Ratings and Reviews by Xavid

I had a lot of fun with this game. The topic-linking mechanic did a great job of having the gameplay feel like being a tv-show detective, rather than someone who happens to solve a case by solving text-adventure puzzles. It gave the game a unique feel that I highly enjoyed, and the characters and descriptions definitely contributed to that feel. All in all, it felt very well-polished.

In the end, it seemed like this game had cool mechanics but wasn't necessarily maximally suited for a parser game. (Spoiler - click to show)In the present, really all you did was decide who to talk to, which topic to bring up, or what to link. The flashbacks were mostly fake interactivity and while it was cool to see the same places from different perspectives, it got old to repeat the unchanged parts of a flashback. I would've enjoyed a few more layers with less-obvious linkages. Also, I was disappointed that the color-based perspective didn't really end up being relevant to anything.

That said, I enjoyed this game and its link mechanic a lot, and look forward to future games by this author.

An interesting juxtaposition: a parser game with a fixed list of simple commands such that it could work fine with a twine interface or even something simpler, but with a focus on mapping and simple puzzles that gives it some of a classic text-adventure feel. Exploring and mapping the big space was fun, the puzzles were well-designed to be interesting without leaving the player lost, and the text, despite being somewhat minimal, had a nice light-hearted feel to it that gave the game a cheery atmosphere. All in all, a lot of fun.

A simple, short game with an interesting, fun narrative voice. I was hoping that the concept of reference/representation was going somewhere more than just humor, and I agree the ending was abrupt, but I enjoyed it.

Well-written characters and relationships that make me want to find out where things are going. Its main weakness is its unfinished nature: there's a lot of setup but without payoff, and this contributes to it feeling linear and like my choices don't matter. Also, I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt to the mysterious conversation, but without payoff that justifies it it seems arbitrary and gimmicky. But the writing is solid and the character interactions are fun, and I hope the remainder emerges because I'm curious to see where it goes.