Ratings and Reviews by jakomo

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.