Reviews by Tabitha

This is an unusual one, and one I quite enjoyed. I’m not super familiar with the history and politics of the USSR, but some Wikipedia-ing early on helped provide the context I needed to understand the backdrop that the play’s five characters are operating against.

I love stories with high stakes in the background that choose to focus on how those stakes affect individual people, and that’s exactly what we get here. A strained sibling relationship, a developing romance, and a long-term marriage are all tested by the oppressive political climate. The image of whispering becoming everyone’s normal way of speaking, because they’re not safe even in their own home, was a very effective one. It contrasted well with the spark of finding a like-minded person who you can trust, which is what Agnessa finds in Nikolai. Even then, though, the two can’t truly be happy together, because they have a fundamental difference in what they want out of life. These lines capture their relationship so well:

Nikolai: Agnya, I love you, I-
Agnessa: Do you? Do you really? Or do you love what you want me to be?
Nikolai [pause]: I think you are what I want you to be. You just won’t let yourself be.

(Spoiler - click to show)And ultimately, this love that gives Nikolai a reason to wake up in the morning is what dooms him. In the end, this felt like a story about futility, especially after I played through several times; there’s no “good” ending, no matter which of the two options the audience chooses at each junction point. Agnessa and Nikolai are always going to be caught and arrested. We’re never choosing their fate; each choice is simply one of two equally bad options. The fictional authors of the play have written our choices for us, and they all lead to those authors’ singular chosen destination.

Except… there’s the secret ending. (Shoutout to Manon for telling me about it!) And that provided an interesting twist, where the audience breaks out of the choice binary and demands a different—happy—ending. Which the actors and the play-runner/actor, the Guide, provide, albeit reluctantly. But then, this ending rings so very hollow, as it obviously wasn’t planned; it doesn’t feel true to the story, and it’s impossible to imagine the characters actually living happily after these events even if the NKVD did have a sudden, random surge of compassion and let them go. So we’re back to futility now, inevitability. You can fight but you can’t really change anything. I don’t read that as the game’s universal message, but for these characters, in this situation… no matter how much we, the audience, might want it to end differently, there was always only ever one place they could end up.

This is a very well-crafted game—impressive that it’s the author’s first time working with Twine! The art is moodily evocative, and I enjoyed the way the puzzles were built around it. The hint system and its tiered approach, with the first level letting you know when you didn’t need to worry about a specific object/puzzle yet, was a nice touch. (Spoiler - click to show)And I loved the ending, the way it clicked for me what the answer to “whodunnit” was—and the extra “whydunnit” twist/reveal, which explained so much in retrospect. The answer to the mystery of “who locked me in here with all these weird puzzles??” being “I did, and for good reason!” was very clever.

Damn, this game. It’s got so much depth, and I spent a lot of time thinking about it after playing. There’s so much emotion here, so much hurt, and yet we have this reflective distance from which to interact with and interrogate it all, even as it feels very personal given that two of the NPCs are different iterations of George Dyer, Francis Bacon’s doomed lover. This is a window on suffering people who in turn inflict suffering on others; on self-destruction/self-harm; on pain channeled into art. It begs the question of what the purpose of art is, why people are led to create and view it, and calls out how it can both connect and alienate us. It makes me feel very conflicted, and I think that’s a good thing. Altogether a brilliant game.

...despite the rather stressful situation the PC is in! The PC’s position as somewhat of an outsider who’s suddenly plunged in over their head was a compelling one, and I enjoyed navigating through the various scenarios (especially those involving cute cats or a mischievous monkey). I also appreciated the social management aspects; it was very gratifying to facilitate a nice breakfast chat between guests despite language barriers, and to save two teenagers from a boring day with their parents and also spur a friendship between them in the process.

So much excellence here—the premise, the characters, the setting, the humor, the puzzles, the narrative voice… it’s all so well done. Highlights include the Torch and Pitchfork Society and their perfectly reasonable demands, Hans in general (and specifically, the conversations with him and the possibility of asking him out), and every interaction with the devil. A very smooth and just plain fun experience!

I hadn’t played any of Andrew’s Prime Pro Rhyme Row games when I tested this one, but as soon as I got into it I loved it, and after finishing I immediately played through the rest in the series. As a lover of rhymes, alliteration, and wordplay in general, I found it delightful to be tasked with coming up with my own alliterative rhymes as the central mechanic of gameplay. Comparisons to Dr. Seuss are apt, as this is a wacky wordplay-ful world that defies logic, and is all the more fun for it.

A game about your husband’s last night before his execution has no right being this fun! But Victor has accomplished that with a big dose of humor and a richly drawn protagonist who can’t help but be entertaining. Alongside the silliness, though, there’s a lot of emotional depth as the couple’s relationship history and its various layers of love and hurt is gradually revealed. Their conversation—litigating past wrongs, discussing what Xanthippe’s future might hold, and hashing out what they mean to each other—swings from anger to affection in a way that felt very authentic. I liked the bittersweet note of the end, where they’re both able to come to a sort of peace with the impending loss. I was glad to have spent time exploring their relationship, and getting to know Victor’s version of Xanthippe—who is very far from one-dimensional.

This tiny Inform game is built around plays on the engine's standard responses, and the nature of Inform games in general. It will be nonsensical to players who aren't familiar with those, but for players who are, it's very cleverly done. I had a lot of fun poking at it to find all the jokes, and laughed regularly along the way.

Your Body a Temple takes a dark premise—your body has been destroyed, and you’re now choosing from a variety of “spare parts” that will form you a new one—and turns it into a fun, powerful game. You're presented with four options for each significant body part (face, torso, arms, legs, genitals), which range from a robot head to live branches, and seeing what the slate would be each time was a big part of the appeal. But what really makes the game excellent is the narrative voice. An unnamed person, referred to with she/her pronouns, is building this body for you, speaking to you as she works. She describes each potential option—its pros and cons, the ways it will affect your new life—in a caring, maybe slightly fussy, voice that’s rich with personality and sets a tone of lightness and kindness even as you can build yourself a face of nightmares and arms of live wires.

The intention of getting revenge on those who hurt you is mentioned, but it's left up to the player to decide what that will mean. There’s a human option for each body part, and the descriptions of those note that while they will offer connection with others, they also make you vulnerable. Monstrous/inhuman parts, on the other hand, will help you protect yourself and/or be a threat, at the cost of possibly driving others away. But embracing your humanity may be the best revenge after all: a “distressingly human” face “asserts personhood in the face of dehumanization. It declares agency in the face of destruction. This is a face that demands to be remembered. It is a face that haunts assailants' dreams.”

As has likely been evident from the get-go, this is a very trans story. Beyond just the conceit of choosing one’s own body, the genital options include a “masculinized orifice” and a “feminized appendage”, with no standard P or V in sight. And in a choice that feel adjacent in the way it inverts cultural beauty standards, the human option for the torso is “fat”, and its description pushes back against any negative connotations: “This is a torso built for intimacy. You will be good at cuddling, good at warming others.” In its queering of bodies and embrace of other-ness, even monstrousness, this game is quite beautiful.

This game hurts, but in the best way--capturing a little slice of what it's like to be someone else, in this case someone experiencing psychosis brought on by advanced dementia. You don't understand where you are or why you're here or what's happening around you; what else can you do but lash out? Knowing the author's personal experience with the subject (read the author's note, linked on the Itch page) only made it all the more heartbreaking. A very well crafted game, especially given that it was made in only four hours.