Ratings and Reviews by Kinetic Mouse Car

From the yellowed plastic windows of Borok Singh's penthouse at the top of the Gardeners' citadel, I can see the whole arc of it. The shanty streets. The corpse-processing factories. The sagging footings of the geodesic dome.

This is the first game published in 2023 that I am reviewing. In The Green, you play as a Gardener named Imrik Tso who lives in the city of Klay. Something happened that made all plant life deadly, a phenomenon simply known as the “Green.” Humanity is left huddled in a barricaded city while scientists and firefighters work to keep the lethal greenery out of city limits.

Lately, Imrik feels like this has all been a band aid. He thinks he may have discovered a real piece of hope: a cure. But this means leaving the city.

Gameplay
The gameplay is ultimately a perilous journey out of the city and into the unknown. The first half is about gathering supplies and finding a discreet way to exit the city, of which there are multiple paths. Some choices are tagged as "risky” or “chancy” which can lead to different outcomes. Saving is advised.

There is some resource management woven in. You begin the game mildly infected. Supplies are meant to stave of the infection’s spread, so it does not kill you before you reach the three towers. Even then, you will be crawling across the finish line. And for good reason. Life is deadly outside of the city. Peach trees and daffodils are replaced by venom roses, choke apples, butcher's bloom, and other botanical monstrosities.

At the top of the text space is a circle depicting a diseased handprint. The circle’s outline gives a quick assessment of your health. As you become more infected, the longer the green border grows. Physical injuries are shown with a red border. Clicking on the handprint provides a description of your state.

Not bad. A few small stains. A tinge of green on the webbing between my fingers.

It's not pretty. This function reminds me of playing Vespers where your body is slowly infected by the plague. Beholding the physical transformation of the PC is all part of the experience.

The stain on my left arm is getting worse.
(Oh dear.)

Every time you move, the green border creeps forward. There’s no stopping it (right?), only delaying the inevitable. It gets the player neurotically checking for increased signs of infection, emphasizing the touchiness of the protagonist's situation.

In the second half, the gameplay gets a little repetitive. When you finally leave the city and enter the wild (Green) yonder, everything is about survival and rationing your supplies when you encounter toxic plant life. Hint: It’s everywhere. In a nutshell it consists of ouch, ouch, ouch, don’t step here, don’t step there, ouch. Do I dodge this field of deadly vines or run right through it?

I liked doing battle with killer shrubbery. But it feels like the game is repeating what we already know: The plants are deadly dangerous. Meanwhile, drastic plot elements are handed to the player, detracting from the more investigative themes we see at the start of the game. I’ll discuss this in the next section.

Story
As you can see, I opened this review with the first passage from the game. It is descriptive, atmospheric. It immediately makes you curious to know more about the game’s world which is a powerful trait to have. For some additional context, Klay is run by Borok Singh- or the High Reaper- who orders Gardeners to develop new ways of combating the Green. Imrik managed to hack together a cure but needs to take it to three towers several miles out of Klay. It is thought that those towers are the origin and source of the Green. Because Singh would never agree to this, Imrik must be sneaky.

No living thing (besides deadly plants) survived the Green. Surviving life resides within the walls of Klay. The turning point is when (Spoiler - click to show) Imrik encounters moths flittering casually amongst the plant life and realizes that he was misled. Instead, the Green appeared to be selective, not this all-encompassing beast that sterilized every ecosystem it touches. He concludes that the Green was a human engineered weapon designed to kill specific targets. Human targets. Seems like it got out of hand. There is some ambiguity here. While (Spoiler - click to show) discovering the moths were a surreal moment and a good opportunity to build the story, the scene lays out the plot twist in one go without the subtlety of the earlier gameplay.

Before, you would learn exposition through small choices, whether it would be opting to go through the tunnels to leave the city or to spend some optional time talking to another Gardener. With this, bits and pieces trickle down to form the post-apocalyptic story. But now, the game gives you the big reveal all in one paragraph that feels like the plot twist is being told instead of shown. It’s a tough balance to explain. I think my reaction is partly towards the differences between the first and second halves of the game. It goes from a light investigative piece to a more linear one.

There are still plenty of subtleties to appreciate. A thoughtful perspective emerges with the protagonist’s observations of the Green as he travels. It appears that the Green becomes (Spoiler - click to show) less aggressive the further you are from Klay. There is a perimeter around the city called the burn-back that marks where humans combat the Green with fire, herbicides, and other weapons. Terse, bitter plant life appear to be chopping at the bit to infiltrate the city. But this becomes more mellow, though still dangerous, as you leave the war zone behind. I feel like this offer commentary on our relationship with the natural world, on how our trying to “control” and refine a landscape can only make it more resilient towards our efforts. While The Green takes this to the extreme, it draws similarities with real-life scenarios.

I only found two endings, not including when you die prematurely from the infection (Spoiler - click to show)(although you ultimately die at the end of the game anyway). I’m still not entirely sure of how the cure works, and honestly, I was left with some unanswered questions about the Green and city of Klay.

For instance, the game is nebulous about Klay. Remind me, is Klay the three towers or the city where the game begins? Both? No one knows? All I know is that I found the two endings. (Spoiler - click to show) One is where you use the cure against the Green, and the other is where you decide not to use the cure and let the Green run its natural course. I was hoping for more answers, but these endings suffice.

Visuals
This game gets high marks for visual design. It is also another strong example of visual storytelling. I am glad to see Twine authors going the extra mile to offer something new.

Now, go outside and find a dense patch of moss, trace a circle, and then clear away the moss inside of it. That's what the artwork looks like: a slab of moss with a circle for text in the center of the screen. The text margins and scroll feature was a bit of a hindrance, but that can be expected when trying to fit chunks of text into a circular text-"box" space.

The circle is a cream colour that turns pale green when you leave the city and enter the Green. Around it is a faint green shadow that turns red when you are severely injured. The text will sometimes blur to replicate the protagonist’s blurred vision as he is further infected or injured. These surprise splashes of red added nice contrast. The result is an effective visual experience that makes the gameplay more vivid.

Generally, the colour palette for this game is- big surprise- green! Everything in meant to conjure up plants, plants, and more plants. There are also illustrations of your supplies which are shown on the left half of your screen. The game experiments with clickable icons, such as the journal icon that opens to pop-up window with journal entries. This really gave the game a professional look. Even the save menu has greenery growing on it!

These quality visuals make up for some of the gameplay’s deficiencies. Without them, the experience would be less potent. Yes, this sentiment could apply to any Twine game, but some can hold their own with or without special designs. While the overarching story in The Green is strong, there is a lull in the later gameplay. If this game stuck with the generic black screen + white text look, it would not command the effect that it does. Part of what I like about The Green is how it demonstrates the extent visuals can go to make a completed piece into a polished one. All the power to it. Visuals can go a long way.

Final thoughts
The Green is a unique and compelling game about sacrificing everything to undo the apocalypse. A one-way trip, so make it count. The gameplay combines two cool elements- survival and resource management- which will likely be a draw for players. If post-apocalyptic games interest you, The Green is worth checking out. Plus, the visuals are fantastic.

If you liked the themes in this game, I highly encourage you to check out the game Calm. It’s an Inform game about apocalyptic spores that, when inhaled, kill people if they fail to remain calm. Calm is not the most polished work out there, but it has a unique appeal. I know I played it longer than I expected to. For more subtle plant dystopian Twine games I recommend Defrosted and The Soft Rumor of Spreading Weeds.

P-Rix – Space Trucker told in third person past tense from the perspective of a PC named P-Rix, a trucker who agreed to a sketchy delivery with the promise of earning a high reward. But partway through the journey and accident occurs. The ship had a collision with an unknown object. A collision that damaged the cargo bay. You know, the place where the super-secret cargo is held.

It is also a demo. For future reference, that’s what this review is about.

Gameplay
The game begins with a message saying, "Alert! System Breached! Alert!" that pulls P-Rix out of sleep. Here, the bottom screen faintly blinks red to simulate an alarm going off. Just one of many cool visual effects found in this game.

The first few puzzles are about fixing the ship’s critical status. The ship is losing oxygen and fuel, and a careless mistake results in death. There are plenty of insta-deaths in this game. The player typically has two options at a time to search and fix the ship. I liked the sense of danger and urgency that is conveyed right from the start. If only I knew what was in that cargo…

Story + Characters
As expected, the story is minimal. We know that a client, an ambiguous “they” looming over our heads, made the request for a delivery to NA-Dux 16T-8R, one of the most dangerous areas of the universe. Given there is a demo, we only see a little of this pan out. We do hear a mention of a contractor named Mr. E in regard to the cargo. The client, maybe? The game ends when you (Spoiler - click to show) finally get the space trucker’s rig up and running only to have to seek out more extensive repairs at the nearest interplanetary mechanic stop.

Likewise, info on the protagonist is also limited. There is some repetitive swearing that loses its potency after a while, but the game never breaks from P-Rix's flustered character. It's hard to tell if he is a slacker or just had been dealt a really bad set of cards. We only get a sense of his situation beyond dealing with an immediate emergency. It should be noted that the only reason why he agreed to the delivery was because of the number of zeros at the end of the payment. Makes for a compelling story.

Visuals
This, in my opinion, is the main event in this game. So far, at least. I was really impressed with how visual elements are used to tell the story. Attractive appearances go a long way, but when they enhance the storytelling itself, that's when the bonus points start coming out. Hence my long discussion of it.

After a brief intro, the visuals transform into a large console-like text box against a pink tinged star field background. The console is broken into six panels, the main two being the top half that shows the ship's status, and the panel beneath it where text is displayed. I wish that part was a little bigger, but it is a minor hindrance. There are also stats (yay!) for the cargo, oxygen, and fuel, although the game is not long enough to really see these features in action.

The game occasionally switches things up with a new screen depicting a diagnostics page with a striped green and black backdrop behind a large green text box area in the center. It uses a mix of scrolling text and glowing letters to add to the atmosphere. Even some character graphics are introduced, but the game ends soon after that.

The star field takes up a little more than a half of the backdrop space, starting from the top of the screen and moving downwards. The bottom half is black with a curved glowing edge, like the event horizon of a black hole. Everything, both the backdrop and the console, has a rose red pink colour that later turns purple once the ship is repaired. A ship icon then appears on the display panel. Then… the animation kicks in.

What's wild is when the star field then moves towards and under the bottom half to create the impression that the ship is moving. Have you ever stood on a pier at the ocean and feel like the pier was moving when in fact it is the motion of the waves giving that impression? It’s like that. But with Twine. This was brilliant. This is what I meant by the game using visual effects to tell the story of traveling through space.

A similar example can be found in another Twine game, To Spring Open. It uses a bouncing text effect to simulate a ride on a subway train. Both cases demonstrate the merit of experimenting with visual elements to change how the player experiences the story.

Final thoughts
Lately, there have been quite a few high-quality Twine demos floating around IFDB made by a wide variety of skilled authors. These Twine games are beautifully designed with either elegant simplicity or with impressive visuals. They make waves as quality demos, often with eye-catching cover art. I just hope that the authors continue to pursue them. Including this one. No pressure but including P-Rix – Space Trucker. The title alone is worth checking out.

THIS IS THE END OF THE DEMO. MORE CONTENT WILL BE ADDED IN THE FUTURE! THANK YOU FOR PLAYING!

Please, please, please, keep developing this. Finish it. I want to play more of this space truckin' adventure. It's already off to a great start.

Overrun is a cyberpunk hacking game set in 2050. Nearly two decades prior, a virus known as the Crash Virus wiped out the internet and every database, toppling governments and nations which would be replaced by corporations. To investigate the virus, computer experts turned to an experimental brain-computer interface called a cyberdeck that allows the human mind to enter the digital world. Eventually, the Crash Virus was destroyed, though not without killing some cyberdeck users in the process.

You were one of the experts who helped in destroying the Crash Virus and are now employed at the corporation Renraku Arcology as a programmer and corporate decker. One day, your System Identification Number (SIN)- akin to a Social Security number- is erased. You have no memory as to why, only that without a SIM, you no longer exist in society. To find answers, you turn to your cyberdeck.

Background
Janos Biro originally wrote and released this game in Portuguese but later posted an English version, both of which are available on IFDB. If it isn’t obvious, I played the latter. Overrun is based off a tabletop RPG game called Shadowrun, which details the discovery of magic in conjunction with pre-existing cybernetic technology. A quick glance at Wikipedia reveals similar themes and features in both pieces, particularly dystopian corporate undertones. The game also explains that Biro created a 1996 version of Overrun in QBASIC. It is cool when authors decide to revisit their previous works.

Gameplay
I was not expecting such a complex and immersive game when I sat down to play this. I figured it would be a familiar cyberpunk Twine game about defying corporations with gameplay where you are presented with three to four choices at a time to influence a storyline. While those games are also fun, Overrun brings something new to the table. It's a hacking game, or at least a "hacking" game, but one that makes you feel like a pro at computer hacking wizardry even though you fully know that you are just messing around on a Twine game.

Everything is centered around completing missions where you hack into systems to either find files, disable system functions, or shutdown the entire server. Completing missions rewards you with experience points, and payments from jobs allow you to upgrade utilities that give you extra skills in the field. You can also sell files for extra income.

Hacking is an interesting experience in Overrun. The server is represented with an in-game map depicting corridors and system nodes, within which are your avatar and icons representing IC programs that patrol for intruders. You move in up/down/left/right directions, either by clicking the screen or using your keyboard. Next to the map is a list of your utilities and your stat resources. Spending memory on your utilities gives you an edge of overcoming challenges. Just be careful not to set off any alarms.

It really feels like you are hacking into the "mainframe." That sounds cringy, but it is true. There is a somewhat steep learning curve. I was clicking things at random for a while but eventually I got the hang of all the RPG functions and features. Everything was rather easy after that. Maybe even too easy, but I have no complaints. Strategy is still required and provides a meaningful gameplay experience. This is what the menu of your cyberdeck looks like:

>>>Shadowland
>>>Hacker Shop
>>>Hacker Board
>>>Hacker Bar
>>>Fixer
>>>Hosts
>>>Simulation

[Decker] [Files] [Mission]
[Saves] [Options] [Help] [Quit]

And that's not including the extensive stats at the bottom of the page. In retrospect, all this feels straightforward, but nonetheless left me overwhelmed when I first found the game. There is a learning curve that may compel players to quit before reaching that moment when you finally feel like you are making progress. For me, it was using the utilities in combat.

Mirror failed!
Pyro is containing you!
Mirror failed!
Pyro caused 8 damage to you.
Mirror failed!

The more you upgrade your utilities the more effective they are in the field. However, they start out as being in effective and flimsy until they are upgraded. Spending 6 memory on a mirror function that did not even work (see above) was frustrating, but it was all part of the learning curve. Stick with it, especially if you like RPG games.

To advance the story, you must build a rapport with the hackers in the Hacker Bar. They give you tasks and odd jobs in exchange for information or leads on your situation. The more they trust you the more exciting the quests. Later, there is a (Spoiler - click to show) big boss fight where you recruit almost all the hacker NPCs to hunt down a character who refers to herself as Alice in Wonderland. That one is a lot of fun.

My main complaint is a need for organizing ongoing objectives. There is the “Mission” section that lists active missions from the Hacker Board, but it does not include special tasks taken on from the other hackers. The annotation section in your files similarly lists the tasks you’ve completed, but not the ones currently in progress. While the hosts are automatically listed in your cyberdeck, you must remember who requested what which can be confusing if you have taken on multiple tasks. An objectives page would have been helpful.

Story
For those interested in worldbuilding, Overrun is a great example. There is an info section called Shadowland that provides more than enough story context. More than most people would care to read, although I far prefer having too much over too little. I appreciate the author’s thoughtfulness in providing in-depth exposition for the player.

Time to dive into some (major) spoilers. (Spoiler - click to show) Turns out your SIN was erased because your physical body died. How is this possible? Well, it appears that the human brain can make a digital copy of itself as a last measure of defense when the physical body is on the brink of being killed. The person lives on as a program in their own cyberdeck, sometimes not realizing what had happened, as is the case for the protagonist. This raises all sorts of interesting implications of what it means to be a former human and a sentient being in the non-physical world.

This game does leave you with murky, answered questions. (Spoiler - click to show) There is some ambiguity about Project Morgan and why Renraku decided to terminate you as their employee. As part of your job, you were testing Morgan's program, but somehow was deemed a threat to the corporation. An “accident” was faked to cover for your death when in truth Renraku hired some shadowrunners to do the dirty work by ensuring that you were killed while hooked up to your cyberdeck. Ironically, two of those shadowrunners turn out to be at the Hacker Bar. If you ask the right questions, Morgan will tell you about this. I recommend saving before you talk to Morgan in the Hacker Bar because some dialog options only appear once.

While technically the erasure of your SIN means you are free from the influence of governments or corporations, you are still confined with the limitations of your cyberdeck program. Morgan and Jerusalem ramble about the Resonance and its path towards freedom but the game never provides any answers. The player is not free their program whereas Morgan apparently is, and she makes it sound so easy. Morgan is extremely confident that the player can be free, but ultimately the player pays dearly for thinking that. I will discuss this in the next section about endings.

Thoughts on genre
I have never been a huge fan of the sci-fi fantasy genre. I like sci-fi 110%. I apologize if that makes me one-dimensional. I still like trying the genre's games because you never know if you will find something that does resonate with you. For example, I am a huge fan of Skybreak! It is made with ADRIFT and balances the two genres perfectly. Overrun does a decent job in combining the two genres, and I liked the emphasis on science fiction over magic while still staying true to its fantasy elements. Still, it took some time to get used to it. The last thing I think of when I see the year 5050 are dragons or magic, especially when cyberpunk themes are involved.

It occurred to me that the hacking sequences feel reminiscent of a dungeon crawl puzzle where you have a map with opponents. Play is move by move. Instead of ogres and looters you have anti-malware sentries roaming for you. Instead of a chest of gold you get classified files. From the other side of the room if you saw the game's map you would probably assume that you were looking at a dungeon map.

Endings
The major downside to Overrun is a lack of commitment to the endings. The endgame involves hacking into a server to talk to a digital program named Mirage who was tasked with helping computer experts overcome the Crash Virus. After some dialog, Mirage offers some intriguing solutions on how to end the game. Unfortunately, the execution of these endings is flimsy, leaving the player with few substantial options to conclude the lengthy gameplay.

I like to avoid dissecting every ending in my reviews to keep from spoiling everything but sometimes I simply want to discuss these outcomes, especially if I feel strongly about them. So here you go: A guide about the endings. I will stick it all under one big spoiler tag. Please avoid this section if you have not played the game yet. (Spoiler - click to show)

>>>I want to have a body.
>>>I want to cease to exist.
>>>I want to be free.
>>>I think I have enough, I don't need the Resonance.

The first three are the only ones that have endings that actually end the game. The fourth option just sends you back to your cyberdeck menu.

>>>I want to have a body.
The outcome I was looking for. It feels like the PC was not finished living when Renraku had them terminated. Why not seek a second chance? Mirage tells use to look for a person named Thomas Roxborough. But when you ask Jerusalem about finding Roxborough he says, "His research will only increase the power of megacorporations over people and the Matrix," and refuses to help you. That’s ominous. When finally find Roxborough he offers you to join the Brainscan project which seeks to build synthetic bodies for individuals who have lost their body. Then the game ends. I was hoping to see the implications of this decision.

>>>I want to cease to exist.
This results in a generic “You died” ending. Well, we did ask for it, didn’t we?

>>>I want to be free.
So, this one is a zinger. Turns out you cannot be free. I still do not quite understand what Mirage means by this; it seems like we can never get more than a cryptic explanation from anyone about your situation. But by making this request we are told that are story will end once we leave the server. Whether this means death is unclear, only that the game ends immediately after. This was a potent ending that bites the player out of nowhere, but it is also a bit disappointing since Morgan, Dodger, and the other characters are flouncing around explaining that you can be free! Free from your program! All you need is the Resonance!!! I still don’t understand what the Resonance is.

Oh well. The most answers you find, the more questions remain unanswered.

Characters
The Hacker Bar is full of interesting hacker NPCs with names like Misfill, Skinpact, and Dodger. They come from different backgrounds and have their own specialties. Not all of them can be found in the Hacker Bar when you first visit. Some show up later in the game as you build a reputation for yourself which was a nice change in pace.

Both Skinpact and Crapper will (Spoiler - click to show) challenge you to a cyberduel, but I was surprised at how easy it was to defeat them. I spent a lot of time practicing with the simulation feature and building up my utilities, only to crush my opponents after a few moves. It seems like battle is mostly reserved for system ICs.

Visuals
The game uses visual effects to emulate a familiar “computer” atmosphere, particularly with thick green glowing text against a black screen. Its careful selection of font also adds to this look. It does use some scrolling text, mostly with character conversation, which was tedious but otherwise used infrequently enough to avoid dragging the player down. I liked how the game used flashing, urgent text for when you trigger an active alert while sneaking through a server.

Fun graphics are also included. Beside the server maps, the characters in the Hacker Bar each have their own character portrait, and the start of the game features imagery as it provides an overview on the history behind the story. The game even includes corporate logos for the files on corporations in the Shadowland module. That was a nice bit of atmosphere.

Final thoughts
I highly recommend this game to anyone interested in hacking themes in interactive fiction and/or if you are a fan of the Shadowrun universe. Fans of cyberpunk may also enjoy this, but it seems to cater to a specific audience. Not everyone will be interested in this game but those who are will probably be immersed by what it has to offer. It is especially fun if you are looking for a long RPG Twine game with stats and strategized combat. Overrun is ultimately a cyberpunk adventure with a strong foundation.

There’s some explaining I should do first.

Clicking the “Web Site" link brought me to a website that had a link saying “Play” in the middle of the screen. This resulted in a cool cyberpunk ten-second-long video before launching into the game. And then…

And then, I was suddenly looking at a screen with the phrase “THIS CONTENT IS NOT AVAILABLE” plastered in large text smack in the center. There were even animated confetti bouncing around as if someone were throwing it at my screen. Thing is, the gameplay’s text appeared in the background, and I could see read it if I zoomed out or scrolled around. “THIS CONTENT IS NOT AVAILABLE” was not going to stop me from playing. I hope there is no trouble with that.

One more thing:
Ainimus is in French. I do not speak French. I auto-translate with my browser window, and since that is shaky at best, I take the writing with a grain of salt. A similar thing occurred with Night City 2020, another sci-fi Twine game in French that I also reviewed after playing it with auto-translate. I wanted to review it but was also worried that readers would find it bizarre. No one expressed any concerns, so I am going to charge ahead with Ainimus. If you have a problem with it, please tell me.

Gameplay
Your childhood friend needs help writing a thesis on marine biology. That’s the main storyline. He does not have enough time for work and his thesis. Thus, he turns to you for help.

You can help him out or pass, which ends the game. Choosing to help him gives you some options that boil down to helping him financially, helping him by writing passages (which uncomfortably edges into the realm of plagiarism) despite your lack of knowledge on marine biology, or suggest AI to pick up the slack. The first two are easy enough wins but neglect to incorporate the game’s themes into these sparsely written paths. You might as well skip them and go for the main event: Using AI.

Note: When I was mapping out the choice branches, be aware that certain choices result in a long error message that replaces the gameplay.

Story + Characters
Story
Using AI means telling your friend that you will write portions of the thesis on his behalf (plagiarism?) whereas the AI option involves using an AI to write the passages and then saying that you wrote them instead. (Spoiler - click to show) Later, your friend runs into legal issues and is accused of plagiarizing an AI. Now we’re going somewhere- wait, the end? Yes, the game ends without pursuing the story. It ends just as the party gets started (yes, I associated that with the confetti flying everywhere).

You can choose to admit or deny your use of AI, but both options results in an immediate ending with no follow up on the story’s outcome. In fact, it barely feels like an ending. What kind of (Spoiler - click to show) legal action does your friend face? How has access to AI changed for the everyday consumer? What sort of AI rights, if any, are factored into legal proceedings? What regulations were in place when your friend was (Spoiler - click to show) accused of plagiarizing a non-human (which is an ethical argument in itself) entity?

Characters
According to the game’s description, “you play Peter Smithee, a renowned developer who participated in the rapid democratization of the automation of many tasks and professions.” I would have loved to know more about the PC’s work with democratization AI technology. What would that work look like?

In the game’s world, society has a strong pro-regulation attitude towards AI following its advanced integration into daily life. Using AI is typically frowned upon in the workplace. It struck me as odd that the protagonist would casually throw AI at his (I assume the PC is male) friend’s problem. Without additional context behind his decision making, this choice seems out of character and does not offer further insights on the implications of applying AI to everyday challenges. The game could have gone somewhere with Peter Smithee (that’s how his name is spelled in both French and English translations) but failed to develop these ideas.

Themes
I want to look at the main objectives of Ainimus which are listed at the start of the game:

You will be faced with several dilemmas on different philosophical themes.

With each story choices will be offered to you, you will vote for the solution you find most relevant.

At the end of the game you will be able to debate around the topics addressed and continue your discussions thanks to quotes.

Are these objectives successful? Yes and no.

1: It feels like there is only one major dilemma, which is to help your friend. The philosophical themes are focused on whether you decide to use AI. I was expecting it to cover a broader scope of ethics but at least identifies some societal views of AI in everyday settings.

2: In terms of relevance, there is the only path that remotely touches the themes about AI. The player is not presented with several choices about the ethics of technology. It is pretty clear at which path you are supposed to follow to explore the game’s core ideas. Again, not as comprehensive as I expected but still relevant.

3: This one was not successful, or at least not successful in this version of the game. The discussion at the end is a cluttered list of quotes without any supporting content. It does list some titles to check out but offers no additional commentary other than an unorganized list of quotes and blurbs pasted together at the end of the game.

While the game only mildly entertains its philosophical themes, they are still included and worth a mention. There were two main themes that stood out while I combed through the gameplay.

The first theme considers the balance between robotics for human convenience and robotics as a force behind unemployment. An argument* is that robotics can perform everyday functions to free up our time for other pursuits, often leisure. The flip side is that these “everyday functions” may have once been human jobs that are no longer available. This is an extremely simplified argument that overlooks countless factors needed to fully comprehend this issue, but it still rings true with concerns we have today.

The second theme looks at the unforeseen impacts of regular implementation of robotics in modern daily life, especially since these technologies only seem to grow more sophisticated. If robotics is everywhere, and shows no sign of stopping, what means should we have to manage it? I was hoping that the game would dive into this, but there is no mention of any specific law or regulation in the game’s story. Your friend is accused of fraud and that’s about it.

*Check out Choice of Robots. It is one of the more popular commercial ChoiceScript games out there. I have not played the entire thing, but I can tell you that the first few (free) chapters introduce some interesting points in the dialog. Design a robot and reveal it to the world.

Visuals
For the visuals, I am not going to consider the ALL-CAPS message and the animated confetti in my assessment because I assume that is not what the game is meant to look like. I do love the cover art with its white background and green text artfully designed to form the word “AI.” If anything, that was the best part.

Besides the big message and the confetti, that game keeps it simple with white text against a black screen. There is scrolling text, but it’s fast enough to avoid taxing the player’s attention span. The screen includes the button you can click if you want the text to appear in one go. I appreciated having that option. Buttons are glowing dark green rectangles that add a subtle cyberpunk look.

Grammar? Spelling? I’m not even going to try. I used dodgy auto-translate French-to-English (I feel so lame saying that) so any errors were all me. Game gets a free pass there. Plus, some meanings were likely lost in translation.

Final thoughts
For the record, I tried digging around in the source code (posted on Github. I looked at it AFTER I played the game a few times). This was not me trying to figure out to “win.” Rather, I was trying see if there were any explanations for the ALL-CAPS message. Either the source code is poorly organized, or I stumbled about wildly as I searched without really knowing what to look for. Probably the latter.

In a nutshell, its concept has potential but the physical game needs work before it can count as a finished piece. I feel like this game deserves two stars. As an interactive piece it is poorly designed and almost unplayable. But it attempts to start a discussion which is worth a second star.

Now, something tells me that I did not play the full game as the authors intended. Any game with the words “THIS CONTENT IS NOT AVAILABLE” running the entire time is probably not reflective of the “actual” game. Because of this, I will not include this rating in the game’s average.

Also: You can draw parallels between the game’s ideas and real-world developments. NPR (I am not affiliated with them) has some interesting articles on its website. Consider:
-Has AI reached the point where a software program can do better work than you?
-A new AI chatbot might do your homework for you. But it's still not an A+ student

Scents & Semiosis is a collaborative piece about a perfumer leisurely browsing through their personal collection of perfumes to relive the memories associated with each scent.

Gameplay
This game is an Inform Vorple combo, and in this case, it is merely choice-based. Keyboards are not necessary to experience Scents & Semiosis. Just start by picking a perfume. The game will then give you a list of three perfume bottles to choose from. Each lead to a memory and a breakdown if its scent components.

Sweet musk, rough cherry orange zest, pink rose, juicy cinchona. Sadia was wearing it the only time you collaborated.

cinchona feels like the loyalty of progress
rose feels like subtle mentorship
musk could mean enthusiastic arousal
musk is suggestive of Sadia
None of these feel right. Reconsider.

You have no influence over the protagonist’s life and history. Choosing a perfume reveals a memory. What occurred in the memory is set in stone, but you decide how the protagonist feels about it by pairing a specific scent note in the perfume with an emotion or sentiment.

The memory doesn't mean what it used to. Perfumes fade. You set it aside.

Finally, you choose whether the protagonist keeps the perfume or discards it. In other words, is the memory worth cherishing or is it best left behind?

Above all, Scents & Semiosis is meant to be revisited. First time through you may play it until it satisfies your curiosity but returning to it from time to time when you are in the mood for such a game makes its effect enduring.

Considerations on structure
The big attraction with Scents & Semiosis is its extensive use of procedural generation that creates endlessly unique perfume bottles, perfume compositions, memories (down to the details), and scent meanings. I was amazed at how it never seemed to grow dull even as I was zipping through perfume after perfume without abandon. The game contains a link to some nicely organized source code if you are interested.

One side effect of this procedural generation was its broadening of my understanding of possible scents used in perfume. Not that this game is supposed to be a crash course. There is the familiar lavender, rose, jasmine, violet, and sweet pea. But what about hyssop, tonka, angelica, blood petitgrain, galangal, or jonquil? Some of these had me researching them just to see what they look like (and curious of what they smelled like).

Story + Characters
The protagonist is part blank slate, part well-rounded. You do not know much about them personally, but you do have fragments of memories. Just snippets and anecdotes though meaningful ones. What you see is different from playthrough to playthrough, and the game has a talent for painting a complex protagonist whom we realistically know nothing about.

You may find yourself visualizing yourself in the protagonist’s shoes, imaging what their experience was like. The writing, while brief, paints a diverse life. Countries visited, names of colleagues and rivals, lavish events, precarious escapades, humble encounters, of gaining inspiration simply by smelling the fragrance of a passing stranger. All told through perfume.

Visuals
The cover art is beautiful, and its simple but concise design is present throughout the game. This artwork is then paired with honey coloured links and occasional light-yellow backdrops that create a minimalist beauty.

At the end, the game presents you with a lightly illustrated list of scents and the associations you selected for them. The illustrations are not of the scent itself, just an icon to add a pleasing appearance.

Final thoughts
If you just finished playing an intensive 6-hour long puzzle fest game that fried your brain, consider Scents & Semiosis to wind down. It’s like the chamomile (which is also a scent!) of interactive fiction. The subject matter may not appeal to everyone, but there is a sense of tranquility and introspectiveness that carries its own merit. It’s not just a game about perfume. It’s also about memory. Plus, it is one of the most casual games I’ve played. Just you, digging through your collection on a lazy evening.

Even the game’s title has a nice ring to it. Scents & Semiosis....

Anyway. I enjoyed this game tremendously.

Everyone is on edge aboard the CSS Jonas Salk, a spaceship tasked with astrobiology research to acquire alien life forms and substances to be used in pharmaceuticals on Earth. But the most recent mission has brought some troubling developments. Weird bruises have appeared on the crew’s bodies and, well, two already killed each other in a (Spoiler - click to show) cannibalistic outrage. By the way, you are the captain. Soon, that will mean little.

Gameplay
This is one of those gameplay stories where an infectious agent appears in a closed off area filled with people (ex. spaceship smack in the middle of deep space). The game begins by an inner airlock door where you and two crew members are observing the carnage through the airlock window- no, the SmartGlass* airlock window. You do not have many choices beyond calling for a meeting of all surviving crew. *Corporate (fictional) product placement! Hey, it’s a reoccurring theme in this game.

Gameplay is linear with some flexibility. A notable choice is when deciding to what to grab from your locker. It will be important for resolving (or maybe I should say “resolving” since teamwork has pretty much gone out the window) crew tensions during the meeting.

You hold up the crew manual. Everyone falls silent at the sight of this mystic totem.
(Surely this will work)

The crew rushes you from all sides.
(Tip: (Spoiler - click to show) Pick the gun instead.)

Later, choices boil down to two or three options at a time with fight or flight decision making. Do I try to reason with this crew member who is (Spoiler - click to show) eating his friend, or do I run for it?

A clever design feature for these choices were timed pages that kick in if the player takes too long to respond. The outcome is not favorable. It’s not obvious which ones are timed, and they last for about ten seconds, a reasonable length. Indecisive? This will catch you off-guard, contributing to the chaotic ambience in the gameplay. The message: Stop dawdling while the infection eats through your crew.

Story
There is gore in this story. Not exactly One Eye Open (a personal favorite of mine) gore, but still gore. The gist is that the expedition’s recent target was a planet inhabited by primate-like alien creatures that were deemed perfect for science. The only catch is that the creatures (Spoiler - click to show) were all torn up and mangled. The crew assumed it was a territorial dispute, not some highly infectious pathogen that causes life forms to turn on each other. Needless to say, everyone gets infected, or at least exposed to the infection.

This is where moral decisions come into play: Are you going to return to Earth and risk infecting the planet with, essentially, a (Spoiler - click to show) zombie-like disease? Or are you going to land on a nearby planet and use its resources to address the problem first? Neither are ideal, but the crew 110% wants to return to Earth and deal with it there whereas the protagonist seems inclined to take a cautious route. Sadly, (Spoiler - click to show) the crew is willing to kill to get their way.

There are multiple endings, some of which go on longer that you anticipate which was a nice surprise. You will find some unexpected outcomes that encourage multiple playthroughs.

Characters
The weaker part of The Virulence Protocol is, oddly enough, the characters. I don’t mean their change into (Spoiler - click to show) cannibalistic rebels. Instead, their motivations for contradicting the player’s orders seem inconsistent. If anything, only the protagonist has their head on straight, even though they too show signs of the infection.

Everyone wants to go back to Earth to be home again (predominantly for medical care), but there is a segment where their demeanors change to embrace the corporate themes underlying the game. The whole mission is backed by corporations seeking to harvest resources for commodities. This is subtly conveyed through descriptive writing. But its brief manifestation among the crew was awkward.

For a brief moment all the NPCs care about is profit and making money, not whether their infection is going to spread in their bodies and kill them. At the start of the game some characters have distinct personas. It makes sense that they would all succumb to (Spoiler - click to show) zombie-like symptoms from the infection, but I feel like the game dissolves the NPCs’ individual identities for a single scene.

“The only thing we got to protect is our pay day! The gig is to find some alien plant or monkey with mojo that can be turned into medicine with serious worth!”

Next thing you know, it’s all about biolabs and seeing Earth again. There could have been a smoother transition here.

Visuals
Game uses a default Twine appearance that many players will recognize. Black screen, easy to read white text, blue links that turn purple when you click on them. The game will occasionally throw around different text colours paired with blinking or delayed text effects. A few spelling/dialog formatting issues but otherwise this game feels like a finished piece.

Final thoughts
It’s not the best plague-on-a-spaceship game I’ve played but it was certainly intriguing enough to play for several rounds. While characters were meekly implemented, it has its strengths. The horror element was especially well done because it takes an already precarious situation and slowly unfolds it to reveal a horrendous truth about the botched mission: The crew has discovered an infection that turns people into aggressive (Spoiler - click to show) sort-of zombies.

It’s a story where humanity found more than what it bargained for, and The Virulence Protocol conveys that idea with great enthusiasm.

The sun is below the horizon.
June 21st, 4.15am, 2020, Aalborg

This is a cryptic but interesting murder mystery game.

You are an American detective who has arrived to work at Denmark with the hope that you will encounter fewer murder cases. One night you feel like going for a walk only to find a gruesome scene: A dead body flanked a man and a woman sitting on the ground, both unresponsive of their surroundings. Looks like you have your work cut out for you.

Gameplay
The “crime scene” allows you to search the area, examine NPCs, and search their belongings. These provide clues about the circumstances behind the murder. After you comb through everything, the game takes to you a questionnaire that challenges you to solve the murder mystery.

To solve the case, you fill in answers for five questions about the murder. For each question you get a menu of possible answers. If you get any of them wrong the game tells you to resubmit the form. Sure, you can just guess until you find the right answers, but since they are evaluated together it is difficult to answer all five without exploring the gameplay.

219
Early morning brightness is setting in. The sun is still below the horizon.

There is a devious timer at the top of the screen that marks the time until sunrise. Oddly enough, it counts up to convey how much time has passed rather than how much time you have left. I think that the time restraints in this game are reasonable. It adds urgency without rushing the player. In fact, you can approach this game quite leisurely, although there is a penalty if you fail to solve the mystery before the sun rises.

Now, the timer has bugs. If you toggle between the crime scene and the question page the status of the sun automatically goes back to “The sun is below the horizon.” It does not reset the timer, only the sunrise which detracts from the timer’s potency as a time restraint on the gameplay.

There is also a case where the (Spoiler - click to show) man and the woman die twice, but the gameplay only acknowledges it the second time. Even then, this change is only seen in the questions page where it says, “Is someone still in danger? No one is in danger anymore. They are all dead,” and yet the crime scene acts as if they are still alive. It's not cohesive.

Story
Once you correctly answer the questions the game gives a summary of what happened. As you can see, there are definite (Spoiler - click to show) cult themes right from the start. The three NPCs are (Spoiler - click to show) participating in a ritual that has not gone as smoothly as they hoped. Something about joining a deity(?) named Phoebus. Later I learned that Phoebus simply means the sun. They were extreme sun worshipers. The ritual is ultimately a suicide pact (themes on suicide are brief) conducted on the summer solstice. The goal? Not sure. Perhaps they were hoping to be transported somewhere or maybe I’m just grasping for straws. I don’t want to spoil anything else.

I was actually kind of hoping that the game would go the wild route and actually feature some (Spoiler - click to show) worldly being plotting to inhabit these three cult members. The story, setting, and strung-out NPCs reminds of That Night at Henry's Place or What Girls Do In The Dark (I recommend both) where the player comes across people (Spoiler - click to show) casually dabbling in the extraterrestrial and/or supernatural without necessarily knowing the depth they are in. In these, the protagonist becomes an outside observer who may or may not be sucked right in. That part does not occur here, but still cultivates a feeling of has everyone lost it?

Characters
Not much to say about characters since there is only the protagonist and three unresponsive NPCs, but the rationale behind the protagonist was a bit flimsy. They feel compelled to apply their expertise by solving the mystery first, when theoretically that would not be needed to call for help since all you see is a dead body and two individuals clearly having a tough time breathing and not responding to the player’s attempts to communicate with them.

You curse yourself for not bringing your phone on your walk, but decide to figure out what you can.

Only when you solve the mystery can you call for help. It makes decent sense from a gameplay standpoint as a murder mystery piece, but the logic stuck out. And as for calling for help, if this was a mere short stroll, why not go back? The setting seems to be some parking lot out in the middle of nowhere, when in fact the protagonist lives nearby.

Visuals
Let’s see… Black background, white text, links in a nice shade of blue (a different shade in than the default Twine link blue). Decent formatting. Occasionally spelling issues. I’d say that’s about it.

Final thoughts
The game describes itself as a “minimal murder mystery,” and it succeeds well enough at creating a bite-sized investigative mystery piece. It was fun and intriguing. However, it is not a minimal mystery without flaws, particularly structural flaws. Gameplay concept is straightforward, but the mechanics are rough around the edges. The timer was a key component in shaping the gameplay and yet it falls apart at the seams once the player starts to dig in.

I do think the strongest part is the list of questions for solving the mystery. Filling out a questionnaire in an interactive fiction game may sound boring, but in Waiting for Sunrise it is effective at creating an investigative feel by requiring the player to do some basic problem solving to advance the story. Ultimately, it is effectively atmospheric and worth your time if you are hungry for the “murder mystery” genre in a short Twine format.

I've been looking forward to playing this one. It was announced to be released on the 31st if I recall. There is something fun about waiting for a game that is set to be released on a specific date so you can count the days until you can play it. In a way this game is an excellent "present" for the holidays (sorry if that sounds sappy), but guess what? The game’s intro takes place during the New Year, so I think that comparison is justified.

Overview
The first in the series was simply The Little Match Girl (unless the full title really is “The Little Match Girl, by Hans Christian Andersen” as is the case on the game’s listing). You do not need to play the first game to appreciate The Little Match Girl 2: Annus Evertens, but I recommend it. Essentially, a young girl is ordered by her father to sell matches on a cold day. After no success, the girl decides to use a match to warm her fingers. Upon seeing the flame, she is suddenly transported to another world.

The Little Match Girl 2 follows a similar fashion where flames act as a portal to other places and eras in history. The only difference is that our Match Girl is no longer trying to sell matches on a rainy day. As explained at the start of the game, she was adopted by a well-off philanthropist named Ebenezer Scrooge. She even has her own name now: Ebenezabeth Scrooge. Her purpose? A time-traveling assassin who provides services to clients looking to eliminate heartless individuals.

Gameplay
A young-girl-turned-assassin? I know that sounds gruesome, but not quite. I mean, the clients making the request are a group of sparrows. The game begins in London, 1846. We are in the Scrooge household- a simple but cozy apartment. It is Ebenezabeth’s birthday (or a celebration of when she was adopted), but she has received a sudden request for her services. On the roof are some sparrows who need to assassinate “a disgusting old man.”

The senior sparrow gave this upstart a reproving peck. "Don't be crass. 'Take care of' is how we put it. A certain someone, as I was saying. An old man—Older even than I!"

The player is transported throughout different times and places in history. Past, future, ones that fall out of any familiar timeline. It brings an exciting feeling that you never know where you will be sent next. Here, gameplay is organized into “chapters” that feature a setting. The goal for each is to find or obtain a flame that takes you to a new place. Often this is done indirectly. Rather than explicitly searching a space and its contents for a flame source, it will come to you as an unexpected result of a task or through creative solutions that feel reasonably clued.

My favorite puzzle was correlating the (Spoiler - click to show) cyberskull’s sparking mannerisms with the fossil fuel sludge to create a flame. It was well-hinted and the cyberskull was helpful in filling the gameplay with idle but relevant dialog about the player’s surroundings. A tour guide, really.

Thoughts on structure
The first game followed a “fetch quest” format of obtaining treasured objects for NPCs to advance the game which involved returning to the same locations. The Little Match Girl 2 departs from that model by confining tasks to a single location before traveling to the next area, which adds variety to the overall series. I do miss being able to revisit places, but then again, the worlds in this game are not quite as desirable (inside a (Spoiler - click to show) monster’s stomach, for instance) to return to. So, it works out in the end.

I do think the game loses steam a bit later with the (Spoiler - click to show) moon and (Spoiler - click to show) office locations. I loved finding myself smack in the middle of (Spoiler - click to show) Apollo 12. Interacting with Pete Conrad and Alan Bean (not to be confused with Alan Shepard) in their lunar rover was humorous although it lacked the depth showcased in the previous sections. The final solution with the sun, though, was clever.

The office is a high-quality and creative escape-the-room game with some of the best puzzles* in the entire game. However, it drifts from the story’s initial ambience. Throughout The Little Match Girl 2, Ebenezabeth’s core character is seeped into the gameplay. Here, you feel like you could be playing as a generic protagonist. This section is also considerably longer and more difficult, almost like a standalone game which may burn out players (fortunately, there is a generous hint system). *I was especially impressed with the painting/clock puzzle.

Story
The Little Match Girl 2 is a sampler of topics. You know games that have a strong ambience that compel you to skulk around IFDB in hopes of finding another game that conjures up the same feeling and flavor of gameplay experience? I've experienced this with Greek mythology, certain murder mysteries, dystopian science fiction, romance that was actually not that bad, underdog protagonists who feel that thrill of glory after winning a competition against ruthless NPCs. Obviously, this game does not contain all of that, but I was surprised at how often it conjured up familiar memories about getting into a certain theme or historical setting.

The game carefully navigates gnarlier themes without sacrificing a sense of light-hearted whimsical enthusiasm as this girl takes on challenges across space and time. Given the bountiful content experienced in this game, you can almost forget about your overarching goal of assassinating this horrible man. After all, you have been lugging this (Spoiler - click to show) revolver around for the entire game.

We have minimal details besides his appearance, but once we find him, we start to see the goal’s (Spoiler - click to show) connection with the cover art. There is probably extra symbolism that I am overlooking (yes, I know what a stork means), and I also don’t to spoil everything. Just know, the sparrows are right about this guy. Sure, there are some mildly explicit parts, but even they are exquisite. The ending was lovely.

Characters
Ebenezabeth Scrooge is a cool protagonist, and I don't just mean her name: On the verge of freezing to death, the little girl manifested an ability to travel through time and space whenever she looked at fire.

It is quite a change from her previous self, but the change is believable. You can see an evolution. She may no longer be selling matches, but a common thread of traveling through a mere flame remains. And now her work is more meaningful. It’s one thing to see a character transform throughout the span of a single game, but seeing it occur through multiple games is its own experience. How old is she, anyway?

I was also pleased to see that the (Spoiler - click to show) cat made it into the second game.

Visuals
The Little Match Girl 2 does not shy away from using some fun visual effects which is always nice to see in parser games. Each section has its own screen colour, ranging from tomato red to pale blue, that emphasizes a change in setting as the player is shuttled to the next scene. The game also uses different fonts, notably in the (Spoiler - click to show) journal from the Terrible Dogfish section.

Dear Diary. Some of these crew guys brought up the idea of resorting to cannibalism really fast.

The diary has a dramatic, sprawling cursive handwriting font.

Dear Diary. Luckily nobody had to eat each other.

The journal author’s frilly handwriting and insistence of “Dear Diary” in the darkest of times was humorous. And on that note, the writing in this game is excellent.

I only wish there was a way of scrolling to the top of the screen- I can’t find the scroll bar- because large sections of text sometimes get cut off when they appear all at once. I end up having to zoom out to read it all before zooming back in. Maybe that’s just me.

Final thoughts
The Little Match Girl 2 is strong addition to the Match Girl series. It’s fun with a meaningful story and diverse puzzles. You may enjoy some “chapters” more than others, but they are all worth your time. Ebenezabeth Scrooge never fails to be an interesting character. If you like this game, consider playing the first one as well.

You are Sebastian, a rat whose baby sister, Wendy, is sick. Resources are limited. Your father is dead. It’s just you and Gurdy, an old family friend who says it’s your job to salvage human medicine for Wendy.

Note: At the time of this review, the game's IFDB posting says that it is made with ChoiceScript. That is false, it is made with Twine.

Gameplay
Gurdy's main task for you is to obtain the Tablet of Well Being. How a rat knows about modern-day human pharmaceuticals is beyond me. This Tablet lies in a human territory called the Porcelain Palace. It’s more like “Tablet-of-Well-Being Thief” rather than Cheese Thief. Food’s a plus if you can find it.

At first glance, there seems to be opportunity for strategizing. You are a rat wearing a backpack on a mission. The first part of the game serves as a training orientation where you learn how to disarm rat traps and mapping out hazards in human households. Gurdy shares his expertise as well before sending you off. Early gameplay consists of navigating passageways while dodging obstacles.

Other giant Knick-Knacks scattered the ground and shelves, much too big to bring back as a present. I also see an entrance to another safe passage across the way but it seems to be blocked by something.

Investigate Shelf
Attempt to Unblock the Entrance
Re-enter Safe Passage 1

But before you know it, the game starts funneling you into making linear choices that take away the sense of the adventure. Many choices just lead to passages without any links that forward the scene. The player ends up clicking on links until something happens. You either die or get shuffled on to the next section to face its “challenges.”

You've been squished!
Try again from Checkpoint

Eventually you will get there. I must applaud the game’s alternate way of (Spoiler - click to show) disabling the rat trap. At least that’s a small puzzle.

Story + Characters
It’s an engaging enough story with a clear objective. It is grim in the sense that Wendy is dying, but sometimes it is unclear if the game is trying to be comical with its seriousness. I think it has to do with Gurdy. Play the intro and you will get a feel for what I am talking about. Regardless of the tone, Wendy’s plight is a worthy motivator that drives the gameplay.

There is also some vague conspiracy theory- a hidden agenda- about Sabastian’s father that the game mentions. Part of it has to do with some secret stash of infinite food which you later find. I think there is more story tied to that (and there is at least one mention of a (Spoiler - click to show) wild dance party), but the narrative is too jumbled to follow any details, especially since exploring the house often only leads to dead ends.

While it ultimately feels like a poorly (I'm sorry) done version of Ratatouille, it still captures a strong perspective of a non-human protagonist in a human oriented environment, particularly with the writing. Humans are Giants, Raised Softlands are human beds, etc. It’s been done many times before but still retains a certain charm.

Visuals
Basic default Twine appearance of black screen, white text, and blue links. Sometimes colour-coded text was used to emphasize instructions.

Structurally speaking, it’s sloppy. Blaring spelling mistakes are a common sight. There are grammatical errors for dialog, particularly with capitalization and spacing, and at one point the game completely abandons quotation marks. The narrative also bounces between present tense and past tense, sometimes within the same paragraph. Occasionally, it alternates in first person and second person.

The sound of your heartbeat fills my ears as I approach the long dark corridor, the entrance to Safe Passage One.
(You? Me? Whose perspective is this?)

The Twine format features the familiar “undo” arrow at the upper left corner of the text which allows the player to “undo” a move. However, the game uses this as a replacement of a “return” link where the player visits a passage and returns to a previous one, marking it as “visited.” I know, I’m a stickler, but it feels unpolished not to include a return link. If that arrow were not there, it would be considered as broken passage. This occurs everywhere.

Besides the cover art, which appears at the beginning, there are only two visuals in the gameplay. They are horribly done, and I love them. My impression is that they are the type of animated artwork that is purposefully bad, ones that feature poorly designed avatars (if this is not the intended effect, I do apologize). There is an odd appeal to this style. I know of many animated YouTube videos of a similar nature that for some reason, you feel compelled to watch them.

Final thoughts
Cheese Thief is not a smooth ride. This feels like a game that was enthusiastically thrown together in a late-night creation binge where the author went straight to publish without any testing or basic proofreading.

Now, the game’s listing says that this is the first in a series. Would I play the next one? I would. But I would rather play a remake of this game in better quality. Something that is more than a first draft. I think then Sabastian’s adventure would have more merit.

I would have loved to see more poorly animated graphics. Those were the best part.

If you are interested in rat protagonists, I recommend The Roscovian Palladium, by Ryan Veeder. You play as a rat navigating a human art museum to complete a mission connected to a famous art piece made by a rat artist. It is made with Inform and has an awesome combat scene near the end.