Ratings and Reviews by Emily Short

Not all of the puzzles in Kaged feel fair or well-clued, and this is a pity, because the game is otherwise very effective. You play a minor bureaucrat in the justice system of a vast and overbearing state, trying to understand a series of recent disturbing events. The architecture of the setting, the behavior of the other characters, and the unfolding of the plot all work together to create a sense of oppression and fear, which only grows stronger as the game plays out.

Kaged is illustrated with a handful of surreal images, which do more to strengthen the mood than to explain anything.

An entry into a competition for games based on dreams, The Retreat feels just a bit off-kilter from our reality. Many elements of the backstory go unexplained for the whole game -- which is not very long.

Despite the relative slightness of the piece, though, it has evocative moments, and there was one action in particular that I felt guilty about when the game was over.

This is a combat game about fighting fish.

The opening of the game is probably its weakest point: there’s not much information to ground the absurd set-up, and it’s also possible at first not to realize that you can do anything but PUNCH, SLAP, KICK, and BACKHAND the various fish. I went through a few rounds of that and found myself wondering whether there was more to the game than randomized combat. (It’s not really randomized, either, but I didn’t recognize that at the very outset.) So I came close to quitting, before I realized that there were both puzzles and a (slight) story in there; I just hadn’t really gotten to them yet.

Things pick up in the midgame, as new props become available to fight with, we learn a little more about the premise, and the fish start to fight back. The final fight ends with a fanfare and flourish that make the earlier fights seem more significant.

It’s still not what you would call a great game -- the game-play is too repetitive, and there is not enough feedback on puzzle solutions -- but it has a certain quirky charm.

This had a bunch of rough edges, implementation-wise — some problems typical of ADRIFT parsers, and some others. It also has a somewhat railroady presentation: though it's a mystery, the player's opportunities to explore and solve are tightly constrained and directed at all times. There was also one puzzle involving finding an object that I don't think I would ever have gotten without a walkthrough.

All the same, I found this strangely enjoyable. The robot protagonists develop personality and humanity as the game proceeds, and there were some unexpectedly touching moments.