Reviews by Danielle

This wasn't what I expected when I picked it up. I figured some kind of game about ants, maybe being tortured by people...perhaps like ANT BULLY: THE TEXT ADVENTURE.

Instead I got this really strange piece with insects anthropomorphized into beings more like people (a widow, a lawyer, a damsel, not a spider, slug, and damselfly); more importantly, I got a tale of twisted tenderness and ambiguous triumph.

The navigation was a little strange ("sunwards" and "widdershins" replace some traditional directions), but once I got that figured out, interacting with the other characters was...interesting. After a number of encounters, you start (Spoiler - click to show)wondering how THIS daughter is going to die. It puts the reader/player in an interesting position, to (Spoiler - click to show)root for your character's demise, so you can "win".

That (Spoiler - click to show)"repeated-death-to-gain-victory" mechanic would be all well and good, but it's the epilogue (Spoiler - click to show)from the Queen's point of view that elevates it from "a strange tale" to "a strangely beautiful tale."

When I played RALPH and A DAY FOR SOFT FOOD, I was hoping for a couple of great animal games, where I could slip out of the human mindset and check out a different perspective on life.

But I felt both the abovementioned games suffered from hard-to-comprehend puzzles and really hostile NPC owners ruining the fun.

So what a delight when I picked up SNACK TIME! It's not very big, no, but I had a lot of fun exploring the little apartment from the Hardy's POV. It has a lot of cute humor sprinkled throughout.

The action for the last point wouldn't have occurred to me, but that's a nitpick from me.

If you love animals, you've got to give this one a try.

I'm gaga for cats, despite having never owned one (allergies). I love games where you get to be an animal (just like I like books where you get to experience the world through an animal's eyes and "culture")--so slam dunk, right?

Well, the descriptions are extremely cat and deadpan. But the puzzles made no sense to me; they didn't seem to follow a cat's mind (unlike the descriptions). And the hostile owner always showing up and ending the game--I got fed up real quick and left for another game. I suppose I wish it were more forgiving as a game, so I could enjoy the cat's life for a while.

I was hoping for a ghost story; instead I got almost nonexistent implementation and some repellant characters/situations.

The atmosphere is effective, in that I (as a Westerner) found it very foreign and a touch hostile-feeling (as can be the case when you're a stranger in a strange land, minus the language).

But little implementation means you can't explore the setting. The show's on rails, but in a bad way; the whole event feels futile, the main NPC you interact with is a real creep, and the ghost arrival, to me, felt "out there," like there wasn't enough buildup; it just showed up..

Futility + your repellant friend + poor implementation = 1 star in my book.

This isn't a review. I really didn't like this game. I found it obtuse, confusing, weird, impossible.

But the ending has given me an experience I will cherish forever.

Back in college, my friend and I played a lot of IF together. This was one of the games we played, and it holds a special memory for us.

We had no idea what we were doing. We started off without a map ("We don't need no steeekin' map!!" is our philosophy for most IF) and got lost a lot. Then, after a certain point (Spoiler - click to show)the city blew up and we were inside the city and we died. And it felt pointless.

So we downloaded a map and a walkthrough. We did what the walkthrough told us. We discovered the (Spoiler - click to show)what, conspiracy theory? and (Spoiler - click to show)escaped the city.

What happened next is sort of remarkable and nostalgic for me. This shared experience has become a joke between us, much like how "The cake is a lie" is a shared joke for all players of PORTAL. However, it does kinda spoil the ending so... (Spoiler - click to show)We quietly escaped the city. We met a man there who was very zen. The city blew up. Then the man asked if we wanted to go get a Blizzard.

My friend and I looked at each other, went "??! What the heck was that about?" And then (Spoiler - click to show)we went straight to Dairy Queen.

Basically the author made the perfect frozen yogurt commercial for intellectuals.

Note: this review was written while I was in the beginning of the game. I've since finished and have added some more notes to the end.

* * *

I started ANCHORHEAD last night. It's not a new release--it won a slew of awards in back in 1998, and for good reason.

See, I've been craving an eerie game I could really sink my teeth into, and ANCHORHEAD has delivered.

The depth of its gameworld is incredible. When Earthworm Jim came out, everyone said, "It's like playing a Saturday morning cartoon!" Remember that? Well, ANCHORHEAD is like playing an excellently-written novella.

The attention to detail is incredible--you can interact with most objects you see, and the gameworld responds in a believable manner. Because of this, it's really easy to get into character. For example, I always lock the door when I leave the house. Does it do anything related to gameplay? No. But because I feel like I'm such a part of this world, I feel like I MUST act as though it is my real world, and thus--I lock up my (Spoiler - click to show)(electricity-less, sometimes frightening) house when I leave.

Here's another example: (Spoiler - click to show)It was morning in the game. I had just woken up, and my husband was in the shower. I had the feeling I'd need his university ID card later on, and his pants were hanging there right off the end of the bed. So I rifled through the pockets. Sure enough, the ID card was right there in his wallet...But in the end, I felt guilty about going through his things. So I left the card in his wallet.
Did I just lock myself out of some major puzzle or backstory? Maybe. But at least I didn't steal from my husband. That's the sort of feeling ANCHORHEAD evokes for me.

(Also, the game gave me points for soaking in a bath. :3 )

Another great thing about ANCHORHEAD: the puzzles fit. There were a number of times today where I felt like I was at a total dead end, but by taking a closer look at a couple of things, tinkering around with realistic game actions--BOOM! New paths were opened. New mysteries revealed.

And there's the other thing--with some games, you solve a puzzle...bing. That's it. Check the puzzle off your list, you're done. In ANCHORHEAD, with every new revelation you discover about (Spoiler - click to show)your creepy house (and the INSANE PEOPLE who owned it), three more unsettling questions pop up. It makes it nigh impossible to put down.

I could write tons more about how I love this, but I really want to go back and see (Spoiler - click to show)what's in the crypt behind our house. You all, you just...just try it.

* * *

Well! The final half of the game was harder for me. I probably could have figured a few of them out on my own (though for me, (Spoiler - click to show)escaping William at the slaughterhouse turned into an episode of "Guess the Verb"), but you know what it's like with walkthroughs: you can't just look ONCE.

Despite the harder puzzles taking me out of the game's spell, I still highly recommend ANCHORHEAD. Some actions you're forced into to turn the story's feeling away from Grandpa Lovecraft and into Uncle Steve's realm, but it felt appropriate.

Really...the epilogue. You'll be thinking about that for a while.

My favorite death: (Spoiler - click to show)Reading through the Huge Tome in the church. It summed up the horror of Grandpa Lovecraft's work in what--3 paragraphs? If ANCHORHEAD was a book I would have bookmarked this page. FOREVER.

Somewhere out there is a Platonic Ideal of the "Escape the Room" game genre. In my opinion, FRAGILE SHELLS comes remarkably close.

Most Escape the Room (EtR) games have a simple premise: there is a room full of stuff, and you must escape it. Most I've seen are graphical, nearly all have annoying codes and machines that make little logical sense, a few have interesting twists, and even fewer have any emotional motivation to escape provided rooms.

FRAGILE SHELLS gives me some things I've wanted in the genre (but never realized were missing): a compelling story behind the EtR setup, a subtle and intense feeling of danger, and puzzles that don't require me to write down stupid codes and patterns. Tapping into the emotional motivation behind escaping, though--that is where this game shines for me.

Also helpful: the obstacles you encounter (and how you solve them) make sense, so long as you closely examine everything. Even so, the hints are well-implemented, doling out just enough info to get your brain kick-started.

It's not the best IF game ever (I ran into a few implementation problems, and the technical aspects of the story still aren't crystal clear to me), but it's one of the best of the EtR genre.

I'm one of those readers who LOVES to see the traditional European fairytales (Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, Rapunzel et al) retold. I've read nearly all of Donna Jo Napoli's retellings, and I seek out more retellings in that vein everytime I hit the library.

BRONZE is a retelling of "Beauty and the Beast." Besides being a superb example of IF as a game, it has a great original backstory that weaves through the original story, one that adds an extra layer of intrigue to the original setup.

Add to that original backstory Short's evocative writing, and you've got yourself a winner.

This is a hard one for me to rate, because in some areas it really excels, while in other areas it falls flat.

For instance, its opening scene, with the varying personalities you encounter and the unique way you get information about the room drew me in quickly. Immediately afterwards, there was a puzzle that made zero sense to me. The hints only helped to a point, but the puzzle needed more context.

After that, the scene turns creepy and isolated in a way I don't see too often in IF. Loved that. But the puzzle itself turned into a frustrating experiment in reading the author's mind. Boo. (At least the built-in-hints helped.) Then a maze with a clever solution that I enjoyed puzzling out.

The final scene had an interesting puzzle and setting, but I had zero idea who I was. What was I now? What had I been in the first scene? Why do I care? Why did the maze lead to this?

Great puzzles and moody sets are all fine and good, but if they're going to be so disjointed in theme, the character (or something! anything!) should be a unifying, overarching thread so it doesn't feel like a cafeteria lady serving up IF puzzles wearing a Halloween mask to be mysterious.

I played this right after finishing An Open Field. Here's my conclusion: those two games should've traded some ideas. OPEN FIELD, while initially disorienting, ends with a clear background concept; by the end, you knew who you were, what your situation was, and what your goal would be as that character. However, OPEN FIELD lacked implementation that would've made it a standout work.

THE END MEANS has implementation up the ying-yang. (Just "x young" in the second scene of THE END MEANS...you'll understand.)

If you like puzzles, try out THE END MEANS ESCAPE. If you're looking for more story to go with your IF, you may want to sit this one out.

Beta Tester is good for a couple laughs here and there. The hamster in the first room is probably worth the download. But once you're past the first room, the game falls apart.

I had a hard time figuring out what the objectives were in the second room--in one case, I found the solution to a puzzle in another room without being aware that a puzzle existed, while in another area, an objective is present, but I can't figure out any way to accomplish it. The funny writing helps delay the sting, but can't eliminate it altogether.

I eventually gave up. When objectives are so ill-defined that I can't figure out what to do, it's time to move on to a work that's had, (say it with me, now!) better beta-testing.