Reviews by HereticMole

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

You are a Mysterious Creature Researcher, on a Mysterious Creature Hunt after a totally-not-nefarious-front hires you to do so. To facilitate this, you’re given the location of a small town with a history of strange animals, a convenient stealth suit and a list of three such Mysterious Cryptids to catch.

You are given a choice of six set locations to go to. Each location has the same cryptid, but the list of required ones is randomized each playthrough. Once you go to a location, you encounter an unusual creature, and must cross-reference the initial description (that can be expanded with further observation and taking photos) against the traits written in the list (which is a convenient choice click away). You can back out and come back later if you’re not sure, which is advisable since you’ll most likely find at least two cryptids with overlapping traits in the required list. You also have a notebook that lets you write your own text, which is a nice feature but I didn’t feel the need to utilize it in my playthroughs.

The game is reasonably paced and not too long. A first playthrough will probably take fifteen to thirty-five minutes depending on how thorough you are. You’re graded on how many of the correct cryptids you caught. If you got all of them right, you have a further choice between three different end states. If you get less than that, the game basically goes “womp womp try again.” The endings themselves run the gamut on (Spoiler - click to show)how much you care about the cryptids’ wellbeing. They’re short and close the game off well while also being open-ended enough to give the viewer room to imagine what could happen next.

The writing accomplishes the tasks of creating diverse creatures (I appreciated the intentionally-low quality black-and-white photos) and a setting with history - I liked the info about the town’s locations and wanted to know more. I only noted two typos (“Your” should be “You’re” in the blurb, one section reads “it’s two hooves”). The creature in the well was my favorite, (Spoiler - click to show)a freaky being who can imitate voices and lure people into wells. I got the cave worm in both my playthroughs so I also have a soft spot for it (sorry for the (Spoiler - click to show)whole “sawing the body off” trick, but hopefully you will be fine after I let you go…but does that mean there are two of them running around that cave? Did the halves join back together? Desperately need to know the answer).

Cryptid Hunter is a pleasant little pattern matcher, especially for the people who cared about filling out those Pokedex entries, though I would say one complete playthrough where you capture all three assigned cryptids is enough.

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.