Ratings and Reviews by iaraya

Slice-of-life is one of my favourite subgenres of fanfiction. Especially for those canons that tend toward intrigue and action, it is nice to read slower paced stories that give the characters time to rest and breathe, exploring personal lives and relationships: the quiet intimacy of late-night conversations, sharing dreams for the future, talking about what matters to them. It is often fascinating to compare interpretations of what they are like in more mundane, domestic sitatuations, small personal details that round out a character and in turn make me appreciate the source material more. All that is to say that I was very much looking forward to this slice-of-life featuring Poirot and Hastings, and it lived up to all my expectations.

The premise of this story is that Captain Hastings, following the death of his wife Dulcie, has returned to London with his four young children and taken up residence in the same apartment building as Poirot. Despite being a longtime Christie fan I’m unfamiliar with the two books most relevant to this game. It’s been ten years since I’ve read The Big Four, from which this game takes its name, and I don’t remember much of it, but I feel the author does a good job at giving enough context to understand both the character dynamics at play and the significance of The Big Four to this story. I haven’t read Curtain, the final Poirot novel, which I believe details the circumstances of Dulcie’s death and the lives of their children. I do know that in canon Dulcie passes away after her children are grown; I was initially wary that this game kills her off early so that Hastings and the young children can spent more time with Poirot; however the result is so charming that I can’t bring myself to mind much.

There is a small mystery here, but it is not the focus and is probably the weakest part. I enjoyed it, but it only took up about 15 minutes of my total 100 minutes of play time. The heart of the experience is exploring the two apartments, one occupied by Poirot and Hastings and the other by the children (if this was a graphical game it’d be called a walking simulator).

There’s a lot of characterisation to be gleaned from a person’s home, their bedroom, their study – how they’re decorated and organised, the objects they choose to display. The gameplay is walking through the house examining their rooms and belongings, with Hastings describing and explaining the background and telling anecdotes, giving a lovely look into their daily lives as a family. I smiled at small character details, Poirot having Hastings’ books in his study organised by height, Hastings’ wariness of modern-style furnishings, their considerations for buying a car. I especially loved the explorations of their relationship with the children; it’s nice to read how involved Poirot is with their lives and upbringing. Poirot making dinner and introducing Belgian dishes to the children! Grace making a little stuffed cat with a moustache as a gift!

In general the author did an excellent job at capturing the voice and essence of Poirot and Hastings, exploring aspects of their characters that Christie never focused on yet feel entirely natural and in keeping with canon. The last scene, of the two of them sitting and talking after putting the children to bed, was everything I could have hoped for.

This is a limited parser game, with little to do other than walking around examining things. Most verbs are disabled, the player dissuaded with a variety of in-character custom responses; even an accidental empty command becomes “I was momentarily dumbstruck.” I do wish that some more actions were accounted for – for example, trying to open the refrigerator gives “It wasn’t something I could open” (I’m exploring someone’s home, of course I want to snoop on what’s in their fridge!). However, the overall attention to detail is evident, making for a cohesive and immersive experience.

I also appreciate the small touches, such as the most important nouns in descriptions being bolded (though many non-bolded words can also be examined), which turn into italics after examination to help keep track of what you’ve seen. The descriptions are responsive to the things you’ve seen or done.

Only small complaint is with the status line. It is quite useful to list the exits and current objective, but it is all on one line and to accomodate the entire length requires setting the text width to far wider than is my preference. If the objective is too long it overlaps the exits. For example the status late-game in the dining room reads, on my preferred layout settings: DininCurrent objective: check on the children and head bExits: N Erot’s

I’ve also notices some inconsistences in how paragraphs are formatted, sometimes indented and sometimes not. The game has been updates several times since I downloaded it though so perhaps that has been touched up.

(note: these issues have been fixed in the time since I first wrote this)

This is definitely among my favourites of the competition so far, and I fully intend to revisit it in the future.

At the heart of this game is a quite compelling story. Our protagonist wakes in a strange graveyard with no memory of who they are or how they got there. They wish to go home, but with no conception of where that is they follow the only road out, enter a castle in the sea, and stumble into a tragic tale of love and desperation. They can watch as story plays out to its natural conclusion, or intervene and continue discovering the whole truth. There is an interesting magic system around capturing souls of the dead and glimpses into the wider history of the world.

It is a shame that this story is hampered by awkward design decisions. The game is structured around the player exploring the map, collecting and using items, talking to people, but the Twine implementation leaves much to be desired. For example, to leave the starting area our protagonist needs to trade a chilled Fanta for the Duke’s invitation. A convenient cart holds the three items needed for this, except for some reason you only can take one at a time, so the fetch quest becomes unnessarily trekking back and forth several times between the two locations. Later on you need to catch worms as fish bait, I ended up trekking between the worm-site and fishing-site 5 times because the fishing is luck based, consumes your worm even if you don’t catch a fish, and you can only carry one worm at a time.

That first scene establishes a curious blend of high fantasy (dukes, castles, souls of the dead) with Fanta drinks and freeze rays. I was looking forward to seeing how these disparate elements would interact, but sadly the game does not expand on the concept, and as a result the non-fantasy elements feel rather tacked on. Also, why do you need the Duke’s invitation to leave? What is he inviting people to? Why am are you even heading to the castle? These questions are never answered.

The initial confusion could be interpreted as reflecting the protagonist’s own disorientation, waking in an unfamiliar place and following the only available paths in the hope of finding answers or a way home. The later mention of fate suggests being unwillingly swept along by destiny. I’d be willing to take this interpretation if there was more introspection or a clearer sense of the protagonist’s thoughts/desires beyond an initial wish to return home, which is not mentioned again. Instead, it feels like the player is simply solving puzzles and advancing along the only route of plot progression, without understanding of what I’m doing or why.

The inventory system has designated slots for left hand, right hand, and pockets, plus a special items section. If you have an item in each hand and then pick up another, it replaces the oldest one. I found this out the hard way when I had a plot critical item in hand, then decided to arm myself with sword and salt before going on, not noticing my plot-critical item had disappeared into the ether and I’d soft-locked myself. Now I’d also been seeing statues that “reset chapter parameters”, with no explanation of what that means. I prayed at one hoping to reset to a point before losing that item, but nothing seemed to happen? I was able to back button my way out of being actually softlocked, but the experience was rather frustrating.

Once you get past this point, the story becomes more of a focus, and I found this last section a lot more enjoyable. I loved the part where you uncover backstory through poetic fragments in paintings, each fragment opening up a new door to go through. I appreciated the author’s efforts at introducing elements early on, tying them back in a satisfying way towards the conclusion. Finding the extra story for the good ending was very satisfying. I wish the game had more focus on the castle and the story there and less on the awkward beginning parts.

game map

A promising start! The premise here is that you are a student warrior poet, about to embark on a career of adventuring; however, just before graduation, your advisor steals a precious artefact and flees, so naturally you’re tasked with tracking him down to earn your degree. This game, the first of what I hope will be many instalments, takes place in the port city you’ve followed him to. Explore the city, talk to its inhabitants, discover the professor’s next destination, and secure passage to pursue him further.

The highlight for me was the writing and the characters. The locations are interesting and varied, with engaging descriptions that capture the dynamic vibe of a bustling city and market, which makes exploration is enjoyable even when there isn’t much you can do yet in a particular place.

The game is generally really responsive to what you know and what you’ve seen. Conversations with NPCs use the TALK TO command and are of the type where, instead of picking a topic, the conversation simply happens based on your knowledge; if you’ve encountered relevant information you automatically share it. This is nice as it makes the interactions feel more natural and integrated into the narrative, and the author’s good at writing interesting dialogue. However, sometimes this system works a bit too smoothly, because my character is making connections before I do. For example, I talked to one character simply because they were there, and the character immediately goes oh I see you have something I need, can I trade it from you? – even though I hadn’t yet realised that was what I needed to do!

Many puzzles here are narrative and conversation-based and follow that pattern: you do something or find a clue, figure out who to approach with that information, and hopefully gain more clues in the ensuing conversation. The progression is generally smooth and satisfying once you’re on the right track; however, one minor complaint is that the system feels somewhat rigid. There’s essentially one main chain of conversations that drives the plot forward, which you start by finding a specific clue. Talking to people before getting that the info to prompt the relevant conversations usually doesn’t work, and I spent some time aimlessly wandering around until I looked at the walkthrough and realised I hadn’t examine something thoroughly enough. This is a downside of the otherwise good conversation system, you can’t just go to the inn or the docks and ask if anyone has seen someone matching the professor’s description, as one might expect.

To mix things up here’s also a combat system that I found pretty fun. It’s simple to control – choose to attack with either a weapon or poetry magic and hope for a good roll. There are opportunities to increase your ability scores and acquire better weapons and armour, but the combat encounters feel fairly manageable even with the starting equipment. As a result, getting better weapons feels less about immediate necessity and more like preparing for the next stage of the adventure.

Overall, a very well put together experience, I’m very much looking forward to future installments.