Ratings and Reviews by iaraya

This game immediately impresses with its excellent presentation. On the title page, the pixel art and beautiful orange and grey colour combination gives a striking first impression. This continues into the game itself, with a well-designed UI featuring separate map and inventory panes, plus nice font choices and typography (I’ve since downloaded Lekton for myself). There are options to change font and font size, which I always like to see. There is a lot of attention to detail put into the design, which makes for a pleasant and immersive experience.

This is a puzzle game set in an scifi future where the population of Mars has retreated underground following climate catastrophe. A large part of the gameplay is based on exploring, collecting items and using items; but there is a major focus on narrative also. There is a lengthy introduction, the narration of the protagonist’s progress through the city is interspersed with memories of her sparse life in underground bunkers, her observations on the abandoned streets as someone whose only experience with things like hot dog carts and playgrounds is through her mother’s stories.

I’ve played several parser puzzlers this Comp, and it’s had me thinking about how a choice-based interface can create a different kind of vibe and experience. The result here feels very smooth and directed. The player makes decisions such as the order in which the protagonist (referred to only as The Girl) explores locations, what to examine, which item to use to solve a puzzle. At times the game itself takes over, having the Girl act on her own. These moments (from small sentences where she finds and take items to longer ‘cutscenes’) are narrated in the same voice as player-driven actions, which makes the puzzle-solving and the storytelling feel nicely intertwined. For instance I appreciated how the comms link to Command is a diegetic hint system, but the Girl also uses it on her own initiative when the situation calls for it, like reporting a system failure or asking to unlock a door (which naturally doesn’t work).

But sometimes the game is too smooth, to the point of reducing the sense of challenge. At one point the Girl finds a storeroom and cycles through a list of tools: angle grinder, drill, pliers, and so on, before landing on a folding ladder. “That could be useful,” she thinks. She takes the ladder." The cycling text is a neat effect, but it also felt a little too convenient, erasing the potential puzzle of deciding for myself which tools to take. Later on the Girl comes across a passage blocked by debris and makes this observation: (Spoiler - click to show)“Another apartment block […] has a second storey balcony — if she can reach it, and then climb to the next balcony over, the Girl might be able to circumnavigate the wall.” Again, instead of asking the player to find a way forward, the solution is handed over right away.

In a way it feels like the Girl has more agency than the typical text-adventure protagonist. She’s capable and clearly knows what she’s doing, instead of being subject to the player’s flailing. That’s a cool effect, though it does mean less is left in the player’s hands. Still, I was glad to see the puzzles ramp up in complexity by the endgame.

The prose itself is melancholic and well-written. the ending twist is perhaps too obvious, but the story engaging and thought-provoking. I do wish there had been more space for the Girl’s introspection; what we do get is effective, but it feels like there was room for more depth.

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 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.

I will say upfront that I did not manage to finish this game. I got softlocked about an hour in when (Spoiler - click to show)the flashlight battery ran out in the crypt, so I couldn’t examine anything, but also couldn’t leave to charge the battery since I hadn’t finishing examining everything… But I did enjoy my time with the game up to that point, and perhaps I’ll give it another go later on if there's a post-comp release.

I went into this looking forward to a classic text adventure experience, and that’s precisely what I found. The premise is that your father has gone missing while researching an ancient monastery, leading you to follow in his footsteps to search for clues on his whereabouts and his research.

Firstly, I was impressed by the presentation of the interface. Love the little maps for each location! And the music is well-suited to the game and not distracting. Only small complaints are that in some places (eg the tower) there is no space between paragraphs, and I don’t think the font is the most readable for small text on screen.

The puzzles are intuitive and fairly straightforward, mostly in the vein of picking up items and realising where to use them. In some places the hints may in fact be too obvious, such as one instance where the game explicitly tells you that (Spoiler - click to show)you need something long to push the stone (emphasis original to the game).

I enjoy a large map to explore and this certainly delivered on that front. The writing was excellent at establishing atmosphere and sense of place, with each ‘area’ (the semi-abandoned town, the forest, the monastery ruins) feeling distinct and immersive. Especially appreciated the illustrated map and descriptions of the entire landscape in-game, which gave just enough guidance to make exploration feel really exciting. Stumbling on (Spoiler - click to show)the lake beach and ruins in the forest was such a thrill. (side note, I appreciate the forest design with each room having different exit configurations, that make it a lot easier to keep track of where you are)

That said, it’s clear that some locations received more attention than others. For example most of the village is great, but the tower could do with more thorough testing: the tourist information panel has the exact same information as looking at the panoramal; the box explicitly says it has a transparent door but you still can’t look inside when it is cloased; it doesn’t quite make sense that you can’t sit on the bench. My excitement at finding (Spoiler - click to show)the lakeside beach was hampered by there being nothing to see or do there; (Spoiler - click to show)the lake, mountain, and embankment don’t appear to be implemented corectly despite those nouns being bolded. At one point the game describes a pile of artifacts, “and likely much more, if one were to dig” but the game doesn’t recognise digging as a verb.

In general the fundamental design and structure of the game is excellent, but some more polish and thorough testing would be beneficial.

This was a confusing experience.

It began at the IFComp website listing which claimed this is both Twine and parser-based — how does that work, perhaps a Twine game with text input? My mind drifted to this recent forum discussion on whether certain authoring systems can only create either parser or choiced-based games. The downloaded folder has both a .gblorb and an index.html file, so then I thought perhaps this has both Twine and parser versions. I’ve seen that done before, it’s interesting to compare the differences in implementation. But the html files only led to a browser-playable version of the gblorb, so the Twine listing appears to be just an error and I was overthinking it.

Over the next 20 minutes I went through this cycle several times. Some aspect of the game would be thought-provoking and lead to interesting musings in my little notebook, only to realise the source is an error and I was looking for meaning where there perhaps is none.

Upon launching a parser game, the instinct is is to first type ABOUT then EXAMINE every noun in sight. We start the game in the middle of a bed in a small bedroom, with the bed, a bookcase, a nightstand, and a basket. And a baby. The intro, the ABOUT text, the game summary, they are all very insistent that there is a baby and the baby is crying.

So it was very disconcerting when X BABY was met with You can’t see any such thing. X BED? You can’t see any such thing, despite laying in the middle of it. X BASKET, X BOOKCASE, X NIGHTSTAND? The same.

At this point I thought this was intentional. The summary and game intro had a surreal, unsettling quality: the rattling windows, the too-big bed, the sense of isolation and confinement. None of the immediate nouns being apparently implemented gave the impression of floating in a void, strangely detatched from reality, which fit right in with the surreal first impressions. Maybe this is some sort of dream realm or representation of the protagonist’s mental state. Maybe you’re being haunted by this disembodied baby that you can hear but not see, why not?

Then X ME yielded the default As good-looking as ever, a distinctly not-surreal statement, and my hopes began to falter. Then I tried moving north and south, and realised what’s going on.

Different parts of the bed are implemented as separate rooms. I do like this as a design choice — it emphasises that the bed is, currently, the protagonist’s whole world, that just moving from one end to another take significant effort. I was particularly taken by the description of the “out of the bed” area, the protagonist dragging himself halfway off the bed and reaching out with one hand braced on the cold floor. Very evocative.

However, this does mean Inform assumes that objects (and babies) are not visible or interactable outside of the ‘room’ they’re in, and the author has not taken steps to correct this. Now I could try to rationalise this — if the protagonist is laying on his back he will see only the ceiling, and naturally cannot see a baby on the floor next to the bed, nor a low bookcase. But trying to read to the baby from the bottom of the bed does not work because you can’t see any such thing, and none of the furniture seems to be implemented at all, and the reasoning falls apart.

I could keep going with the overthinking. Maybe the response to LISTEN being the default You hear nothing unexpected means the baby’s crying is so constant it has become expected background noise. Maybe the the end monologue concluding with (the end) but not actually ending the game is saying something about the unending, inescapable demands of single parenthood. These were enjoyable musings, but almost certainly not intended by the author.

I realise I haven’t yet said anything about the actual plot of the game, which is revealed in a long monologue at the very end of the game. It is an unusual ‘twist’ that makes the story less surreal and more mundane that it first appears, yet I enjoyed the characterisation of the protagonist as a new parent exhausted and in pain, making a valiant effort to find humour and express genuine love for his child. The 6-paragraph-long passage, after a game mostly consisting of short (or non-existent) descriptions, felt like a cathartic release, a sudden outpouring of emotion.

Or mabye I’m just overthinking again.

You remember your friend with a pink flush in her cheeks; her eyes, green as a jewel; the way her lips twisted into a strange, lovely smile and the way her feet glided as she danced. You remember her hand in your own, pulsing with irresistible warmth. The Florence before you now has lost all color and heat. She is a stranger.

A quiet story told through observation and introspection. You sit vigil at the bedside of your dear friend Florence; fittingly the game is focused on this room, and her. Links in the text allow you to look closely at Florence and examine the room, slowly revealing snippets of your history and relationship and the terrible event that rendered her unconscious. There's small elements of picking up items (not really puzzles)—the mood created by moving between the bed and the rest of the room sort of reflects the restless anxiousness of the moment.

The writing is evocative and emotional, striking in the loving details in the depiction of Florence, the depth of care conveyed. It did rather well at drawing me into Cora and Florence’s relationship in a short time.

The first thing that caught my eye about this one is, it's an actual minesweeper game. In HTML. On the AO3 fanfiction archive. I've experimented with AO3's limited HTML/CSS support, to help writer friends do things like linked footnotes and mimicking Twitter threads, but I never knew this level of interaction was possible. I've been looking through the code and it's super impressive.

On the game itself, this is an affecting and bittersweet story that links into the mechanics of minesweeper surprisingly well. It's set in the universe of The Murderbot Diaries series by Martha Wells, but you do not need familiarity with either the books or the recent TV series to understand the game. It would be useful to know that SecUnits are androids rented as security personnel; they are slaves, their actions controlled by a governor module that inflicts pain if they disobey orders or violate policy. You do need to know how to play minesweeper.

In-universe the minesweeper board is a research survey site, that two SecUnits are combing through to map out locations of deadly beetles (the mines) and hopefully avoid being killed themselves. The story is told through communications between the SecUnits, the AI HubSystem, and the research team, which is slowly revealed as you play. It's an evocative glimpse into the SecUnits' constrained lives: the careful, defiant ways they sneak through jokes and pseudo-swearing without triggering punishment for unprofessionalism, the jokes they make despite punishment. It's increasingly and infuruatingly clear that the research team views them as disposable tools; the whole reason the SecUnits are risking their lives scanning for danger at close range is because the supervisor considered that cheaper than authorising high quality satellite scans.

It makes for the most immersive game of minesweeper I've ever played. Each move is a lot more emotionally tense, when a mistake means the death of people who just sent each other funny gifs and complained about their client's incompetence, who will not even be mourned. I made moves only when I was sure; guessing at beetle/bomb locations even with UNDO turned on felt almost like treating the SecUnits as as callously as the survey supervisor does, placing information over their lives.

The player's progress triggers the communications but do not affect them (unless you uncover beetles and die), until the very end, at the most heartbreaking moment in the game. (major spoilers below)

(Spoiler - click to show)If you play minesweeper mostly in the intended way, you come to the last two squares where there isn't enough information to definitively tell where the beetle is. For the first time in the game you have to guess, with 50/50 chance at the SecUnits being eaten by carnivorous beetles. The supervisor does not authorise better scans, or allow just cordoning off both squares as unsafe. They expect the SecUnits to go in and risk death to get as much data as possible, which of course they do. It's what they're designed for. The player makes the guess, the SecUnits survive, or not, based on that choice.

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.