Reviews by HereticMole

Originally written on the intfiction forums. Minor edits were made.

I was optimistic when I learned that this visual novel was by the Saltwrack author. They made quite an impression through their survival game filled with just enough information of lived-in worlds to leave you with a vivid picture, but with ample open room and ambiguity. My interest grew when I read the description on itch.io speaking of the assassination of rulers, underground societies with unorthodox, twisted beings and beliefs, and “antierotic obscenity.” They sure delivered.

Upon opening the game, I was immediately greeted with a background image resembling an entrance to a mossy cave, a gothic font (I eventually had to switch to a more readable DejaVu Sans from the accessibility menu on repeated playthroughs), and music that I can only describe as “sparse chime-y drone BGM” with occasional concerning-sounding human(?) vocalizations. I kept the game open for quite a while just because the title music is nice to listen to.

Crier is weird and gross (praising) and perilous for yourself and others. It contains just enough information on the world that made me yearn for more drip-fed cave lichen lore and a motley collection of Creatures. It is absolutely not for everyone - the presentation and a lot of the characters’ speaking habits and appearances (looking at you, (Spoiler - click to show)proxydrone, but you rock that stinger dick) can be off-putting. Still, you don’t necessarily have to be a Person Who Enjoys or Is Interested in Being Enveloped in Cave Mildew While Attempting to Become a Cyborg to have a productive time discovering the nuggets of insight from this deliberately unpleasant presentation.

Descend into grime and meet homuncuslime queens, chitin drones, and blorbo from our chemicals! Tap into life-threatening violations to make deposing all-powerful leaders a reality! Listen to minimalistic ambient sounds! Sometimes there’s a Menacing Piano of Anxiety when you run into a real creep (and I mean it, one character’s description made me do a double-take over a certain word)! Appreciate the drippy lichen cavern aesthetic from a distance! Experience many gruesome game overs (the visuals fade to black thankfully)! Embrace and interpret imperfect communication in order to destroy the unjust world order!

Originally written on the intfiction forums. Minor edits were made.

This is a hyperlink story that is also a demonstration of the author’s own Spiki framework. Dialogue is shown in script form with descriptions written in literary style. To progress the story, you can click underlined text within the current page or click on the passage names at the bottom bar. You can actually go to any passage in the game, regardless of where you are, by accessing the sandwich menu at the top left.

Cyclic Fruition centers around a trio (there is a narrator, who sometimes speaks as if they are part of the group, but they’re not acknowledged by the others so I was confused if they were an actual entity) who decide to explore a nearby town since their train hasn’t arrived. While going through the story you will quickly, or eventually, learn (Spoiler - click to show)that the game continuously loops. You will go back to the same starting passages (text does not change with repetitions, so you are reading the exact same words) once you explore a thread enough.

The word choice, description quality and overall structure made this story interesting to think about, if a little hard to digest. One particular thread takes a turn into a philosophical and linguistic discussion after a short verse section. Another passage contains (Spoiler - click to show)a hyperlink that doesn’t shunt you towards the next passage, but rather a blog post about a real-life textbook, with its origin story quite similar to what just happened in the game. Within the blog post is a diagram that explicitly inspired Cyclic Fruition’s structure, including the direct names of some passages. After reading the post, I understood what the author was going for and appreciate what their goal was writing this game, though I still find my comprehension of the final product uncertain and incomplete.

Still, I was immersed in this little world, and it was a great way to get me to start thinking more about (Spoiler - click to show)behavior structure.