Ratings and Reviews by Tabitha

I don't have much more to say than what's in the title--this was a quick game with a clever mechanic that required mapping and doing some careful thinking to figure out how to achieve what I needed, and it was very satisfying when I succeeded! The bits of worldbuilding and descriptions keep it from being too abstract. A nice way to spend a half hour.

I found this game to be an effective argument that the fear that games may be hiding secret hateful content is silly, because games don't need to do that in order to send ideological messages. While in the accompanying essay the author writes that he "decided to take out all the Nazi stuff," just because the hidden mode is gone (or at least, has been rendered inaccessible via the originally intended method) doesn't mean the game is suddenly perfectly innocent. We're told that the PC took bus 88 to get to their destination, which is Muranowska Square, and our task in the game is to seek out the hiding places of frightened rabbits--which given this context takes on a deeper, more sinister meaning. A child playing this game might never understand or pay attention to these references, but an adult can see that the game is not, as it claims, simply a cute story about bunnies.

This game is an effective illustration that messaging can be baked into games in far more subtle ways than via a "hidden Nazi mode", and for that reason, vetting games for objectionable content is never going to be as simple as glancing over the source code and verifying that it doesn't contain any slurs.

I had fun with this game and found it a lot easier than the prequel, To Sea in a Sieve. But I wanted to note that it contains some insensitive material, with (puzzle spoiler) (Spoiler - click to show)Cherokee smudge sticks used to ward off an Egyptian curse. The cursed mummy itself is a tired, rather culturally insensitive trope IMO, and the idea of mystical Native Americans is also based in othering stereotypes. Of course this game is over 20 years old, but I wanted any future players to have a heads up.

All the Little Match Girl games are just plain wacky fun. The time/space-hopping, the Metroidvania-ness, and the outlandishness of the premise all make them a delight to play, and LMG4 is no exception. I loved the humor of the parser responses, the vividness and variety of the settings, the construction of the puzzles, the way the various worlds connect to each other, being able to (Spoiler - click to show)turn into a mouse and have chats with other animals, the commentary from the scanning lens, and (Spoiler - click to show)the poignant character moment at the end.

My only critiques are that I would have liked a bit more implementation of synonyms, and that when playing in browser (which I did for the pretty colors/other stylings), there’s a long sequence of timed text that repeats every time you sit down and reflect on how things are going. As you progress in the game, new text is added to the end of this segment; however, you still have to sit through the slow doling-out of the text you’ve already seen each time, with no way (as far as I could tell) to skip through or speed it up. But that's quite a minor thing--on the whole, I love this series and this game!

The main thing I knew about this game going in was that it makes significant use of the "timed text" mechanic. While I did find it slightly too slow at times, and wasn't sure it was needed as prevalently as it was used, it didn’t impact my enjoyment of the game, and definitely served the author's intended purpose. It's also very nice to be able to turn it off on subsequent playthroughs.

Anyway, on to the rest of the game! I felt for the protagonist a lot; the game seemed to really capture what it’s like to go through life with a stutter, and how difficult it can make everyday interactions. The flashbacks to childhood were quite sad, witnessing this struggling child be ignored and othered (the My Cousin Vinny one especially...). I enjoyed the gameplay, and how it was never a matter of picking the “right” option--rather, it’s left up to the player to decide if they’d prefer to stumble over ordering their favorite food, or smoothly order a food they hate. The color coding of the choices was a good way to indicate how fluently each option would come out.

Ultimately, the game isn’t about beating the stutter; you’re simply experiencing what it’s like to have it, and coping with it however you think is best. I played through four times, interested in seeing the differences between a covert, overt, and middle-of-the-road approach, and enjoyed each playthrough (and getting all but two of the achievements!).

One point of critique is that, regarding the job interview plotline, I would have liked some more background on the PC’s adulthood experiences, in addition to the childhood ones. I wondered if the stutter played a role in them leaving their previous job, and what it might mean for future job prospects. I think more of an exploration of the PC’s dreams, and to what extent the stutter has impacted those dreams, would add a bit more depth. But on the whole, a great game that accomplishes its purpose very well.

I have to admit that I was a little underwhelmed by this game at first; the worldbuilding felt a bit bizarre and random for what’s essentially a museum heist story. But once I got into the puzzley portion I was hooked. It’s easy to locate the item you need to liberate from this museum, but less easy to acquire and escape with it.

The gameplay reminded me of the Lady Thalia games—explore, find useful items/info, heist, escape. The game does a good job at creating tension, with an officer following you around to keep an eye on you, appearing and disappearing as you traverse the rooms, and at creating a sense of time passing, with the security office going from occupied at first visit to unoccupied at later ones. The achievements at the end make it clear that there are multiple methods for escaping detection, and that it’s possible to succeed at the job but incriminate yourself in the process. All of this added a great amount of complexity and made for a fun game! (Another note: you’ll find an in-game map, which is nice—I had thought about drawing a map at first, but then I was glad I didn’t bother.)

I do have some nitpicks; I found the (brief) dialogue section rather clunky, and didn’t buy the supposed romantic chemistry between the PC and their conversation partner. And then there were some elements that felt set up to have an impact on gameplay, but didn't seem to in the end, such as choosing your character at the start, and the list of locations to go other than the museum. But I certainly had fun solving the puzzles and will gladly play any future games in this series!