Reviews by jakomo

This commercial remake of Type Help doesn't make changes for changes sake: fans of the original will experience the same story, with the same dialogue, with the additions of illustrations and voice acting (plus one new mechanic: matching portrait pictures to characters, but it's a minor detail). It takes on the tone of a BBC radio drama, which does feel like what the original was going for. The most interesting part will be the post-game playable epilogue with all-new content answering some of the game's many mysteries.

An earlier work from the author of The Red Pearls of Borneo. Visually and mechanically, it feels like a prototype: lacking any of the beautiful UI elements of the later game, or any graphics or sound at all (it's pure command-line, just like Type Help). Initial impressions make it easy to dismiss as a serviceable rip-off ("it's Type Help in Space!") with a very formulaic sci-fi horror story, but the point you reach the natural conclusion turns out to be barely the half-way mark! Suddenly, the story shifts up a gear, and everything gets much more interesting as it gets re-contextualised with new information. Like Blue Prince, the first half of the game turns out to be the tutorial for the second as the deductions get much trickier and the player begins to be tested in all-new ways.

In the constellation of database/ research/ Obradinnlike games, this falls somewhere between Type Help's compelling gameplay (reveal a non-linear story by deducing/ guessing/ bruteforcing four-character filenames) and Her Story's multimedia excellence (audio clips and text rather than video). The files you reveal are also accompanied by comments from the archivists which adds a neat layer of extra personality to the proceedings, reminiscent of Analogue: A Hate Story.

Despite ostensibly being about a piece of 1940 analog tech, the story hits the 2026 zeitgeist, with subtle analogies to LLMs, fake/manipulated news, christofascism, and even women's autonomy (see also the current hit horror film Obsession). The writing is often deliberately obtuse, filled with weird esoterica and philosophy that will likely reward theory-crafting to fill in the many gaps.

This might be the perfect introduction to the genre for anyone who finds typical Obradinnlikes too daunting. For genre aficionados it's more of a quick snack. The Archives of Trevosa represents the minimal form of the Obradinnlike. The family tree you are filling has only two elements per node: the given name and the "title" (the trait they are identified with) and there is no need to look at pictures to deduce things (unlike The Roottrees Are Dead), there are no graphics beyond the family tree itself, there are no secondary gameplay elements (unlike Intelligence), the language translation aspect is limited to just nouns scattered among the English sentences (unlike Heaven's Vault and Chants of Senaar) and the overall difficulty is dialled down in favour of a more casual, accessible experience. Even the story is pared down and straightforward (unlike Her Story or Type Help) - which could be a positive for many players.

A huge, puzzle-filled adventure through multiple domains of the "deep web" - a metaphysical aquatic/internet/innerspace ocean, as you try to recover your memories and piece together your identity, while looking for a way home. This is a stand-alone game set in the same world as Open Sorcery, but no knowledge of previous games is required.

This time you play an actual "open sorcerer" rather than an elemental spirit, so as well as the traditional "matter/motive" element-based puzzles there are spell-casting and inventory puzzles, word-search puzzles, rearranging blocks of text into the right order, changing descriptions to make them consistent with each other, navigating complex dialogue trees, card games, alchemical crafting, and so much more, with almost every puzzle having multiple possible solutions.

A basic completion run takes over 15 hours, and that's without trying to get the numerous achievements, and skipping a ton of optional content. This is combined with a great story and great writing, veering between very funny, thrilling, and deeply sad with aplomb. It also looks and sounds great, with music, sound effects, occasional graphics, and beautiful typography throughout. A commercial game well worth the money, though if you just want to try it out, A Murder in Fairyland is a small-ish chunk from the middle of the game released for free.

Open Sorcery feels like the last thing on earth you could possibly spin into a Christmas-themed story, yet here it is. And it works. A direct continuation from the original, JINGLE BEL/S is not just a brilliantly clever title (BEL/S is the protagonist of both games), it also delivers a new type of puzzle (finding and giving the right gifts to the right recipients) and further character development, all in a DLC as big as the original game was.

Possibly the most original concept in all of gaming. Heck, all of literature. You're an elemental spirit meshed with computer code, employed as a kind of ghostbusting security system, monitoring locations and keeping people safe from supernatural entities. Even the primary puzzle form is dizzyingly original: deducing the "matter" of the intruders (what element they're made of) and their "motive" (the element that controls how they behave), from brief text descriptions and context clues. There's nothing else like this (apart from the DLC and sequel).

A free sci-fi Obradinn-like mystery deduction game, playable in a browser. Like its forebears (The Roottrees are Dead, Her Story, Family, Type Help etc), extremely addictive and compelling. Find a bunch of missing spaceships somewhere in the solar system. Were they destroyed by an alien attack fleet?

Primary gameplay loop is uncovering new co-ordinates: use a telescope for a "visual analysis" of the location. This might uncover new clues, for example, electromagnetic data, which can then be analysed with spectrum analyzers, which might reveal unique ship EM signatures, or, if the location has the facilities, allow you to talk via "ansible" faster-than-light communication, which might unlock new co=ordinates, or new tools to use, or trigger a new message from Fleet Intelligence HQ. Fill in the details of each of the missing craft to progress.

The story itself is no great shakes, lacking the mind-blowing twists and turns of its genre-mates, and the UI is occasionally clunky, but the gameplay carries it, you will absolutely want to solve this puzzle to completion (it took me half a day, using the in-built progressive hints only a couple of times).

Enjoyed Overboard!? You'll love Expelled! The formula is the same: a time-loop where scholarship girl Verity Amersham must save herself from being found guilty of (attempted) murder by the end of the day. It works perfectly well standalone, but playing Overboard! first will provide some surprising connections. The girls' boarding school setting, reminiscent of St. Trinian's, works great as a place where egos collide, dark secrets lurk, and ambition can lead to (mild) violence. Dialogue and action choices are dynamic, encouraging rambunctious, rule-breaking, gleefully immoral behaviour. Expelled! ramps up the silliness from it's predecessor, with goofy detours into comedy and horror, but the tone stays consistent, and the writing is always on-point, complimented by fantastic era-appropriate tunes and a dazzling art style.

Puzzle-filled mini-text adventure seemingly set in the Little Match Girl universe but without any reference to Ebenezabeth, Scrooge, or any of that series' regulars. You are a female vampire looking to get onto the board that governs urban vampire society by persuading each interviewer to vote for you. Naturally this involves solving basic puzzles for each member: dealing with nuisance noisy kids, bluffing your way through playing chess, navigating a maze, finding a secret word, etc. An in-game item provides guidance in the form of crossword puzzle clues, which can get very devious.

A cool "Vampire The Masquerade"-esque setting, an excellent player-character who hopefully takes the stage in further games, and a delicious cast of NPCs. Blood-sucking fun.