Ratings and Reviews by Enrique Henestroza Anguiano
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The aftermath of an unspeakable event, October 17, 2021This choice-based exploration piece tells the story of a girl who wakes up in a deserted community and seeks out food and answers to the mystery behind everyone’s disappearance.
The structure of the piece is beautifully realized through a gradual exploration of the eerily empty community, which allows for bits of memory and story to come together piece by piece into a frightening but powerful whole. I felt a pervasive sense of dread building as I played, and I was fully invested in the outcome by the time the climax hit.
I will say that I was confused by the climactic scene, which reveals the truth of the community in a flash of memories and/or visions. I realize that there’s a blend of reality, visions, and religious symbolism throughout the piece—angels appear in physical form—so I do understand why details might have been kept vague.
Abandoned lives of the disturbingly rich, April 15, 2021The short but impactful Sovereign Citizens presents a dark, claustrophobic story about a couple experiencing homelessness who explore an abandonded mansion by the sea. It starts as an affecting, if straightforward, narrative as they arrive and try to settle in for the night in what seems to be a well-equipped, upscale place.
Slowly, though, as one of them decides to explore the mansion, things get increasingly weird and satirical. The mansion is sprawling and almost impossibly laid out, one room devoted to recreating a tiki bar complete with climate control, another room full of trophies for a litany of achievements that don't seem real, etc. I like that this exploration can be read in different ways, whether as a commentary on the absurdity and ego of conspicuous wealth, or as a perspective on how things that seem normal in a status-focused culture might feel alien to those who've been excluded from it. The protagonist exploring the mansion has a slightly menacing edge, and given the contrast between their circumstances and the excesses discovered in the house, it's understandable.
While the interactive elements and design are somewhat basic, the focus on navigation aligns well with the sense of disorientation the game sets out to create, and the experience lingered with me after I finished playing.
Immersively eerie whodunit, April 15, 2021[PYG]MALION* is an immersive whodunit about a slain god trying to solve their murder in a luxurious inter-dimensional estate. Some of the world-building elements seem indebted to graphic novel and sci-fi influences like Moebius and The Fifth Element (down to the inter-dimensional diva star). Design elements also contribute to the otherworldly atmosphere, with a UI that includes cyberpunk fonts and stylized images in blacks and purples.
The god, temporarily revived in the form of a statue by a necromancer detective, confronts a cast of suspects representing different archetypes: a singing diva, a popular athlete, a titan of industry, a power-wielding president, etc. While there is a formulaic aspect to the story structure, the descriptions and conversations are just the right amount of nonsensical and inscrutable, giving the reader a tantalizing glimpse into this world. Character development for the god is folded nicely into the action as they wander around the estate, in the way they consider different objects or in how they react to their rapidly decaying tie to the corporeal world. I also ended up loving that (Spoiler - click to show)the story functions as an anti-mystery, with no real motives for the suspects and a static quality to the flow of the story, like observing a slowly dissipating diorama.
There are aspects of the game that feel unfinished, like occasional error messages or missing images, as well as limited consequential choices and a denouement that feels somewhat incomplete. But overall, this game hits the mark as a holistically designed and satisfyingly eerie experience.
Nostalgic slice of life Halloween story, October 21, 2020Sporting a Prince-inspired title, Electric Word, “life” is a story with light interactivity about the long-ago memory of a mysterious friend who shows up to a house party.
This is an interesting take on a ghost story concept, mixed with a classic, low-key Twine story. The game does a good job of setting a scene for the party with a chill, funny, and nostalgic vibe that is carried through nicely.
The main downside for me is that the piece feels more like a hangout than a fleshed out narrative. There are some nice descriptions for each friend, but I didn't get a sense of who the characters were in a deeper way. For the crucial relationship between the two main characters, there's very interesting subtext, but things stay mostly on the surface as well; though perhaps given the poignant, regret-tinged ending, this is partially the point.
A procedurally generated prelude to a kiss, October 21, 2020A cafe serves a bagel-centric spin on avocado toast, a party has an analog radio playing in background, and a cousin’s loft is decorated with a shiny new vitamix. After this, a moment of hesitation, of anticipation, or of self-doubt. A bit of pretentious banter about jazz from him, a flirty line about ears from her, or a smile from them. And finally, after a moment of consideration, there’s a kiss, clean and smooth, or close-lipped and awkward.
smooch.click is a procedurally generated game in 5 extremely short acts covering various settings, moments, and feelings leading up to a fateful kiss. The progression from one act to the next appears to be fairly random, with each act containing three or so possible links that are drawn from a larger pool and are cycled through in real time. These UI choices support and enhance the themes of anticipation and possibility in the game.
While simple, the game is effective at creating a sense of place, time, and feeling in a very small package, with the short length encouraging replayability. After several playthroughs, additional themes emerge: the commonality of human experience and desire across infinite possible permutations, the serendipity of chance encounters, and the delight in making the most of the cards you happen to be dealt in one potentially special moment.
A helper robot navigates a disaster-filled future, October 21, 2020They Will Not Return is a game that follows a helper robot in a post-apocalyptic setting, with choice-based interaction and some surprising shifts in its narrative flow.
The first half of the story offers a piercing look into how the peace and routine of serving others morphs into a sense of desolation as time passes, entropy sets in, and it becomes increasingly clear that things will never return to how they were before. The decision to have the reader revisit and explore the same location before and after the disaster is powerful, especially when presented through the perspective of a helper robot who isn’t equipped to deal with these eventualities.
The second half of the game shifts to a more standard adventure quest that navigates through a few scenes offering some light puzzles and tidbits of information about the fate that befell the world, with a final set of choices that determine the ending. It's unfortunately a bit at odds with the first half of the story, due to the sudden shift in tone and slightly formulaic quality.
I'd rate the first half the game higher than the second, but overall it was still an enjoyable exploration on the passage of time.
Gorgeously illustrated game about rabbits in an extraterrestrial world, October 21, 2020Ürs follows a rabbit who lives in a warren that appears idyllic on the surface, but which opens up into a larger extraterrestrial world with signs of an older civilization whose technology may be able to help prevent a looming disaster.
The gameplay of the story is focused on navigating through the world of the rabbits, including the warren, the tunnel system leading to the surface, and finally a set of ancient ruins. The detailed illustrations help visually orient the reader as to the current physical location in the story, and there is an interesting input mechanism at one point in the story that highlights links within a text-based map, allowing easy hops to adjacent rooms within a multi-room building.
While navigating through the space is delightful, the story struggles a bit to keep up. The focus from passage to passage rests strongly on exploration, but progress is ultimately very linear. A compelling narrative could pick up the slack, but the story doesn’t deliver on initial promises of tension, character development, or momentum.
However, the level of polish and deftness of execution in the light puzzles, coupled with the beautiful art, make this a fun experience despite the narrative quibbles.
Disturbing piece that embodies a malleable entity from folklore, October 21, 2020Bogeyman is a deeply disturbing and successful piece that casts the titular creature as a sadistic paterfamilias who employs psychological and physical abuse to ensure the children he abducts remain “good."
The design choices for the game are bold and effective, without overshadowing the story. These include a white-on-black palette, text fade-ins, spooky images during chapter breaks, and a haunting, thrumming soundtrack.
The choice-based flow of the game is relatively linear, with short passages that move the reader through the story quickly and smoothly. Every passage adds to the dramatic tension, slowly piling on indignities small and large, flowing through days of quotidian chores and tasks that range from the banal to the grotesque, all in the service of building a complex portrait of life under a tyrant whose moods and reactions are often unpredictable.
The game is able to deftly tackle a number of themes ranging from abuse to the nature of punishment and whether complicity is ever morally acceptable, all while delivering a gripping story with moments where it’s often as difficult to look as it is to look away.
Lovely mix of philosophy, human experience, and speculative scenarios, October 21, 2020Faerethia has a novelistic and cinematic quality that I enjoyed, with a plot that's sketched out in a short amount of space and written in a sure hand. As a multimedia short story, it’s also nicely rendered through silent movie inter-titles and the framing of vignettes interspersed throughout the piece, along with variations in font and background.
The themes of the story came through poignantly for me, especially in the dialogues between two unnamed characters that appear in a few sections. While the notion of this sort of technologically achieved utopia has been covered many times before, the writing was fresh and the emotional stakes high.
In terms of the interactive elements of the game, I enjoyed the sections that explored Faerethia as well as the interview with the computer. Some of the other satirical asides were amusing, but sometimes felt distracting and tonally at odds with the rest of the story.
Still, I found this to be a compelling piece of writing, and I’m left with the desire to delve into further philosophically tinged stories by this author.
Dark, fatalistic, and beautifully designed experience, October 21, 2020Dull Grey is an intriguing piece featuring a main character who seems unable to control his own destiny. It’s also a beautifully designed experience in terms of presentation, with a gray-scale palette illustrating a bleak landscape in what appears to be a post-apocalyptic world.
In terms of interactivity, it uses an interesting mechanic wherein the same binary choice is presented at each decision point. The repetitiveness fits well with the theme and setting, and the progression also builds in a powerful way as we follow a map and travel from scene to scene toward a momentous decision in the protagonist’s life, in a way that feels inevitably hopeless.
Different paths through the story presumably depend on the characters present at each decision point being more amenable to one option or another (lamplighter vs. tallyman). While I like this idea in theory, in the couple of replays I tried it felt like the sequence of scenes remained very linear regardless of choice, and I didn’t feel a connection to the decisions or any real sense of where they were leading me.
However, this is ultimately a piece that resonates in terms of mood, setting, writing, and art design, and it stands out as a unique and memorable take on IF.
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