Reviews by iaraya

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.