Reviews by frolic

Adam Cadre made a brilliant use of Inform device, using it in a story with two kind of fictional worlds : in white, various points of view on a young girl's life, told in a non-linear order, and in colors, various adventures of an explorer , told this way in linear order.

Of course, the non-linear points of view gradually begin to order in the player's head, and the colored adventures appear to be (Spoiler - click to show)dreams made by the young girl, related to a LCD device.

Finally, despite sometimes verbose parts, the story reaches a true emotional strength, which goes beyond that a classical Inform game could ordinary reach.

This strength rely precisely on the game structure rather on the sole topic ((Spoiler - click to show)the death of a young child), avoiding the melodramatic trap in which a classical structure may have falled.

So this game is really worth his fame (especially for people who ordinary enjoy Twine games).

luvan is primarily a French writer, so each word of this game is thought to convey a peaceful mood to this exhibition... but the watching of majestic landscapes could easily lead the viewer (Spoiler - click to show)to a critical point of view on French government !

A must-to-read for a gamer which will want to experiment a french game with a true style (like a Porpentine game in english).

Porpentine reverses the archetypical character of angel in an evil one, and mixes it with creepy details (Spoiler - click to show)(the face in the bottle, the hands on the cottage) to distill anguish in player's mind.

Once this done, she unveils in a dream sequence the true meaning of the game (Spoiler - click to show)(a metaphor for a child abuse) and keeps then the emotion growing until the amazing end (Spoiler - click to show)(a bloody tile duel).

Add some brilliant uses of Twine devices, as words collapsing, and you get, indeed, another masterpiece from Porpentine.

With this short Twine game, in which you could play a wide pool of characters, Porpentine convert Zdislaw Beksinski uncanny landscapes in fantastic short stories (as Harlan Ellison did with Jacek Yerka paintings).

NB :this game is no longer available on Aliendovecote, but could be played on the author's website :

http://slimedaughter.com/games/twine/metrolith.html

This is literally a clinical game, by its topic (a woman set in pieces, maybe to break her personality) and by its language (very technical, maybe too). The result is interesting, but the meaning of the game isn't very clear (certainly as its author wanted).

With the second episod of Chesstopia, we enter in a more tough game, interesting but not revolutionary. As I said previously, the author have some knowledges about chess game, which makes the whole game quite pleasant for chess players (like me), but may disturb the others - and of course, the toughness of the game may dishearten them as well.

The first episod of the Chesstopia saga is obviously dedicated to set the story : it works better with the second episod, of course. The author have some knowledges about chess game, which makes the whole game quite pleasant for chess players (like me), but may disturb the others.

At first sight, this Twine game seems to be one more variation on a well-known theme : the end of the world, because of "zombies" with eyes as gold as Midwich cuckoos. Nevertheless, the story goes crescendo, as your interest, and when it ends, you can replay it, but from another point of view, and this simple trick (like the famous Rashomon from Akira Kurosawa) makes the game even more interesting, because you had to reconsider the feelings that go through you at the first reading...

More than a slice of life, The Golden is a simple Twine game which manage to bring you in his world and to convey true feelings only by telling small events ; this quite behaviorist way to proceed (like a Kiyoshi Kurosawa film) works better than any Hollywoodian story, despite of its brevity. To sum up, this is a kind of haïku in Twine.

This is typically the kind of game which have the faults that go with its qualities : as many Twine games, it manages to give you a feeling of flowing time (here, very fast, an emergency tempo), but the downside is that it moves too fast to appreciate the writing (it needs screenshots). So an emotion is conveyed, but it's a quick one (and it was certainly the purpose of the author).