Reviews by Passerine

Somewhere down the line, I can imagine myself thinking: What was that movie about the vampire who took a midnight train going...somewhere? Oh, right, it was IF. And that wasn’t voiceover narration, it was internal links with insights into vampire culture and physiology. Because this game is largely linear but rich and compelling, like a good movie or play. And you can think while reading: about the nature of evil, about what trust is worth, about what kind of brokenness can be redeemed.

Vampire stories start to seep together after a while, like, what’s a good analogy, watercolors. But this one feels fresh. The rules seem unstable and not entirely known, in a way that feels truer to real life than to fantasy.

This game was written for ShuffleComp, and I enjoyed looking at what songs served as inspiration after playing. It’s impressive how they all contributed something to the story.

This game doesn’t seem to be available currently, which is too bad, because it was a really fun read.

The story is framed as a newly discovered Goosebumps manuscript by R.L. Stine that was never published, but it’s easy to forget that once you get into the story. Fortunately, R.L. Stine himself pops in occasionally with some tangential author’s notes, to remind you that what you’re reading is just a made-up story by a writer of young adult thrillers, thank goodness.

The writing does feel like Goosebumps at times, but mostly it’s its own thing: wacky and cinematic and nostalgic and eventually quite disturbing as the horror element rises to the surface. The mix of comedy and horror is an oddly effective foundation for a heartfelt story of a child with a neglectful and cruel family who just needs to be loved, and if the humans around her can’t do that, an escaped kangaroo may be the next best thing. Of course, nothing in Goosebumps is simple, and as she learns more about her new friend (Spoiler - click to show)(through telepathy, nothing weird about that), she’s faced with a choice that’s explicitly laid out in the text: Birth family or found family?

This isn’t Give Yourself Goosebumps, so the game is completely linear (aside from a few text expansions), which means you don’t have a choice as the inevitable unfolds. But narratively and emotionally, the question does have a satisfying answer.

As dark as it gets (here is the horror part), the story ends on a hopeful note as the protagonist picks up the pieces, before the frame tale returns and we are left to wonder: Why did R.L. Stine write such an unusual story? Why (perhaps this is easier to answer) was it never published? And where did he learn all those curse words?

This is a cute little game where you get to be a dog and choose your own mini adventure every day. It’s a graphical mobile-oriented game, but you can also play it on browser.

This game is so wholesome. I ate a treat someone gave me. I made friends with a duck. I went home and played with my toys. It was restorative to inhabit a dog’s life for a little while.

First of all, it needs to be said that I played this game with only a basic understanding of what iCarly is. But even though I didn’t know Carly, it was nice to spend a little time with her.

This game is not exactly what I expected The iCarly RPG to be, even though I knew not to expect iCarly the RPG. And it’s not a groundbreaking game, but it delivers something I enjoyed very much: an absurd and fragmented story with a beating heart buried underneath. There’s some laughs, some light horror, some references I didn’t understand—a little bit of a lot of things. I enjoyed the jarring mix of comedy and tragedy, unexpected left turns, unusual design choices, and especially the fourth wall breaking. I am a sucker for fourth wall breaking.

The story was not entirely scrutable (probably even for fans of the show), but the incompleteness suited the mood. The interactivity was simple but involving and meaningful, particularly at the end. And the RPG elements were well placed and effective (Spoiler - click to show)(this is a joke because they are so underused, but also I mean it because an ingredient used sparingly can add a lot). And then you get to feel good at the end!!

I really enjoyed this short twist on (a twist on) a classic fairy tale (Spoiler - click to show) (I'm referring to Shrek). A bunch of the dialogue and narration lines made me laugh, and just the way the story unfolded was funny too. This game has a lot of heart, and because the choices are so straightforward, you truly get to choose what kind of fairytale ending you want. (Checking out the other endings was fun too.) Plus it has adorable illustrations!

Despite a lot of typos and some pronoun mixups, I'd recommend this game widely, especially because a playthrough only takes about ten minutes.

The first thing I realize is that it hurts not having a back button. All the visual detail, snippets of backstory, and comments from the people who end up joining my party—what did they say before about the second interpreter? I have to slow down and pay attention. This is a good sign.

The buildup of suspense before my journey helps me prepare, and explains why my character knows so much and feels confident going on this journey in the first place. By the time I get out there, I’m pretty excited to see this saltwrack, as bleak as it is. I see rocks, lichen, iridescent worms. Some tentative connections to our world, maybe? But real-life concerns are just unsettling shapes in my peripheral vision. The saltwrack is overwhelmingly large. I’m getting lost in another world, and I really needed to get lost in another world.

I travel for many minutes/days until, how about that, I walk right up to the ominous location I’ve been searching for. Would you like to enter? the game asks. As I loiter at this choice point, I realize it’s absolutely crucial that this game has no back button.

Whether because of my choices or my groundless expectations, Saltwrack didn’t really feel threatening until it suddenly did, and I was appropriately disoriented, like the horror movie victim who doesn’t realize what they’re dealing with until it’s too late.

Things changed after that. I played a different game, the game of the victim trying to get back to safety. Let’s not worry about the details of my mistakes. I let my guard down, and I paid for it.

But the game eased me back into the real world without punishing me for any missteps. I can feel the emptiness of the routes I didn’t take in a way that echoes the boundlessness of the world I just visited. But the outcome of my adventure feels like mine.

Saltwrack luxuriates in the space between heavy-handed comparison with reality and abstract sci-fi fancy, leaving plenty of room for internal reflection and personal connection with the material. I would call it immersive. I would call it art. I would recommend it for anyone who feels like getting lost in a story, and I will be mining it for ways to improve my own writing. I think it’ll haunt me for a while.

The Purple Pearl accomplishes something that feels unique: mashing up a parser IF game and a split-team escape room. It feels like just the beginning of what a cooperative IF game could be, and playing it made me excited about the potential of multiplayer parser games, because it was a lot of fun!

I've played online escape rooms and co-op videogames with a similar flow: explore a space from your individual perspective; talk to your fellow player(s) about what you find and what you need; make progress by solving things together. It's a fun play style that lends itself surprisingly well to a text adventure, made possible in this case by two separate game files and codes swapped verbally between players. Like the type of games it seems inspired by, The Purple Pearl doesn't bother with a complex story or characters, but the simple, whimsical interactions make it a great showcase for the format.

One fortunate thing about this game's asymmetrical structure—with two players in two separate spaces—is that if there's ever a bottleneck where one player isn't taking the next necessary action, the other player doesn't have to just wait around. The structure seemed totally linear in retrospect, but we didn't know it at the time: both of us got stuck at least once, but even if you're not sure whether you're responsible for the next step, the thing to do is look closely at everything nearby, which sets you up well for the next step after that. (Side note, we probably wouldn't have gotten stuck if we hadn't been too stubborn to use hints.)

Also, I wasn't sure about this when I started, but it became clear pretty quickly that sharing information with the other player is a good idea. The puzzles in your version of the game are yours to interact with, but sharing what you see makes the game even more collaborative.

I appreciate The Purple Pearl as an experiment in form, and I hope more people will follow its lead. But I also want to emphasize that it's not just a serviceable proof of concept, but a fun game that I'd recommend playing over voice chat with a friend.

It’s not easy to make an impact with such a short game, but I was moved by this cameo of two friends who’ve grown apart, who live in different worlds, who can’t turn back time. The writing is minimalist yet expressive, and all the design choices felt intentional and meaningful: not just the audiovisual ones, but using a choice-based format to explore the limitations of our choices, using timed text to highlight the malleability of time, using cycling links to evoke hesitation or indecision. You Can’t Save Her surprised and transported me, and I’ll come back to it as an example of how beautiful and complete a short game can be.

When I first played this game, I’d forgotten what I’d heard about the gameplay, so the main mechanic was a delightful surprise. I recommend playing it that way before reading any more about it (including the rest of this review).

What I love about games with this mechanic is that they give the story a sense of perspective that’s otherwise hard to convey, and not easy to stumble upon in daily life. Stay? has a heartening perspective on the human experience, both from a broad vantage point—whether looking back on a decades-long struggle, journeying to faraway places, or comparing the distant outcomes of different life choices—and from close enough to smell the flower petals on graduation day.

At first the world seemed oddly empty, with large chunks of the player character’s story omitted and certain characters missing the expected dimensionality. But as it looped and branched, the exponential growth of the story made it feel like this world—and probably also our world—was infinite. That sense of awe gets me every time.

Not every time loop game does this, but Stay? manages it with smart design choices: It includes less and less detail as you loop—because you only need to read the same paragraph so many times—but then starts adding in new details that would naturally become salient as you developed into a weary time traveler. New random asides felt perfectly timed for emotional impact, and new choices appeared just when the old options were getting stale. And there are kindnesses like offering a recap at the beginning of each loop, and rewarding the player for trying new options, even the boring ones like “no, I don’t want to hang out with anyone right now.”

Also, the story just felt good. Things are very wrong, but get to know the people and the world around you and you can learn how to put them right. It’s a powerful message, and it’s told through gameplay rather than, say, clunky dialogue.

When a game fundamentally changes the way I see the world by expanding my perspective, however briefly, I will give that game five stars even if it’s filled with bugs and typos. This game has a few, but it’s fine. They just provide further evidence that this game was written by someone who very much understands what it is to be human.

Of all the games I played from Spring Thing 2023, this one got stuck in my head the most, for a lot of reasons. In a genre that often leans on tropes, the story felt original. I really enjoyed the writing, which truly made me want to escape that horrible place. And rather than just being creepy for creepiness' sake, the game had a lot to say, too. It’s not easy to balance the choices and pace the suspense effectively in a story like this, but Etiolated Light hooked me from the beginning, made me think carefully about my choices, and kept things moving until the end, at which point I immediately wanted to play again to see if I could do better next time.

The thing I like most about this game is that it has a strong point of view. It made me think about the consequences of casually sacrificing others for our own benefit, about the illusion of light and whiteness representing safety, about the advantages of working together to upend an oppressive system. (I haven’t figured out if it’s actually possible to upend this particular system, but someday I’ll find all the endings and know for sure.)

Being able to choose the gender of some characters was also interesting: You don’t know what the consequences will be yet, so you’re as unaware as the player character in the opening scene. It also meshes well with the theme of an ongoing cycle that keeps drawing in new people, leaving everyone vulnerable. And in my case, the pairing of the first two characters ended up subverting the expected dynamic in an interesting way.

I ran across a few minor bugs and typos, but nothing game-breaking. The main thing I found myself missing was a little guidance on how to find the remaining endings—though I did enjoy untangling the story branches by attempting to make different choices.

In short, I think this is a game worth playing. All the endings I found were suitably grim, and some of them made me think about the story and the themes a bit differently, so I think it’s worth replaying, too.