived in feeling (much as I was hoping to trap a zombie with the bear trap). But it would have been nice to get a heads-up early in the game that there is an inventory limit.
The front matter mentions that there’s a randomized element to combat. I was a bit surprised to fight only one zombie—if the entire prior party vanished and there’s corpses everywhere, I was somewhat expecting a horde.
Oh, and the very final scene really confused me, and ultimately drove me into the walkthrough. When the weapon goes through Barak’s hands, my immediate thought was that Barak had just been revealed as a ghost etc., not that the amulet that had visibly done nothing the entire game was doing something. I think Barak’s dialogue could be more helpful at this point.
But the puzzle and plot elements were good and enjoyable in sum.
- implementation issues
I think the biggest thing this game could use is another round of polish at the parser implementation.
- I think I tried but failed to pick up the strange looking key–which the in-game text refers to as a skeleton key–because I already had a different “skeleton key”, although I actually only noticed this much later . . .
- You can move around once you enter the wagon, including going into the cottage, which is odd
- Reading the etching on the statues was a torment. Here’s some excerpts:
trying to read statue 1
That’s where I gave up the first time. Later it became clear the text on the statues was plot-relevant, sending me back again:
trying to read statue 2
(Note that the key word, “inscription,” is not in the relevant descriptions, and that even using that word it is still very clunky.)
Relevant to this, I think if using error responses like “Seriously?!” or “Surely you’re joking” or Do you really need to do that?”, one should consider (1) if one is confident that the player is not going to see the message repeatedly while trying to do something plot-relevant, and if not, (2) how that will feel for the player. (I would say: “grating.”)
| Front matter | ||
|---|---|---|
| Could better set the table for the game | Successfully sets the table for the game | Successfully sets the table for the game PLUS |
I acknowledged above my detective / secret agent issues, but I think that’s just on me.
Overall, a straightforward parser with chilling horror beats and some rough parser implementation
Gameplay tips / typos
-
“cemetary” should be “cemetery” throughout
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in the embalming room, “cannister” should be “canister”
7 Likes
today’s theme, courtesy of the rng-gods: two games ft. PC’s with untrustworthy superiors
Awakened Deeply by R.A. Cooper
Playtime: 1 hour 1 minute
The one where: nearly everyone else on this spaceship is dead!
The game gets off to an action-packed start, quickly establishing the parlous situation (vibes of Project Hail Mary, if also there were people there trying to kill you). I mean, I died in the first 4 minutes (affectionate).
The overall game experience is also kinetic and well-paced. It’s pretty successful in establishing an action-movie feeling where we feel that we are discovering backstory and advancing the plot at a quick pace. The puzzles were generally well-sequenced to give the PC what they need to solve them, which enables this feeling of a faster pace. It’s tough job to correctly sequence everything out this way to create that illusion of player competence and I admire that.
The game also is has some excellent horror beats (errr, that time a bunch of corpses rolled out of a storage room), and some fun action beats (the “hide in the locker” sequence was a fun concept).
There are two main areas I’d look at for improvement—writing and synonyms.
- writing
There are some weaknesses in the writing. At the micro level, sometimes things are described in sort of the Most Obvious way:
We also have both an NPC named Jones and one named Smith, wouldn’t mind some more variation there.
At a macro level, the game raises (perhaps unintentionally) some questions without satisfying answers (who is Smith, why is the PC still alive, if it’s not aliens why did they bother putting those bodies in that storage locker, if the PC was not in charge of this ship then who was, etc.).
And my biggest gripe was that I thought the ending where the PC becomes a terroristdecides to blow up a [space station? which probably has a lot of people on it?] needed WAY more development to be seen as the “good” ending, which I suspect it was meant to be based on the tone. Like I in no way understood enough about what had happened / who was on that station / why it would help to make that seem like a good idea.
- the parser needs to recognize more synonyms
Before I gripe, let me kudos the author for putting “TURN DIAL to ###” will be the command for this one.” into the game at the safe. From my notes: Honestly thank god
There were spots though where I struggled with coming up with the one command the parser would accept. It didn’t affect my experience too much because I was able to find the right commands (well, except for the hard drive, but that was optional, but it would be a smoother experience if the game were written to accept more synonyms.
Ex 1 getting out of the storage locker (contains unmarked spoilers)
Ex 2 storage room (contains unmarked spoilers)
Ex 3 hard drive (contains unmarked spoilers)
I had tried “plug hard drive into mainframe” and “attach hard drive to mainframe” and gave up, before later learning in the walkthrough the correct command is “insert hard drive into mainframe”
Overall I thought the puzzles were quite zippy and well done and I had a lot of fun with this, but I do think ironing some of these spots out would be a big step up in terms of player experience.
Awakened Deeply wolfbiter - Copy.txt (85.6 KB)
| Front matter | ||
|---|---|---|
| Could better set the table for the game | Successfully sets the table for the game | Successfully sets the table for the game PLUS |
To briefly indulge myself, to use “decimated” to mean “pretty much completely destroyed” will really bait the pedants out there (the traditional meaning of “decimated” is reduced by 1/10—I’d say the crew is well past that point).
I am a big fan of the title. Not sure if there’s a word for this kind of wordplay, but I love that the “deep” is much more closely associated with being asleep, so pairing it with waking up is unexpected but also feels like it makes sense.
Overall, fast-paced, high octane horror beats in a derelict spaceship if you can also accept some light jankiness in implementation
Gameplay tips / typos
-
in the description when using the keypad “postive” should be “positive”
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in the description of the laboratory, “eraticly” should be “erratically”
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in the “blow things up” ending, “you strap youself” should be “you strap yourself”
7 Likes
Unreal People by Viwoo
Playtime: 38 minutes
Note to those either seeking out or avoiding sexual content: the blurb made me think maybe this game was going to involve voyeurism in the sexual sense. Ymmv, but I actually found the sexual content to be pretty limited (at the level of, say, two characters briefly mentioning that they are going to hook up later)—the discussion of voyeurism is in the more general sense of how strange it would be to experience someone else’s inner thoughts.
Also, this review is going to contain unmarked overall spoilers.
The one where: we collect gossip by body-hopping. And maybe explore samsara?
OK, let’s cut straight to the ending: I liked it. True, it doesn’t tie up any of the pending plot threads. On my read, that’s the point. The game’s view is that if one had achieved knowledge of everything, that would necessarily include knowledge of all of the plot threads, but also it would be boring and you wouldn’t care anymore. And I felt how alien that would be was illustrated by the fact that human-wolfbiter still wanted to know what happened to all of those plot threads . . .
Instead, what confused me about the ending is what the larger message was supposed to be / how that theme connected to the rest of the story or outside concepts. I wanted this to connect somehow to the idea of a cycle of death and rebirth which is (in my rudimentary understanding) present in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, a lot of religions originating in the Indian subcontinent. The PC is literally going through a cycle of becoming a lot of different organisms, starting with simpler ones and moving up to humans. But the game’s ending seemed pretty specific that the “problem” was that by getting omniscience, things became boring. And I guess that’s not what I usually understand the “problem” to be in samsara? I mean I think the concept is you don’t recall past lives, so you’re not obtaining unlimited knowledge through them, it’s more the futility / suffering of doing the same thing again and again (which the PC doesn’t really seem to be struggling with). And the storylines in the game didn’t seem to mirror a theme about the dangers of having too much knowledge. Of course the game can have whatever message it wants, it’s not obligated to connect to any extant religious or philosophical belief, but if there was a coherent message it was not discerned by me.
Let’s see, other thoughts:
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“You piddle into being” as the first line really does set a tone.
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The text-entry box sequence was very effective. I did not have “achieve plenary knowledge as a god” on my bingo card for today
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Relentless anachronism in the depiction of historical places is certainly a standard approach in a lot of games. I could handle the lightbulbs, etc. here, and I actually enjoyed some of the dialogue (“He’s wearing the same rock as me isn’t he? He wants to be me so bad.”) But I kept being jarred by what felt like specifically european tropes (knights wearing helmets, knights talking about killing dragons as a job duty). I liked the other moments where specifics to the setting were mentioned, and would have enjoyed more of that.
-
wow, I’m not going to enumerate all of the examples because I see others have already done so, but for a game that it is possible to play to completion, this is still a very unfinished game (i.e., descriptions and code are not finished)
| Front matter | ||
|---|---|---|
| Could better set the table for the game | Successfully sets the table for the game | Successfully sets the table for the game PLUS |
I liked the cover art.
Overall, a relative short game with some fun social dynamics and a twist ending that will not leave you ambivalent
Gameplay tips / typos
- “haindmaiden” should be “handmaiden” (right when Queen goes to make speech)
5 Likes
Hello Wolfbiter,
Thanks a lot for your review of “The Master’s Lair”!
Some notes:
Yes, there were a problem with the Windows version. It’s fixed now!
And many thanks for the sacrifice to install the executable on your smartphone!
I’m really worried about the lag factor, which do not occur on my several devices. I will look into this asap, and I hope I can save other players from this pain. I hope it’s okay to contact you for a quick test once I have an update that should solve this issue.
All in all, I have again found things in this review that I should still correct. Thank you very much for that!
2 Likes
today’s theme, courtesy of the rng-gods: two games ft. an institution of higher education as a significant location
The Killings in Wasacona by Steve Kollmansberger
Playtime: 43 minutes
The one where: recent FBI grad investigates string of murders
I was excited about this game based on the front matter alone; I have always wanted to be Clarice Starling.
The game takes an rpg-inflected approach—you can customize your stats or take one of several pre-built “archetypes,” and then some investigative tasks require skill checks based on a die roll. I quite liked this. It was nice that the game showed the skill checks directly so you would understand what was affecting what happened to you. And I liked the overall frame that you won’t be able to get every clue—it added a sense of realism. That’s just how life works, no one can convince every witness to open up to them or notice every possible connection. (And there’s quite a bit of information available that doesn’t require skill checks.)
Now, the danger of this approach is now we have players running around with arbitrarily different amounts of information, but I thought the game handled this really well. The mystery still worked for me despite missing a bunch of skill checks so I think a lot must have gone in behind the scenes to making it still make sense.
I didn’t take one of the pre-made archetypes, but I customized to +6 to physical with deficits elsewhere, so that was probably pretty close to the physical archetype. (Look, I was just thinking “what if you have to engage in fisticuffs with a suspect” and I really did Not want to lose.) (minor spoilers theorizing about efficacy of various builds) I have since seen discussion, including in the walkthrough, that focusing on physical is not the optimal approach, and that’s no doubt true. Different paths probably differ, but I got exactly 2 physical checks all game, and they were both after I told the sheriff to go make an arrest. Still, I wouldn’t say I anti-recommend doing that—the mystery was still pretty solvable and now I get to feel I bloomed in the face of adversity &c &c .
The gameplay is very procedurally focused (we can go to the morgue, we can interview people, we can visit crime scenes) with light resource-management elements, which matches well with the realistic vibe and gives a pleasing sense of autonomy.
On the realism point, the game was also very effective at making me feel the tension between resting and committing future crimes (I’m sorry Jamal . . .).
The writing didn’t get in the way of the game but it might be a focus for future efforts—some of the dialogue read a bit clunky.
And there was a few times the game mechanics were unexpected in an unpleasant way—not sure if this was a bug or not, but sometimes taking one option would foreclose the option of doing the others, and sometimes not (e.g., after I questioned the server at the restaurant I couldn’t eat a meal anymore, after I got the call logs I couldn’t call the victim’s phone).
Finally, I wondered if it was significant that I got the option to arrest Black very early—when I barely had any evidence, andI never got the option to arrest anyone else. I actually think that was not meant to be dispositive that he was the correct choice, but just to indicate I had found some quanta of evidence about him but not others. If that’s the case, spelling that out might avoid people thinking they’ve been spoiled.
I liked the stat table after finishing—if the author does a postmortem I would LOVE to see stats on say, how people build the PC, which pieces of evidence were most and least frequently discovered, etc.
| Front matter | ||
|---|---|---|
| Could better set the table for the game | Successfully sets the table for the game | Successfully sets the table for the game PLUS |
Overall, a very well planned and polished procedural mystery
Gameplay tips / typos
- unlike most locations, you can visit the sheriff’s office more than once
5 Likes
First Contact by dott. Piergiorgio
Playtime: 43 minutes
The one with a: three-way meet-cute at magic school
This game is unabashedly committed to its premise, which I respect. It was pretty early in the game that we get beats like “what matters is my relationship and feelings towards the natural force lying raw and untapped behind my pubes” which pretty well clue the player about what lies in store.
- overall approach
This game has very few game-like elements. The player pretty much clicks to advance screens, or occasionally exhausts a list before clicking to advance screens. I would like a LOT more to do as a player. I think the first step would be making the different topics optional so the player can move on “early” if they want. By my timer it took me nine minutes to make it off the initial page of mandatory links. (I like reading worldbuilding, but even for me the oath and the obligations in particular were too long and unnecessary for the beginning of the game.)
Setting aside the amount of interactivity, the written material is sort of a combination of a TTRPG sourcebook and a novella. This is an awkward combo because the infodumps from the sourcebook parts keep you from getting purely into the story, but if you’re there for the infodumps you might wonder why you have to watch people making out.
I think others have suggested chopping the infodump sections and only putting in worldbuilding where it can be naturally merged into the narrative. This would make the overall result more novella-like. That’s certainly one possible approach and would probably be an improvement.
I’ll throw in though: we could also address the issue from the opposite direction—if the material really wants to be a TTRPG sourcebook, let it! Maybe there’s some in-game encyclopedia or journal etc. that the PC is carrying around and the player can click in there whenever they want to read relevant lore dumps on the culture, magic system, etc. I think that would also be an improvement to get the material cabined in one place where the reader had some control of how and when to engage with it.
- plot elements
The romance section dragged for me. I agree with those who mentioned that including the soulmate element and everything up to the special marriage was too much content to cover in the game. The natural scope of the game felt like it should have been the first day of class, set up the relationships, do the remembrance, then leave it there.
I also needed a lot more details to sell the romance. It seemed like most of what we got was generic statements that the PC found the other two mystically compelling / “beautiful” etc. It would have helped me get more into it if there was more specific details about what exactly the PC sees in each of them. As a reader, just thinking “oh, they’re beautiful then” is difficult.
It might also be useful to try to develop a unique dialogue voice for each character. I got the sense that Atuzejiki was a bit more impulsive, but the other characters (Etuye, Lan, Miryarai) all sounded similar to me when they talked.
- worldbuilding elements
OK, I do have a lot of inherent suspicion about the concept of a Great Peace that was formed by . . . one powerful faction making war on everyone. And I would have needed a lot more explanation of how everyone was prevented from engaging in revenge afterwards.
Setting that aside, there were some points that where–given how much worldbuilding I was getting on other topics–I was a bit disappointed not to get worldbuilding on:
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time scrying and soulmancy? The PC mentions that she has these, and I was like oh cool can’t wait for the explanation but . . . there wasn’t one. Later she says that it will pair well with the other’s abilities but that didn’t conjure up anything specific for me because I don’t know what time scrying and soulmancy do.
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I’ll bite: if we’re doing this, give me more breastfeeding-based worldbuilding! [Since it hasn’t come up thus far in the review, I should note that a lot of the game is about a large breastfeeding ritual and also it’s implied that people commonly breastfeed each other, including for dinner between friends.]
- how common is breastfeeding adults, culturally? I was confused at the start of the remembrance scene. The PC has a kind of surprised reaction, and I couldn’t tell if that was a “we have a breastfeeding taboo” reaction or just that the concept of doing the specific remembrance with Lan was shocking to her. (Later the impromptu dinner scene I think cleared that up for me, but it would have been better not to be confused.)
- What does breastfeeding someone else mean in this culture, specifically? The main characters seem to think it’s a casual way to have dinner, but is that because they’re already friends? How does this vary among cultures / the different species present? Is there inter-group conflict (group A thinks group B is backwards and unsanitary, group B thinks group A are a bunch of libertines)?
- If you’re riding the fantasy!Amtrak and you get hungry, is it socially acceptable to ask a breast-having person for a drink? As a breast-having person, is it socially normal to say no to people who you find annoying or is that considered a bit aggro?
- Does everyone just lactate all the time?
- How are they getting around the thermodynamics problems? (i.e., a human woman producing 300 kcal of milk needs to eat MORE than 300 kcal additional because it takes energy to make milk, so people cannot just all feed each other in a closed loop). Is there a magic explanation?
- It’s mentioned that dragons like Lan have a prodigious output—is there some kind of storage or transportation system to get this distributed to the smaller species? (I’m picturing here the truck from Mad Max: Fury Road).
- How do men (or women who don’t lactate for medical reasons or whatever) feel about the cultural significance of milk? Do they feel excluded from nurturing /caring for others? Have they developed replacement rituals where they carry around granola bars to offer people or something?
(Plz note, I am not saying I want the answers delivered as like, a 10 slide deck, but I would have enjoyed if the plot addressed any of these issues).
| Front matter | ||
|---|---|---|
| Could better set the table for the game | Successfully sets the table for the game | Successfully sets the table for the game PLUS |
Overall, a niche product with some roughness in execution, but you know, I was interested enough to want to keep reading at every point
12 Likes
Having not played First Contact myself, I find it really interesting to read a review focused on the worldbuilding and the questions it raises!
7 Likes
again, more than the usual thankyou:
***[You have substantially increased the size of First Contact’s postmortem]***
and a more substantial increase re. the other reviewer who got the acheviement, I add.
Best regards from Italy,
dott. Piergiorgio.
7 Likes
today’s theme, courtesy of the rng-gods: two games by authors with a first name starting with “An”
Redjackets by Anna C. Webster
Playtime: 31 minutes
The one where: vampires and humans work together to commit crimes
I definitely came in primed to like this one. Vampires! Shadowy secret organizations! Although it delivered on both of those points, my overall experience was colored with frustration, as I’ll get to below. But first, things that were working and some other thoughts.
The three-playable PCs was an interesting concept, although I only played through once as Lynette. I also enjoyed the character portraits.
Lynette . . . came across as a touch younger and more naive than I expected from the initial description (“The hollow one. Seasoned. Haunted. Stubborn.” I was imagining someone harder boiled, like a Sarah Connor in Terminator 2 [or hey, Sarah Connor in Terminator: Dark Fate, shout-out to the other 2 people who saw this movie] or Zoe in Firefly). This dissonance was heightened by the character portrait, which also struck me as young-looking. But once I got to know her she was fun to spend time with. (I especially enjoyed her in camp counselor mode with the young vampire.)
I also enjoyed the confession of feelings, which was played in a pleasantly grounded, unconventional way. (and very sweet:
)
The plot is a perfectly fine escalation beginning with bringing in a new baby-vampire, and then the development of an op that also explains how the organization functions.
Now that I’ve sufficiently buried the lede, the two things frustrated me:
- (whisper:) I think we’re the bad guys
I need you to know I tried so hard not to reach this conclusion. From the very beginning—nay, from the blurb–I knew the game wanted me to buy into killing Rosco, and I tried valiantly to do so. But there was just So! Little! Given! to explain why it would be justified to go all extrajudicial killing on this guy.
I’m not sure if there’s more on the routes for the other PCs, but here’s the grand sum of reasons I recall seeing for why Rosco should die:
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in the blurb he is described as “the head of a massive organized crime ring (and a vampire at that).” I take it we’re not meant to hold vampiric-ness against him. I don’t recall ever learning anything else about this crime ring or what that entails?
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he refused to make a deal with our shadowy, extrajudicial organization
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he apparently runs some kind of business re-selling art for a lot of money. Honestly this might be totally above board, but at absolute worst it seems like maybe the art is forged? (who’s next against the wall, Neal Caffrey from White Collar?)
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he offers Fiia an exploitative financial deal to become a vampire and his employee—while I’m against offering unfair employment contracts to grad students, I don’t think that’s a capital crime
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Fiia says vaguely that she knows he has done bad things and that he will kill her if she turns on him. (Although she does, in fact, turn on him, which he finds out about without killing her, so the accuracy of this statement seems questionable.)
And in fact in terms of what we see him do onscreen, he turns Fiia and tries to protect Fiia and Vincent while fighting for his life. The second one in particular—I love the concept of giving the big bad some kind of unexpected character beat there, but when I was already like “maybe we should . . . NOT kill this guy” it was a bit counterproductive!
So, it left me with the inescapable impression that the PC’s group is just unethical vigilantes who murder people? (and kidnap vulnerable people and extort them to join?) I could tell this was in tension with the view the game wanted me to take (e.g., we’re told the group normally does “restorative justice,” which I take it is meant to signal ethical status).
I think this could be addressed easily, just throw in some standard “he killed my favorite NASCAR driver” / “he’s letting vampires murder humans” / “he’s cutting drugs with fentanyl” or what-have-you. But it has to actually be there!
- lack of interactivity
So, my previous gripe separated this game from being a successful novella. I think to be a successful IF game, it would also need to add a LOT of interactivity. (The only choice I recall that felt like it affected anything was deciding who to assign to which job.) There is very little for the player to do, yet I’m crying out to do something! We have a “gearing up for battle” scene—let me choose my gear! We have a battle scene, let me contribute something! Perhaps even let me . . . decide if we should kill Rosco!
I had the definite sense that the game just wasn’t trusting me to contribute, which was a shame.
| Front matter | ||
|---|---|---|
| Could better set the table for the game | Successfully sets the table for the game | Successfully sets the table for the game PLUS |
Plus point because the front matter did a great job making me want to play the game, minus point because it’s describing a bit of a different game that what I got (I question the: “But the rest? That’s up to you.”)
Overall, an interesting, if flawed, story to read
7 Likes
Why Pout? by Andrew Schultz
Playtime: 1 hour 18 minutes
The one where: we solve all of our problems through word puzzles
I’ve played and enjoyed several of the many games by this author.
Similar to some of my past experiences, we are once more in a non-specific fantasy setting with a fairytale sensibility, solving word puzzles to collect companions and complete a mildly amorphous quest. Generally the goal is to help people, which is nice. Here, the specific wordplay mechanic is that we are taking two-word phrases from the game text and more or less rebracketing them to form a new two-word phrase.
The instructions are pretty clear, the intro area offers a lot of examples, and if you get one of the two words correct it will encourage you. The game is also very directive in telling you you can’t solve an item yet / you need another companion to advance, etc., which I appreciated (especially where there’s not really any real-world logic militating these conclusions, it’s helpful to just be told).
This is probably my favorite of these that I’ve played so far. At times I got on a roll and coming up with the answers was sparking real joy (”grow star”, “six quid”). What I ended up doing was making a big table with all of the clues and answers, including the examples from the intro, and just staring at the when I was having trouble . . . honestly it helped. So I did feel at points that I had achieved some level of competency.
At other times, I was definitely driven into the walkthrough (glad there was one!). There are a few where the answers seemed particularly idiomatic / echoes-of-scrabble-dictionary (the one requiring “nah” as a word in the answer and the one requiring “manna”). These both threw me so much—and one is very near the beginning—that I’m not sure it was worth the gains of making the game two puzzles longer. (And one time I failed to identify that two of the words in the room description were meant to be a clue [”high doubt”].)
Towards the end I found I was using the walkthrough more. Starting from about when I had the penultimate companion, it stopped being clear to me where on the map I was supposed to go or which things had to be done in certain locations or with specific companions. (And probably I was just fatigued. Your mileage will vary but I think I hit the sweet spot with this game maybe 15 minutes before it ended.)
I wonder if a bit more could be done with the companions? I liked the concept where we had to talk to them all, but the things they would tell me all seemed so generic that they didn’t really convey much. Like yes, those are good goals, but the difficult part is precisely how you do that.
And there were a few parser-ish behaviors that seemed odd.
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the squid was described as choking every time I tried to talk to it?
- sometimes after I had completed a puzzle, the game would react as though it was encouraging me for half-solving it every time I typed one of those words (i.e., after summoning the gnome, if I typed “x gnome” it would encourage me).
Why Pout wolfbiter - Copy.txt (54.5 KB)
| Front matter | ||
|---|---|---|
| Could better set the table for the game | Successfully sets the table for the game | Successfully sets the table for the game PLUS |
OK I knew what I was getting from previous years, but I think it’s a bit too opaque to make the only reference to wordplay: “we gave you ice cream.”
Overall, diverting word puzzles in a somewhat generic fantasy setting
5 Likes
Thanks, I forgot to wipe out a default verb.EAT (anything) will a fun small update to make!
2 Likes
today’s today and tomorrow’s theme, courtesy of the rng-gods: two games ft. extremely advanced technology . . . wait, what do you mean it wants to kill us?
Doctor Who and the Dalek Super-Brain by jkj yuio
Playtime: 17 minutes
The one where: we fight Daleks
I am coming in at a disadvantage here since I have only learned through cultural osmosis about Doctor Who.
The game is fully illustrated, has sound effects, and a custom choice-based interface. I liked that the interface made it easy to tell what was going to offer more description and what was going to advance the screen. The 3D assets look good. The writing deploys some funny lines:
I think my main issue is that a lot of elements of the game fit comfortably into what I would think of as a sort of straightforward power fantasy: the single “puzzle” is very easy, the PC takes crucial actions on their own without the chance for any player input (giving the Super-Brain a paradox), we’re mostly there to enjoy the “retro, cheesy vibe of Doctor Who from the 80’s & 90’s era” as stated on the game’s home page. (Side note that the home page also notes that it is replicating using “the Doctor’s companion” in the “oft-criticised role” of “damsel in distress.” Fully checks out, and perhaps meant to push me away from registering criticism about how much that character is wasted. So I’ll just stick with–she was.)
But I was minorly thrown out of it, viewed through that lens, by the whole initial plot. Like, my inclination if I’m just vibing in this light-hearted homage is to resist the daleks and not reveal the secrets of time travel to them! Which gets Bex killed! And then the game tells you you are going to give up the secrets of time travel anyway, at the point that makes the least sense! And then I was kind of like “well no doubt I will fix Bex later with time travel, since this game already brought up that time travel exists!” Further spoiler alert, but that does not happen. So I guess I wish the game had leaned a bit further into the power fantasy aspects.
I did enjoy coming back and finding the Super-Brain on fire. Very Portal.
| Front matter | ||
|---|---|---|
| Could better set the table for the game | Successfully sets the table for the game | Successfully sets the table for the game PLUS |
Overall, lives up to the promise of a cheesy, retro outing with the Doctor, although I could have loved the plot more.
7 Likes
This has been bugging me. It really should be “60s, 70’s and 80’s”. The 90’s only had the one movie and no TV show. There, I said it.
6 Likes
clearly others on the forum vastly exceed my knowledge about the Doctor . . .
3 Likes
Well, and quite a lot of occasionally-edgelord-y novels, from my understanding, so that might track.
(I’ve seen very little Dr Who but one of the bloggers I like occasionally does reviews of ancillary material).
3 Likes
Thanks a lot for your review of Dr Who;
And Todd is from Lewisham. I managed to locate 5 Lewishams over the world and possibly one more in Zimbabwe, but it is spelled slightly different. The game picks a random one to tell you. For amusement!
4 Likes