Reviews by retired mosquito

What I like about this game is how consistent its themes are. The effect of introducing the characters as a cast, complete with beautiful illustrations, is sustained by the focus on dialogue and the names of the speakers for the rest of the game. I got the impression of reading the transcript of a play, especially with the date and time stamps at the start of every chapter. The mystery introduced in the very first dream, with regard to the strange speech styles of the bird-people, is also followed through in the other dreams and eventually acknowledged and resolved. As a result, the plot was believable and I didn't feel like there were any loose ends untied.

However, I felt somewhat disappointed with the dialogue, which occasionally tended towards melodrama. While I realise that emotional scenes are characteristic of young adult fiction, the scenes in which the protagonist exhibited strong emotion just felt too rushed, in my opinion, and my feelings for the character were disrupted as a result. On the other hand, the dialogue options provided for the player are excellent. Many lines of speech felt appropriate for the situation at hand, and I was happy to see that the game both provided and followed through on these options. The ability to pick the murderer felt particularly meaningful, even if its implications were not clear.

Another area that left me feeling a little unsatisfied was the protagonist's toned-down reaction to the increasingly odd behaviour of the counsellors. Considering a large part of her unwillingness to act out was due to her lack of faith in the validity of her dreams, it might have been better if the bit about her dreams bleeding into reality was emphasised more, so that her initially apathetic stance would have had a more realistic explanation. Still, the way the severity of the situation was ultimately acknowledged and dealt with felt very effective, with the success of the protagonist coming across as surprising yet plausible, a testament to the author's efforts in establishing the rigidness of the bird-people as a critical flaw.

This game employs so much jargon, writes in so many perspectives and presents all of these in such a wide variety of interfaces that it becomes clear that the reader is expected to, in one way or another, resign him/herself to the fact that he/she is not going to be able to keep track of all the plots and subplots that develop in the game. (That was, at least, how it was for me, though of course I might just be coming up with a convenient excuse to escape the task of unravelling the story's intricacies.) Yet, it is precisely this freedom from having to pay attention to every nuance and detail that contributed in large part to my enjoyment of the game. It didn't feel exploratory, exactly; there was a plot going on, and I was genuinely interested to learn more about the characters as the story progressed. But even so, many questions were left unanswered. I think this style of writing, in which a world is built that relies a lot on the reader's imagination to fill in the blanks, is a fine line to tread. Personally, I loved it, but it's not as though I don't identify with players who might be dissatisfied with the jumble of text and media that comes their way, because that was certainly how I felt in the beginning.

In any case, I would recommend this game for the writing and the humour alone. I think the introduction of real-world questions about robots was a little too in-your-face, and could have been handled more smoothly, but otherwise everything flowed well. Superb flashback sequences, and laugh-out-loud moments that really hit home.

This game left me feeling a little unsatisfied.

There were strong horror vibes that I felt could have been emphasised a little more, which would have added greatly to the atmosphere, even if the piece as a whole was not aiming to be a horror story.

Dialogue felt somewhat canned, and at times melodramatic, punctuated with grammatical inconsistencies. The conclusion also felt simplistic, with the tensions between the protagonist and each of her two friends left unaddressed. While another outburst wouldn't have been desirable, I think a little more resistance from Lex and Becky, and from the protagonist herself, wouldn't have been amiss. (Glancing through the other reviews, however, which praise the game's writing, I seem to be in the minority here.)

I think a large part of my disappointment with the game can be attributed to how much promise it showed. The cover art is gorgeous, as are the title screen and the neon text prevalent throughout the game. Given the coherence of this theme, I was expecting an equally high level of crispness for the story, which unfortunately fell short, in my opinion.

This game does many things well in my opinion. A strong voice comes through in the form of the classic fantasy narrator who explains just enough and takes the rest for granted. The ending is predictable yet satisfying, a testament to the author's efforts in foreshadowing the story's events. Variations in text effects, primarily in the form of colour changes, are employed to great effect, highlighting the shift in mood without being overly distracting.

Something the reader is sure to appreciate is the consistent and intuitive mechanics established right from the start, in which every link apart from the last is an aside (with the few exceptions to this rule clearly signalled), negating the possibility of the reader missing any opportunities unnecessarily. The asides themselves provide snippets into the thought processes of the protagonist, complementing the more objective descriptions while playing a central role in defining the protagonist. The result is the opportunity to explore the game at one's own pace, gathering clues on what type of person the protagonist might be and learning about her past without fear of missing out on any of the main events.

I greatly enjoyed playing this.

I really love how the author managed to strike a balance between humour and emotional drama. This was more apparent towards the end, where the two seemingly incompatible themes fused together to produce a scene whose risk of straying into melodrama was effectively managed by the irony of the bear interacting with humans, which I felt was very well-implemented.

There were many laugh-out-loud moments; the bear puns were a delight. I especially support the author's choice of allowing the player to continue being happy about being alive after falling through the skylight - it's such a fun, rebellious thing to do, and all the while the player appreciates the author's effort at pursuing this mini diversion that clearly has nothing to do with the main plot. It's great.

The reveal was a little too gory for me, but otherwise I thought the mystery worked well. I especially appreciate that my diligence in remembering certain details and going back to past pages to update and review my understanding was rewarded by the contents of the discussion pages, which served as helpful summaries that reinforced my understanding while furthering the plot. The pages themselves were written in a highly concise way, saying what was necessary without inundating the reader with supplementary information, and thereby promoting multiple re-readings to really capture the gist of the message. Such a feature contributed greatly to replayability, which was also facilitated by the very nature of the game as a set of wikipedia pages for the player to explore at his/her own pace. Given the complexity of the plot, and how well it was implemented, it's a shame that there were a few noticeable typos and inconsistencies throughout the game. Nonetheless, these errors didn't pose too much of an obstruction to gameplay, which was otherwise smooth and satisfying.

This game is a sci-fi/horror piece about a war against a swarm of mechanised roaches. You play as the driver of Mama Possum, which is the name for the weaponised vehicle you're controlling.

The graphics are beautiful and I especially liked the part where the roaches faded in and out. The interface, however, isn't very intuitive in my opinion. It took me a while to realise how the buttons work, which I initially thought were backwards/forwards buttons.

The tightness of writing is what really stands out to me. The voice of the narrator is a markedly local one, carrying a strong undercurrent of pride for her hometown that is reinforced by the frequent references to Arkansas. This combined with writing that is not overly descriptive does an excellent job at characterising the narrator while helping the plot advance.

The length is perfect, complementing the tightness of writing. The game gives snapshots of the narrator's background in the midst of the action, which is also a snapshot of the fight.

Great game overall.

I liked the interface and overall design of the game, which were clean and minimalist. The simple fonts and monochrome gradient contributed greatly to presentation. There were however several issues, some of which essentially caused the game to crash (such as when the game froze upon clicking the last note).

In the context of games like 'Whiteout' and 'a normal lost phone', this genre has become more established and less niche, which is something Mikayla's Phone might or might not have recognised with its goal of giving the player as authentic an experience as possible (which could be interpreted as going either way - be it conforming to or deviating from the standard). Nonetheless, I do like the fact that this game was made by a teenager and her dad, which makes the notes and the poetry seem less like a professional construct and more like a transfer of genuine, unaffected experiences.

I liked the animations and the graphics, which mainly alternated between a bedroom and a background of circles/bubbles, with a beautiful scene of a café towards the end. While the fonts were good, I didn't really buy the use of bolded words and exclamations, which disrupted my flow of reading without emphasising anything important.

The writing was decent. I preferred the scenes that occurred in reality, which formed a coherent narrative, to those in the dreams, which were mostly left vague and unexplained. This combined with the fact that the game dedicated a large part of its prose to the dreams diluted what plot established during the day even further, leaving many loose ends untied. The writer did however make some attempt at resolution when it is revealed at the end that the dreams are adapted based on the player's previous responses. This is an interesting mechanic that would certainly have added much to the game, if only the aforementioned vagueness had been tackled. Also, I didn't feel like the answers provided to the personality questions were always comprehensive enough, especially for the minority of questions whose every possible response I didn't agree with. This was reflected in my test results, many of which didn't resonate with me.

All in all, this is a beautifully presented game that could possibly have made better decisions in terms of writing.

This game is premised on a simple but interesting concept, one that requires the player to press the spacebar every few seconds (or every few fractions of a second, as the pace increases) while reading the narration above, which consists of a few words at a time. This narration is automatic - it would be cruel, after all, to require the player to perform more complicated actions and press the spacebar at the same time. There are, however, a few instances where the player is required to decide between two choices by using the up and down arrow keys, which is reasonable, especially with the approaching need to make a decision signalled by the use of capital letters in a different font. The need to press the spacebar is also removed for the temporary periods during which the protagonist reaches shore.

Yet, even with these measures in place, I found it difficult to keep up with the story because the distance between the text and the timer bar is quite large. This combined with the fact that the text is relatively small meant that I had to continuously divert my attention to a multitude of tasks, namely following the timer bar, reading the text, and consolidating my understanding of what was going on. No doubt I missed some nuances of the story because of this.

Also, I didn't find the story very well-written. I thought the use of a small number of simple words was appropriate, but some lines were vague and felt as though they didn't play any role apart from adding to the already rich description. Instead, what the writer could have done was to dedicate more prose to the characters of the story (the people on the beach especially), giving a more in-depth explanation of their actions and intentions.

Still, the music is excellent. I liked the echo-y feel of the swimming music, as well as the contrast between this and the airy, outdoor noises played when the protagonist reaches shore.

(note: this was previously a private review, written prior to creating this account - it has been edited for clarity)

I loved Harmonia. The annotations were genius, breaking the boundaries of interactive fiction and indeed, digital games in general. The contrast between the messy scrawls and the neatness of the rest of the text helped emphasise the game's authenticity, a feature that was further reinforced by the references to 19th century utopian texts. There was just one instance in Chapter Eight in which the annotations for the ceiling and the floor overlapped, but even then it was possible to read the topmost layer by highlighting the chunk of words, and in any case it wasn't a major obstruction to the story. An issue raised in the post-mortem was the dilemma in deciding whether or not to choose a different style for hyperlinks that advanced the story as opposed to those that simply provided extra information. While the decision to keep things simple did achieve its effect, I was sometimes bothered by the possibility that a hyperlink I clicked on would cause the others to disappear. The result of this was me having to make a decision between two choices that might have been equally tempting, and to do so with choices that might not even have been mutually exclusive in the first place. Besides this minor complaint, however, I have nothing to say about the annotations besides that they were exceedingly creative.

On the topic of design, one review commended the texture of the game, and I cannot agree more, what with the breathtaking pictures, and the different fonts for the readings, articles, and posters. I was honestly left shaking my head in admiration upon returning to the synopsis after completing the game and realising that it is supposed to be "edited by E. Merchant", a detail which explains the scrapbook style of the game as a whole. That these themes run so coherently throughout the game is no surprise, considering how polished it is.

The plot of Harmonia was just as good. One review mentioned predictability, but the clues left leading to the uncovering of Alice's identity didn't seem especially obvious, at least from my point of view. Harmonia was written as a mystery and I thought it worked well as one. The only issue I had was with the most significant choice at the end, where the player decides whether Abby or Lynn goes into the machine. Apart from the fact that Lynn had been deprived of water for a period of time, which might have affected his state of mind, I didn't think it entirely plausible that he would fall for the trap of going into the machine, judging by his writing and especially his annotations which suggested a much more intelligent character. It might have been more effective if Abby instead wrote like an unreliable narrator, not disclosing the fact that she was operating under a plan, such that the impact on the readers would have been similar to that on Lynn, whose reaction would then have driven the story forward. Nevertheless I liked the choice itself and the opportunities it presented.

The game effectively uses sounds, images and fonts to create an unsettling atmosphere. I was kept on edge throughout, and was both disappointed and relieved that there wasn't a jumpscare at the end.

I think the transition to the ending could have been a little smoother, but I like the fact that the ending furthers the author's goal of representing sleep paralysis in its entirety. Very aptly titled.