Reviews by iaraya

A murder mystery with a rather unique premise and mechanics: a lord of fairyland was killed, a bunch of nobles are claiming credit, and it’s up to you to poke holes in their confessions to find the real killer. But it takes a while, about an hour, before you actually get to the scene of the crime. I thought that was an odd choice, to advertise a murder mystery but put so much stuff before it. Some of the obstacles turned out to be rather fitting, like how the protagonist is in a wheelchair and struggles to get up the palace stairs, or helping the 'underfoot' spirits in their efforts to get accommodations. But other parts, like the word searches, felt unnecessary. In my opinion, the game could do more to sprinkle in news about the murder at the start, and better signpost that getting into the palace is the goal.

I enjoyed how the protagonist is in a wheelchair and this actually has an impact on the game mechanics. You can’t get up stairs, open a heavy door, or navigate the narrow stalls of the goblin market, and have to use spells to find workarounds. And the paperwork! Navigating the complex bureaucracy and filling out convoluted forms was the aspect of gameplay I found the most interesting.

The mystery itself was fun to solve. For the most part it was easy to tell that a suspect was innocent, either because they had no incentive to kill or from slip-ups they made in their statement. The real challenge is in finding concrete evidence that they couldn't have done the crime in the way they described. All of these puzzles had clever solutions, some involving submitting more complicated forms.

It did get tedious when I was pretty sure I knew who the killer was, curiosity satisfied, but couldn't prove it. This was especially the case when I died, without the chance to undo, and realised I'd have to redo all the convoluted form-filling (I suppose this is also true to life). I did like that the killer was (major spoiler) (Spoiler - click to show)the one person who didn’t immediately try to benefit from the death, and who killed the lord out of frustration at his assholery instead of for political gain. Proving she was the killer and helping her become Queen felt good.

I went into this game intrigued by the blurb’s statement that several totally different playthroughs are all possible, and the game definitely lived up to that premise!

It truly feels open-ended. It takes place at a festival and captures that atmosphere, at any given moment there are so many different people to talk to and things happening in different places. You will always miss things. The protagonist Irene can choose to pursue her own goal of getting a permit to wear trousers in the forest (which I did eventually manage), or go off and investigate the many mysterious happenings: the invisible crying man and the poet, the strange Burber, a political conspiracy, all of which intersect in various ways. It can be confusing in the beginning since you don't have context for the things and people you, but over time one can follow each thread and begin figure out how it's all connected.

After completing seven or eight playthroughs over a week, I think I have a good idea of what’s going on? But there are still many things that I have not seen. I think that is longer than most players, but I kept having new ideas for things I wanted to see and try, each playthrough answering some questions and bringing up new ones. I wrote up my notes on the story and timeline of events on the forum here (spoilers galore).

The UI is great. The background changes, and the text is at a very readable size and leading. The updating reminders of current objectives are very useful, as are the prompts to auto-navigate to quest locations, which cuts down on constantly opening the map or missing things from poor navigation. Some of the images look out of place and a bit amateurish, however, as there isn’t a consistent style among the different graphics. But that is a small quibble.

I think the storyline I’m most intrigued by is (Spoiler - click to show)the aunt, currently pretending to be a Burber. She knows so much seemingly about the political assassination plot against her brother and is fighting with one of the conspirators — what is she trying to accomplish here? And her illness, brought on by dreams that come true, surely connects to the crying man come alive from the poem, but how? Gloria, too; the game starts with a warning about her and I still have no idea what her deal is.

I will definitely come back to this at some points, try to find out more about my unanswed questions

This is a strange and surreal little game. It begins with three mysterious figures urging you to be more positive, before you wake up on the Monday of a workweek, in a bland office with colleagues you don’t like, who never acknowledge you. There’s also a cafe guy whose attention you really want. For a while, I thought this was a slice-of-life commentary on the drudgery of office work or similar, the gradual realisation that (Spoiler - click to show)you are a ghost was a great experience.

Putting together the story from the fragmented clues is fascinating, your actions and goals slowly making sense. From what I gather, (Spoiler - click to show)these three people accidentally left a co-worker at the bottom of a ravine and didn’t care enough to check for her or notice she was gone? My rituals got their attention, made them remember her and rescue her in time. From other reviews, I see this is the good ending, it’s also possible to return her to life as a zombie, and also to kill cafe guy? I’ll have to replay this at some point and put more effort into discovering more of the story, find other endings.

Also, kudos to the author for their attention to typography. The placement of images, the contrast, font choice and font size, are very pleasing to the eye.

This was so charming and cosy. You play as a guest at an enchanted house whose owner is strangely absent, so in the meantime you get to know the house and its occupants.

The characters and the writing are the highlight — the octopus in the kitchen, the talking skull and sentient Mess in the study, the talking furniture. It’s so fun talking to all of them, getting their opinions on various aspects of the house and each other.

The dialogue is delightful — you can ask, for example, the furniture about their favourite varnish, the ghost about his favourite book. And the library bookshelf! A lovely ASCII art bookshelf filled with tomes oit’s very fun to click on all the titles and see a Heinlein book on the same row as *The Red Book of Westmarch* by Bilbo and Frodo Baggins.

The game is polished and well-designed. It’s a parser-choice hybrid where you can visit all the rooms of the house at any time, navigating and talking to people via hyperlinks. There are so many conversation topics that it would be tedious to have to type a command to view the list each time. The puzzles are smooth and make sense. When I got stuck, it was easy to make rounds of all the rooms to check for things I’d forgotten about. The way the game removes links when I didn’t need them anymore is very useful.

Some parts are a bit tedious, for example the arbitration between the ghost and furniture that has you playing messenger for a few rounds, but the fun dialogue made up for it.

Overall, a really enjoyable and charming game.

> You emerge from your trusty starship. It folds its wings and settles down to nest in the clearing where it has landed, crooning softly. The air smells sweetly of mingled flowers, and beyond the embracing trees the sky is a clear blue adorned with a few swirls of cloud

A lovely exploration game set on a planet that is, true to the title, entirely amiable. There are no dangers here, not really any puzzles, just charming landscapes and friendly people.

On the amiable planet you will meet such creatures like a fairy octopus, a void catten who allows you to scratch its ears, and a mango-loving phoenix. Though they don't have any direct dialogue they are happy to meet you, and those with gifts to share do so freely. A favourite place is a 'bodega' with an impressive array of sweets and pastries (in quotes because you are free to sample everything with no expectation of payment). I think a not-insignificant percentage of the game's text is devoted to enticing descriptions of food and drink.

> The ube cream pastry you try is an attractive purple. The pastry itself is moist and sweet, while the rich cream inside fills your mouth with a burst of gentle milky flavor.

Of course you're not going to enjoy the fruits of this planet without giving anything in return. You can help each character by finding something they want from another part of the planet. These are not really puzzles, and as you encounter each wished-for item in your wandering the game helpfully reminds you who you should bring it to.

When going through areas a second time, as often happens in the course of these fetch quests, it is nice to savour one's surroundings and examine things again. Many things have alternate descriptions that the game cycles through as you re-explore, from space berries that taste different each time to momentary encounter with cute birds on the beach.

It all makes for a vibrant, charming landscape, an experience to put a smile ok your face.

An excellent cosy sci-fi game, albeit one that ended on a sudden note. You play as a lone captain of a spaceship, spending your days tending the ship and browsing the internet. I love atmosphere here, the slow life of an old but well-loved ship, the repetitive daily routine. Especially love the internet pages, glimpses of a society that, despite being in space, feel so human and similar to our own. People are still arguing about the superstition against buying your own first tarot deck!

The incorporation of the occult and tarot in general, but transformed into a more sci-fi lens. The tarot deck that can project card meanings, ritualised electric lighting. It's very cool and I'd love to see more of it.

“I want to see more of it,” is my main comment about this game in general. I like the second half of the game, which had the same great writing and atmosphere as on the ship, but it left me with many questions. We get a lot of tantalising details about the backstory here — the cult (?), the protagonist's relationship with their father, and why they want to leave. I expected more of an explanation, and the way it left off was a bit unsatisfying.

What we do have here is really enjoyable, though — I'll keep an eye on it if it ever gets an update or an expansion.

A really fun puzzle game, one of my favourites from the 2024 IFComp. This is an escape game, of two teenagers escaping the underground bunker they've been raised in.

It's a parser-choice hybrid — you navigate and advance the story through links, but there are points requiring text input (passwords and such). There's areas to explore and revisit at any time, plus inventory. I really like this setup. The navigation felt smooth, the UI clear and understandable. Love the little quality of life touches as well — the ticking off rooms when you've finished with it, the symbols showing locked doors, the station lists on every computer. I didn't even need to take notes!

The puzzles are really fun to figure out, and felt naturally intergrated into the world/narrative. The two protagonists Aiden and Vee are separated early on, a lot of the progression consists of them opening passages for each other, finding hints and passwords for the other to want to use etc. At any point you have multiple avenues of investigation and areas to explore, which combined with the quality of life stuff made the game feel quite smooth. Aiden and Vee can contact each other and their exchanges act as a diagetic hint system, which I appreciated.

This game is just fun. A comedic parody of RPG games that didn't take itself seriously, with lines and events that made me laugh out loud so many times. I saw some reviews saying this sort of parody is overdone, but it's the first time I've encountered this type of game and I found it delightful.

Jasmine has lost her favourite teacup, and obviously there's nothing else to do than go on a quest to retrieve it. At multiple points you're given the choice to go home, or escalate this absurd quest even further, with with sensible choice always leading to a Bad End. Will you really go confront Actual Literal Satan over one teacup that doesn't even have a pattern on it anymore because it washed off? Yes, of course you will.

I laughed out loud so many times. (Spoiler - click to show) Choosing the path to “the swamp of an instant inevitable doom” means Jasmine will immediately walk into a poisoned swamp and die. If answer the genie's questions wrong, he will punt you out of the screen, into the swamp, and you die. Satan protesting his power is too mighty, how dare you accuse him of just walking into a house to steal one small teacup??? When that's exactly what he did.

I didn't mind the walking animations; I found it added character, and it was incorporated into the comedy really nicely. This shock of Jasmine just, walking straight into the death swamp. That long sequence of her climbing up the stairs!

And that last (Spoiler - click to show) battle with Satan. Love that your HP just — doesn't change, doesn't mean anything, all the numbers are lies, I one-shot killed him with an insult.

A beloved spaceship captain has died, and ship AI, a lover of mysteries, is eager to investigate.

Unlike a traditional whodunnit, it focuses more on storytelling and exploring different possibilities. There isn't a single murderer to identify: you can accuse anyone and read a version of events where they're guilty. Some of them don't involve murder at all — so far I've seen endings where (Spoiler - click to show) the "AI" is a child playing pretend, one where the captain died of a natural heart attack, and one where he took his own life and staged it as a murder scene as a final gift to you.

This is a multi-author collaboration where each author wrote a character, and the endings have been fascinating stories in and of themselves. I find reading them to be a better experience than actually playing the game.

My playing experience definitely suffered from diving into this game right a different murder mystery game. There is a 30-minute IRL timer to identify a suspect, and since you can find evidence pointing toward almost anyone, plus the non-murder possibilities, the evidence for each suspect is sparse and contradictory. Going in I had expectations of a traditional mystery, but instead found plenty of vague clues and suspicious events without clear ways to either rule people out or confirm guilt. At 30 minutes in I couldn’t single out one person who seemed definitively guiltier than the others, and I had no idea how some of my evidence fit together. I was rather disappointed when I discovered that there is no additional evidence and the clues are deliberately contradictory. The limited clues made the investigation less smooth too — if I found an inconsistency, there was little chance I could follow up on it by investigating more or confronting a suspect.

I think this game would benefit from setting the player’s expectations better, making it clear that this isn’t a murder with a single solution.

A murder mystery set in Antarctica!

The PC is a maintenance worker at a small station during the winter season, whose brother Daniel (also a worker there), has been murdered. First of all, this is such a good explanation for the “locked down with limited suspects” setup and why an ordinary person is investigating the case. The writing is evocative and represents this well — I loved the atmosphere of the isolated station, the cold starkness, the increasing stress as the killer starts to retaliate against you. The scenery descriptions change throughout to become more ominous, which was a nice touch. The writing was well done, you get the sense of a grieving, frantic person who's not the most professional at investigating, and the character dynamics and relationships felt natural.

The main gameplay revolves around talking to colleagues, establishing alibis, sorting out their relationships to Daniel and each other, and determining possible motives. The game responded well to the information you gained — if you learned an incriminating fact you could confront that person and get the option to talk about it. I rarely felt that I was stuck, at any moment there was at least one thing I'm following up on, it felt natural to chase one lead after another.

The game adds complications as everyone moves around the station, and it can take a while to track down a specific person. You have to sleep and engage in various activities to manage stress, and you need to do activities with specific characters to increase rapport with them and get them to share information. The officials arrive in 10 days, so there's a trade-off between paying attention to self care and friendships, and pushing through the investigation. The killer also sabotages things to distract you and waste your time, which nicely added to the increasingly tense atmosphere.

I identified the killer by (Spoiler - click to show) getting into Daniel's phone and finding a note the killer wrote, but I got too stressed at the end and killed him accidentally, oops, so I never found out his motives or the murder weapon (although I suspect it's related to Jack's faulty data and Daniel being nosy). It would be interesting to replay and focus on Jack, to see what else I can discover.