Reviews by iaraya

One of the largest IF games I’ve played to date, and what a delightful game it is.

It is a pseudo-medieval fantasy with very classic adventure game gameplay: explore, gather items, and talk to people, solve puzzles to unlock new areas to progress. This plays out on a huge and varied map; many locations could be their own IFComp entries, each with their own puzzles to solve plus overarching goals that stretch across the entire map. The puzzle structure feels like, I need to do A, which requires solving B to get the info that I need for C & D, and to access the C location I need to get E... The feeling when you finally put it all together is very satisfying.

It can feel a bit unfocused at times. Oftentimes solving a puzzle gives an item that is needed for something on the other side of the map 7 hours later. Or the other way around, one could struggle against a puzzle, not realising it currently not doable because it requires an item that's 2 puzzle chains down the line.

So I find the puzzles fun but just alright; what stands out for me is the writing. It is charming and somewhat self-indulgent in the best way, you can tell the author enjoyed coming up with whimsical locales and also telling us interesting facts about the setting. One of my favourites is the Chelkwibble town, with its houses with roofs that slope down to the ground and its impressive array of punny random interactions you get as you pass through. The following is an excerpt from the 3-paragraph description of the Chelkwibble mead hall, which you cannot actually enter and is not relevant to any puzzles:

The mead-hall is a relic from a far-off age when most of the land was wild and unsettled. It's the largest structure to be seen in town, and seems to have been well kept up over time. The building is covered with a large mass of sod, and was made with a cruck frame, meaning that large bent trees were split in two, the matching halves being separated and mirrored to lean against each other at their peaks, forming one rib or section of the building. By appearances, the old hall still serves the age-old fermented honey drink in addition to serving as a town hall/dance hall/feasting hall.

Elsewhere in the game I learned about cockleoffen ovens in a farmhouse (which also feature a baby crib made from a barrel cut in half), the exact shape and structure of a quarry, and how a lathe works. My general assumption that detailed descriptions have story/puzzle relevance did work against me a bit. For a while I was convinced I’d need to use the lathe at some point because its operation and parts were explained in such detail, but not so.

The “nudge” option to see what unsolved puzzles you have access to and should be focusing on is very useful too, and I wish I started using it earlier.

The world itself is wonderfully varied, with lots of interesting locations. The monastery, the town with windmill houses, the cider festival, the wizard’s library. The surprise turn into helping Not-Robin Hood rescue not-Rapunzel! Each time the world expanded and I got to explore someplace new was a great feeling.

I loved Prince Quisborne’s growth in the game. This comes through mainly in his evolving commentary as you progress: early on, scenes of learning to set up camp, going from being horrified at the idea of sleeping outdoors to enjoying being under the stars. Learning about life for regular folks, realising how empty his life of leisure at the castle was.

"Wow, sir!" he says in a hushed tone. "You can do just about everything, it seems! I never learned how to play any music. But now, I think I'd like to. It seems like something worth doing, and you can probably make a lot of people happy with it. Come to think of it, I don't think I ever did anything that required practice or study, when I lived at the castle. Doing nothing but amusing yourself all the time actually gets pretty wearying."

The effect is also from the various ways the game translates player commands to events. Sometimes it’s Vathyrian coming up with the plan, sometimes, increasingly, it’s presented as Quisborne coming up with ideas. It’s really endearing how excited he gets when his ideas work.

Throughout the game he grows more responsible, thoughtful, and caring, I’m actually quite proud. The ending sequence he officially becomes no longer feckless is incredible.

Had a great time with this game and was sad when the end approached.

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.

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

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 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.