Ratings and Reviews by Xavid

An evocative game with strong writing and an intriguing setting.

The rat world and narrative voice of the descriptions was a lot of fun. The game was pretty short, though, and it had a lot of space that didn't really have any significance to the plot; it definitely left me wanting more.

I thought the combat mechanic was interesting and fun; it'd work well in a larger game with more variety of weapons and opponents, which would have room for using it as part of larger puzzles or other second-level usage.

I also though the ending was pretty cute.

Very interesting, but hard to get through. There's a lot of text and rather low interactivity,
interesting mechanics that are not well-explained or easily understandable, and a pretense of stats that aren't transparent in value or use. There's a focus on anachronisms which could be interesting but is unexplained at least as far as I got (and some anachronisms are not counted, e.g. (Spoiler - click to show)the prisoner's dilemma). All in all, I was interested in the ideas but each time I thought that plot was going to happen I instead found another digression with lots of dense text and unclear relation to the main plot, so eventually I gave up.

I found the beginning, figuring out the way the game works, very frustrating. It's very unclear what parts of the initial setup are clues and what aren't, and the many user interface options make it really unclear what text is important and what is meaningless flavor. This contributed to making the intentionally-underspecified rules for the puzzle frustrating. Even how the game indicates which tasks are completed and which are not was not initially clear to me.

Honestly, it feels like a clever puzzle bolted onto a parser interface that doesn't fit it well. I feel like a non-parser interface could present the relevant information about remaining goals in a clearer, simpler way without presenting so many interface options and without losing anything.

That said, the puzzle system is unique and was fun once I figured out the rules and I did enjoy the game quite a bit.

I found the writing and the world created here to be unique and very intriguing. There's a lot of uncertainty here: what's really happening, how characters relate, what the consequences are of your actions, some of what's really going on with your character. This works well both for the uncertainty of a teenager whose life is about to completely change and for the surreal, uncanny environment. All in all, while it's not as game-y as some, it's a well-done literary/existential twine game.

This is definitely more art than game, but I find it a very interesting use of the Twine medium and the way the title, premise, and text you don't have time to read combine makes for an impactful and evocative feel. Plus, it's so short, might as well play it a few times. ^_^

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.

Very well done: interesting world mechanics and interactions, choices that feel like they matter, and an interface that felt natural for the premise. It left me wanting more, which unfortunately I'm apparently not going to be able to get without a smartphone for the expanded version. I liked how the earlier parts of the game familiarized you enough with the mechanics to make the later challenges seem accessible while keeping them high-pressure. I feel like the progression worked quite well, and it ended up having a surprising emotional impact for such a short game.

Superluminal Vagrant Twin stands out for its unusual format for IF and for its understated, evocative writing that makes the world feel complex and immersive without facing the player with a wall of text. Its mechanics feel quite different from standard IF and work well with the feel. I feel it's main weakness is the lack of a satisfying climax: you gradually figure out more about the world and how to use the mechanics effectively, and then you do that and win without surprises or twists. While there are multiple options, it didn't feel like it mattered which one you picked, and I kept waiting for moral choices or other elaborations on the formula. That said, it was well worth playing and a lot of fun.