Reviews by Kinetic Mouse Car

View this member's profile

Show ratings only | both reviews and ratings
View this member's reviews by tag: ADRIFT Adventuron AI AI protagonist AIF Animal protagonist Children's ChoiceScript City setting Construct 3 Custom choice-based Custom hybrid Custom parser Cyberpunk Dendry Dialog ECTOCOMP Fairy tale Fantasy Horror IFComp IFComp 2022 Inform Ink Murder mystery Mystery Mythology Quest Robot protagonist Science Fiction Simulation Slice of Life Spring Thing Strand Sub-Q Surreal TADS Teenage protagonist Texture Travel Twine Twiny Jam Vorple
Previous | 41–50 of 146 | Next | Show All


The Virulence Protocol, by D.G. Chichester
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Corporate space mission gone haywire, January 2, 2023

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.

Was this review helpful to you?   Yes   No   Remove vote  
More Options

 | Add a comment 

Waiting for Sunrise, by Victor Selnæs Breum
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Murder mystery vs. Sunrise, January 2, 2023

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.

Was this review helpful to you?   Yes   No   Remove vote  
More Options

 | Add a comment 

The Little Match Girl 2: Annus Evertens, by Ryan Veeder
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Let me tell you, the protagonist just keeps getting better, January 1, 2023
Related reviews: Fantasy, Vorple, Inform

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.

Was this review helpful to you?   Yes   No   Remove vote  
More Options

 | View comments (2) - Add comment 

Cheese Thief, by Shea Lutz
Cheese is secondary, actually, December 30, 2022

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.

Was this review helpful to you?   Yes   No   Remove vote  
More Options

 | Add a comment 

Orunge , by Jennifer Reuter
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
MUST. GET. ORANGES!, December 26, 2022

Orunge is a heartwarming story told in first person from the perspective of a young girl looking to buy some oranges at a market. We follow her frantic rush to buy these oranges and meet up with some mysterious NPC.

Gameplay
The game takes place at a metropolitan setting with public transportation and a maze of outdoor venders. The girl’s desperate search in the gameplay accurately captures a sense of rushing through a busy area, totally lost while on a time crunch. This part was relatable. Science dictates that the less time you need to be somewhere, the more confusing everything- I’m kidding.

Ack, I’m getting distracted! Gotta get oranges first. He’ll be packing up soon, so I don’t have a lot of time. I’ll miss out.

Those pastries smell SO good though.

(The words "oranges" and "pastries" are both links. It is an extremely difficult decision.)

In terms of interactivity, there are only a few cases where the player can make a choice. Otherwise, they are just in it for the ride. But being a short game with a reasonable amount of text, Orunge maintains the player’s attention as they watch the story unfold. Because of this, the game would be a good selection for kids.

Story + Characters
The reason behind the protagonist’s desperate scramble is only revealed at the end. We know one thing: These oranges are for someone else. Until then, there is a sense of mystery and anticipation as we wait to learn who “he” is (In fact, character details about everyone, including the protagonist, are kept at a minimum).

The answer is that there is a (Spoiler - click to show) vender who will teach the protagonist how to make orange juice by pressing oranges. Naturally, she supplies the oranges and does not want to keep him waiting. I am not sure of the protagonist's relationship with the vender or how they know each other, but it is a wholesome story about a person teaching a trade to another.

There are multiple endings. I found two, one of which has two nearly identical variations. For the latter, (Spoiler - click to show) you acquire a pastry to give to the man or you forget/ran out of time to buy a pastry. Either one is a happy ending where the two characters bond over orange juice. It's such an endearing story! There is also a less ideal ending where you (Spoiler - click to show) dally and take too long to catch up to the vender before he packs up his stall and drives off. But never fear, that ultimately leads to a surprise happy ending and still ends in (Spoiler - click to show) orange juice.

Visuals
Unsurprisingly, the colour palette for this game is orange. It has a light orange background with dark orange text and white links. This is quite a tasteful look. There are also some nice story graphics on every page that elevate the game’s quality. Graphics feature drawings done in a mix of orange shades. They depict the protagonist as she runs around the market, and I liked the art style.

Final thoughts
Orunge is an endearing story for adults but also perfect for kids because of the lighthearted story, cheery art, and shorter word count. It features a relatable and upbeat protagonist who leaves a lasting impression on the audience. It’s also a game that demonstrates how you do not need to have ultra-complex coding or dramatic visual effects to create a polished and professional-looking Twine game.

Was this review helpful to you?   Yes   No   Remove vote  
More Options

 | Add a comment 

Plasmorphosis, by Agnieszka Trzaska
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Research rover on a mission, December 25, 2022

You play as Rovie, a rover on a research vessel called the Curious Kitty. Daphne, the onboard AI, activates you to explain that the ship has crashed landed on the mission’s destination, planet Zephyria. Your task is to explore the landscape and gather research while Daphne repairs the ship.

Gameplay
Plasmorphosis allows the player to roam the planet freely like a parser game. It even maps the area with compass directions. This pairs well with the game’s theme of exploration. Between the Curious Kitty and the planet’s surface, there’s about a dozen rooms. Your goal: Study the planet.

You make progress by collecting research points with your scanner. The scanner can be used on lifeforms or alien objects/artifacts, such as carvings. To complete the game, you must accumulate at least 100 points. However, the planet does not have enough material to meet this quota. The player is required to get creative with the local ecosystem.

The planet is crawling with simple organisms called Zephyrian Protoplasm. Blobs… with shapeshifting properties. These critters transform when you touch them with different objects. For example, if you toss a (Spoiler - click to show) chunk of heat shielding at a Protoplasm, it turns into an *Oven-Safe Slime. Transformations come with unique properties that help you overcome obstacles. (Spoiler - click to show) The Oven-Safe Slime allows you to walk across the river of lava. Experimenting with different objects and properties is the main mechanic in Plasmorphosis. (*I kept expecting this to be Oven-Safe Slime™)

Gameplay relies on an inventory system. At the bottom of the screen is a drop-down (well, technically it is “drop-up”) menu of your inventory items. When an item is selected, it is applied to anything you examine. I wish the game would let you examine items in your inventory, but it’s not essential. There is also a database that keeps track of your research points and log entries for scanned items.

You can complete your mission and end the game after making 100 research points, but the game eagerly encourages you to continue investigating the planet for science. My final score was (Spoiler - click to show) 160/100 with 23 database entries. I believe that is the max. It was fun, finding ways to (Spoiler - click to show) enter inhospitable areas using random objects on Protoplasm.

Not all of it is seamless. There was a bug that kept me from starting over with reset progress even after I wiped my save files/autosave file. I had to do some backtracking to fully restart (author has now fixed this issue). Occasionally, character scenes were repeated. But nothing that really dulls the experience.

Story
This is not a story intensive game. The only backstory is that the mission is backed by Star Research Co. There is a feeling of the Company breathing down your neck about meeting your research quotas. Either that or Daphne is being overly dramatic. It’s hard to tell. I suppose there are some undertones about resource exploitation. For each entry the database lists ways the subject can be used for industry, including pharmaceuticals, robotics, textiles- I’m reading too much into this.

The mission is also about understanding the sentient life that once lived on the planet: Zephyrians (not to be confused with Zephyrian Protoplasm). Zephyrians were (Spoiler - click to show) insectoid creatures that once inhabited the city ruins. They were skilled in the arts and sciences, and different parts of their history can be observed throughout the game. You can figure out what happened to them by checking it out. There is no major story or plot twist, but it is quite interesting.

This game really makes you feel like an anthropologist. Or is the proper word xenoanthropologist?

Characters
There are only two characters (unless you count the Protoplasm) in this game: Rovie (you) and Daphne. The character quirk of the protagonist is that they do not speak in English, leaving it up to Daphne to translate everything for the player. This led to some charming exchanges.

“Great, you found it!” cheers Daphne.
“Beep?” you ask suspiciously.
“Oh, I'm just accessing your optical sensors,” the AI explains gleefully.

Characters certainly have their own personalities. I thought it was (Spoiler - click to show) humorous how the game briefly tricks the player into thinking that Daphne left the planet without them returning to the ship. It was a nice diversion in the gameplay.

Visuals
I would describe the visuals as a simple user-friendly design with a splash of colour. I especially liked the font and text colours for the title screen. Generally, the screen is black with white text. Room titles shown in orange. Links are conveniently colour-coded. Blue for exits, green for objects/scenery. Pop-up boxes are used to explain outcomes of an action, or dialog. Basic enough.

Final thoughts
The author has made multiple high-quality Twine games, and Plasmorphosis is no exception. It’s fun and upbeat with well-implemented puzzles that provide a challenge. It kept me busy for at least an hour.

I would not consider this to be a “kid’s game,” but its lighthearted content (dinosaur gummies, friendly AI- well, anyone can love this) can appeal to younger audiences who are familiarized with more technical Twine puzzles. I mean, there’s a ship called the Curious Kitty. That can leave an impression about the target audience. So, sure. Call it a kid’s game if you want. But if you enjoy Twine science fiction, give it a try.

Was this review helpful to you?   Yes   No   Remove vote  
More Options

 | View comments (2) - Add comment 

Creating Goncharov, by Albie
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
Don't wait for the opportunity. Create it., December 21, 2022
Related reviews: Twine

This is another submission in the Goncharov Game Jam. For quick context, Goncharov is a nonexistent mafia themed film by Martin Scorsese that started from a meme and has transformed into its own unique following. After all, there’s a game jam about it!

In Creating Goncharov, you have been given an unexpected but exciting task from your boss who explains that a group of investors want to make a 2023 remake of the film. Your assignment is to create a pitch for these investors. Oh, and you only have a few hours.

Fun fact: The game’s cover art is a section from the “official” movie poster made by an artist after the meme took off. If you didn’t know any better, one would glance at it and then look for a place to watch the film, it is so convincing.

Gameplay
Before you get a chance to celebrate, your boss throws a curveball about the assignment. The big catch is that you must work with Al, an ambiguous sort-of maybe slacker co-worker whom you barely know. A blandish mystery. You have mixed feelings about this, but it is up to you to decide on your attitude towards these terms. This is done by the tone (friendly, polite, not-so-nice) you use in your emails to Al.

Now, in this scenario Goncharov is an existing film. There is some ambiguity about its existence. It fits in the category of films that everyone thinks they know about but have not personally seen it. As the player, you can read between the lines as the PC strives to create a remake worthy of the “real” film itself. When it comes to brainstorming, the twist is that neither the PC nor Al have seen the film. They never fully admit that, of course. Or at least, not initially.

You will fail. That is not a spoiler. Failure is a mandatory fact of the gameplay. When you submit your pitch, the project is and will be canceled. But that is not the end of the game. Far, far from it. Creating Goncharov is larger than it seems. You can call it quits and end right there, or you can be stubborn and say, “no, we’re going to create this. I won’t take no for an answer.” Al is on your side and is willing to take the gamble with you. See, he’s not so bad after all!

This is not a time travel game (I think. 99.8% certain, at least). But there are some temporal shenanigans at work: The main gameplay mechanic is that it resets on a loop. After a failure, you can make plans with Al to remaking the pitch. The game then “restarts” from the beginning. Much of this is familiar. You show up to work at the same time, read the same email from your boss that explains the pitch as if it never happened (did it?), experience the same surprise about the pitch, and meet up with Al. However, changes are present.

If you could create your pitch again, would you? Not necessarily starting from scratch, but starting over.

Two notable changes occur for each loop. One is that your environment evolves. This is part is relatively minor but still noteworthy. (Spoiler - click to show) First time around, your office is a boring cubicle. After that, the game allows you to customize it. Each loop reshapes the office setting, giving it a dynamic dimension. Plus, any specifications you made for the PC’s character qualities also remain the same. The second notable change takes center stage and is where the temporal shenanigans come into play. While the protagonist is always surprised about receiving the assignment, their (and Al’s) memory about the film expands.

For every loop, Al shares a document with an outline of information about the film. This document breaks the remake down into categories. In the first iteration it only includes PLOT and CAST, but more categories are added for each restart loop.

MORE INFORMATION:
THE PLOT | THE CAST

MORE INFORMATION:
THE PLOT | THE CAST | THE THEMES

Among these questions of “let’s see, how did that go again?” we realize that this remake means taking some creative license. Each expansion allows you to edit more of the remake’s components and is meant to increase your chances that inventors will buy the pitch. My only complaint was how the (Spoiler - click to show) THEMES category on the second loop does not allow you to make the same types of edits as the other categories. Fortunately, there is plenty of editable content elsewhere to make up for it.

The player themselves really starts to feel like they are creating a pitch as they edit the remake’s narrative line by line. In doing so, they get acquainted with some of the main characters and plot elements found in Goncharov as it exists today. Yes, this real-life nonexistent film has an established plot. But in this game, how far you remake that plot is your choice.

Story
There is a strong sense of cubicle burnout where the protagonist is bored of the same floor, walls, and ceiling in the cubicle maze that makes up most of the workday. They are happy to have the job but feel stifled. That's what makes the assignment so intriguing. Consider the meaning of, “You reach the end of the day. You log off.” Does it mark the end of a boring workday or an energizing one?

You sit down at your desk with a heavy sigh, surveying your bare surroundings with a gaze that's 10% disappointment and 90% ambivalence.

It's time to begin your day. You turn on the computer.

There is an appeal of doing something that makes you genuinely eager to show up for work and spending your time on something that sustains you. An unrealistic appeal, though not an impossible one either. This is not just a game about a film. It is partly a story about someone who, whether they actively realize it or not, is seeking an escape from daily work drudgery, but with something more than a mere distraction. The protagonist undergoes a major transformation from (Spoiler - click to show) cubicle worker to a producer of an award-winning film. In real life this would have considerable obstacles, but Creating Goncharov entertains that “what if?” fantasy and makes it real in the game.

Characters
Al. What’s he hiding? Nothing, actually. I was unsure if there was going to be some big secret about Al. Something about the writing and the protagonist’s attitude gives a sense that there is more to this NPC (not that there is any practical reason to think so). What I can tell you is that completing the project and forging a friendly, professional relationship with Al is really rewarding. I was not expecting to find a heartwarming outcome when I sat down to play this, but that is exactly what I found.

Also: I made an awkward mistake when I first saw this game's description: "Creating Goncharov is a surreal game where you play as a filmmaker creating a pitch for a Goncharov (1973) remake with the help of Al, an indecisive peer."

I thought "with the help of Al" was AI, as in artificial intelligence. Your peer is an AI? Cool! Not quite. There is a slight difference between a lower-case “l” and an uppercase “I”, but sometimes your (my) eyes overlook things while reading quickly. Details are important. So no, no AIs. Just your co-worker Al …right?

If you do want to play a Goncharov-themed game with an AI, play GONCHAROV 2073.

Visuals
This game makes use of fun but basic Twine visual elements. Colours, fonts, boxes, and borders create an artsy and fun theme. Its general appearance is white text against a black screen but gets creative for emails. In these cases, text is shown in a black box set against a dark teal background. Borders are white with an extra orange border on the sides and bottom that add a pop of colour. Additional embellishments can be found throughout.

For some reason, you can change the visual style of the entire game in the settings section. There are two options: GONCHAROV and GOMORRAH, the former being the default as I discussed here. Feel free to check out both. I guess it's nice that the author gives us options (I love little gimmicks like this).

Final thoughts
Creating Goncharov is a strong entry in the Goncharov Game Jam and a quality game in general because of its well-roundedness in story, concept, and interactivity. It also perfectly captures the idea of a film being the product of collective imagination combined with a simple eagerness to contribute. I see this on the internet about the meme, and I see it perfectly in this game. If anyone out there is chomping at the bit for Goncharov to be made real, playing Creating Goncharov is the closest you will get (so far).

It is possible to (Spoiler - click to show) play as Martin Scorsese. I highly, highly, highly encourage you to try this AFTER you play this through on your own. Then try exploiting loopholes.

Was this review helpful to you?   Yes   No   Remove vote  
More Options

 | Add a comment 

Trigaea, by Adam Ipsen (RynGM)
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
The longest freaking Twine game I have ever played, December 18, 2022

(And appropriately, this review is not going to be a short read.)

Trigaea in a sentence: An epic sci-fi Twine game that looks and feels like it walked off of Steam for twenty dollars. When I first saw this posted on IFDB, I did a double take and told myself, “There is no way that this game is free.” It is. The amount of time, brain power, and creativity that went into this thing produced such a polished, cool, and ambitious piece. I am grateful that the author decided to make this game available to play for free.

Gameplay
Prologue: You wake up inside a tank filled with strange green liquid in an unfamiliar room. A step outside the door reveals a wasteland of broken machinery- you did not wake up in a building. You woke up in the wreckage from a major accident, and your memories are gone.

The protagonist, whom you name, has a brain implant called a Rosetta that compresses an individual’s memories and consciousness. Upon death, the information from the implant is transmitted back to a compact AI-run lab called a Progenitor (where you woke up) that grows a new copy of the body with its own Rosetta. The data transfers to the new implant and the protagonist steps out of the tank as good as new with hardly a gap in awareness.

Early gameplay consists of exploring the wasteland to learn more about your surroundings. Combat is a frequent feature throughout the gameplay. When an opponent appears, you have a list of options on how to respond during the encounter. If you win, you earn microchips that are used as currency. If you lose, you die and wake up again in the Progenitor. This is streamlined to make it simple for players to rebound after a setback. Combat is both easy to use and easy to master. Collecting microchips and quartz chips are also vital to regaining your memories. Later gameplay shifts towards contacting the inhabitants of the planet to learn more about the unknown disaster. Rather than just exploring, you start to have more concrete objectives to complete.

I have played plenty of games advertised as having loads of optional content. Not all turn out that way, but Trigaea really is one of those games with substantial optional material tacked on to its already-extensive gameplay. And on that note, the gameplay is extremely long. Absolutely worth your time but you will not fit this in during a lunch break. Just know that once you complete it, (Spoiler - click to show) you can replay without losing your health and stat levels. Skip the intro, that sort of thing. That was convenient.

One of the coolest features in this game is about augmenting yourself for survival. You can spend microchips to receive genetic modifications or cybernetic implants that grant new abilities. This selection of choices only expands as the game continues. My estimate is that this will be a popular draw for players.

Story
There is so much story content I hardly know where to begin. Probably the best thing for me to do is encourage you to play it rather than making this review longer than it needs to be, but I just have to discuss some of it.

Background context: (Spoiler - click to show) Humanity eventually advanced enough to populate the rest of the solar system, but the space colonies often clashed with the Earth government about resources, especial fuel. Riots and altercations became a common issue. A solution was developed: Project Amber, finding another home, and sources of fuel, for humanity. This was a project spanning decades in the making. Correctors were trained at an academy and assigned to govern a ship filled with thousands of people in stasis pods. Upon arriving a new world, Correctors would help settle the planet and guide humanity. Preparation included scoping out potential worlds with high levels of habitability. That way, even if the planet proved to be unfriendly to Earth-based life, terraforming technology could step in and make it habitable. Then one day, the conflict between the space colonies and Earth government goes too far. Project Amber must launch now. Preparation goes out the window as ships hightail it to their designated planets. Unfortunately, all the planets are too inhabitable. Except this one. Two ships, SCC Nuria and SCC Caleuche, end up orbiting Trigaea. Things did not go as planned.

Now what?
We know that the protagonist was trained to be a Corrector. Part of that training involved receiving the Rosetta implant with a personal AI. Correctors are quite valuable. As you will experience several times, everyone freaks out when they learn that you are a Corrector. Moral choices appear on the horizon as your supposed responsibilities as a Corrector is made known to everyone. You become the go-to fix it repairperson. Someone who can do the impossible. You are a Corrector. Obviously, you are supposed to correct things, right? This is where things get complicated. They have questions. You have amnesia. Recovering your memories is crucial to making informed decisions as the lives of more NPCs fall into your lap.

As you regain your memories you realize that you are in over your head. The situation is not as simple as (Spoiler - click to show) “uh, a ship crashed,” but, to limit spoilers, an Earth ship(s) collided with the planet. Everything that could have gone wrong, went wrong. There are THREE struggling factions on one miserable planet: humans, natives, and robots (by the way, Trigaea is the name of the planet). (Spoiler - click to show) Natives, called X'irii, were on the planet long before this mess happened. Human colonists managed to hack together an existence in the ship’s wreckage. Some humans live as Outer Tribes, but no one seems to care about them. Finally, the robots that survived built their own hive city managed by advanced AI.

One of the strongest parts in this game is how it puts you in the shoes of each faction. The first faction you contact are the (Spoiler - click to show) human colonists, followed by the robots, and then the natives. You may encounter these groups earlier in combat, but contact is when you visit their “homebase.” Your Progenitor allows you to morph into machine and alien forms to blend in. The major clash in perspectives is (Spoiler - click to show) between the humans and the natives. The robot faction is more or less content with minding its own, but they too have an invested interest in the planet’s population.

The human colonists form the baseline perspectives for the first half of the game. From this angle you will look at the other factions and be absolutely convinced that human colonists are the way to go and everyone else are savages. The X'irii have wiped out every human colony except for Delta Colony. They brutally kill human colonists. And yet, when you visit their native home groves you realize that they too have a rich cultural heritage, sense of identity, and drive to protect their own families.

Humanity’s interstellar spaceships came with a Terraform Sphere to assist in colonization a new world. Trigaea is reasonably habitable, but one ultimately foreign to Earth-based biology.
As a Corrector, everyone wants something from you: The second half of the gameplay is about finding the (Spoiler - click to show) Terraform Sphere, that is, if it managed to survive the wreck.

Moral choices
So. Eventually, you (Spoiler - click to show) locate the Terraform Sphere. The keystone of the game is moral choices. Get ready to enter Spoiler Land. Seriously, look away. (Spoiler - click to show) Here’s the deal: Activating the Terraform Sphere will make the planet perfect for humans but would wipe out the X'irii in the process. Quite frankly, I was inclined to side with the natives, but naturally the game had to throw some curveballs.

When humanity set to colonize other worlds one principle that was considered while screening for compatible planets was to find one without any intelligent species already living on it. Trigaea happens to be the first planet with sentient alien life discovered by humanity, ever. Arguably, wiping out this race for human benefit would be immoral. Thing is, due to circumstances that I won’t discuss to avoid spoiling everything, Earth is no longer a home. Furthermore, all of Earth’s ships sent to explore other worlds failed. Your own ship had no survivors. The humans on Trigaea are the last of the human race. If you side with the natives in this scenario, humans go extinct. And there’s also the robots to think of.


What would you do?
In this section, I am going to discuss some of my viewpoints in case you want to compare notes (and please do!) I will throw it under one big spoiler tag.

(Spoiler - click to show) I don’t think I would wipe out the X'irii even for the last dredges of humanity, or at least not for the humanity we see in the flashbacks. The humanity in the flashbacks really rubbed me the wrong way. Humanity lost the Earth because of squabbling, and even on the starships there is fighting between former space colonists and those who lived on Earth. I am only touching the tip of the ice burg here. But when put to a vote, nearly everyone onboard was content with squashing the natives to claim the planet.

To be fair, the colonists we meet in the gameplay are descendants of those who survived the disaster. Technically, they are not the same humans as featured in the flashbacks. Earth is a faint memory passed on through generations. Would they share the same perspectives of their ancestors? Thing is, an Earth-old feud still exists, even if the details have gotten hazy. The Outer Tribes are the descendants of the survivors who came specifically from the old space colonies. Delta Colony and its sister colonies were founded by the humans who originally came from Earth. That feuding is still there. And both sides would not hesitate to activate the Sphere. It comes back to the original question: do we commit genocide to wipe out the natives to make Trigaea humanity’s new home?

Oddly enough, the natives are little more receptive, perhaps even sympathetic, about the humans’ reason for being on the planet. You say Trigaea, but the natives call their planet X'ir, which is also the name of the god that sustains life. X'ir follows a reciprocal relationship. If you take care of the planet, it takes care of you. From their perspective, the humans abused their planet (an understatement) and were exiled- and the natives feel pity about that. However, if humans, to put it bluntly, managed to screw up their own planet, what’s stopping them from destroying X’ir? Already, humans squashed countless X'irii simply by falling from the sky. And now, human diseases and garbage from the wreckage has been poisoning the land, causing the natives’ offspring to be deformed. Thus, they feel compelled to fight against the foreign invaders. Besides, [name redacted] is encouraging them to raid the colonies. I am not saying that you should agree with the natives, only that they too have a valid perspective for how they respond to other factions.

What frustrates me about the human colonists that we meet is how oblivious they are to the impact of their presence on the natives. The natives aren’t using the humans for target practice. They are defending their home. But understandably, that means little when you are trying to protect your hovel of a home against an alien race that keeps trying to kill you. Human colonists trying to make the most out of a difficult situation and are so bogged down with daily survival that they probably do not have the time or energy to reflect on the virtues of a species that has shown nothing but hostility. When family and friends are at stake, the last thing you want to hear is, “well, it is their planet.”

I certainty do not have a polarized perspective. Halfway through the gameplay is a pivotal event where Delta Colony calls for your help in defending against a X'irii attack. In this battle you are on the colonists’ side, but the game will continue even if you fail to stop the attack. Failure just means that the colonist population is severely reduced. Despite my feelings for the natives, I would always defend the colonists in this scene. Why? Well, they are trying to kill characters whom we already know on a personal basis. And that is my point: There are no easy stances. There is the faction, and the individuals within it, and each faction has individuals who form a connection with the PC. The game forces you to make tough choices. (If it makes you feel any better, you do not have to kill a single person in this game. You even get a trophy for doing so. If you fight in non-lethal mode, you merely subdue your opponents.)


These dynamics foreshadow major moral choices involving the fates of each faction. The challenges encountered in the gameplay anticipate decisions about (Spoiler - click to show) wiping out one race to save another. At first glance it seems like you must choose either Faction A, B, or C when in fact over a dozen endings offer a spectrum of outcomes. Everyone wants you to side with them but, if you play your cards right, you can put your foot down and consider, “why not all of us?”

Still, that does not make the decision easy. There is only one consensus: (Spoiler - click to show) I would make a horrible Corrector.

Story mechanics
The story features two commonly used tropes: Amnesia and experiencing the overarching story primarily through flashbacks. These can be touchy clichés, but the game pulls them off. They do not feel contrived, and instead, provide a platform for experiencing the story.

With amnesia, I like games that slowly construct an underlying context behind the protagonist’s reason for having amnesia that, when revealed, builds upon your understanding of everything you encountered in the gameplay. It creates that moment of insight that makes it all click when you finally piece it all together (If you are interested, Worlds Apart is a master at this). Trigaea takes one big reveal, breaks it into smaller pieces, and places them strategically across the gameplay’s timeline to keep the player’s attention from drifting without diminishing their impact. The cause of the protagonist’s amnesia also has a compelling reason. (Spoiler - click to show) Due to an unknown accident, which we slowly learn about in the gameplay, the Progenitor was damaged, compromising the transfer of your memories. When those memories come back- let’s just say that there is substance to this depiction of amnesia.

As for flashbacks, while the game heavily relies on them for exposition, rich story content about your circumstances is also infused in the gameplay. Rather than merely “watching” the story, you take an active role in piecing it together. A smart design choice is that some flashbacks are optional. They are unlocked by spending microchips or quartz chips that allow the player to learn more about the protagonist’s background and the world that they came from. Collecting these memories provides an objective for players who want to milk the gameplay as much as possible for more world-building. Being optional, you can choose to skip them if you would rather focus on immediate gameplay.

Endings
There are a lot of endings. Fifteen. This is the final implementation of the player’s skills and responsibilities as a Corrector. You have already spent hours playing. The game took the good, the bad, and the ugly, rubbed it all in your face, and now challenges you to make a tough decision: How will all this end? The author posted a walkthrough for the endings that organizes them into branches. It is a useful guide if you feel overwhelmed. Some endings will leave a lasting impression.

I won't say it, it is too much of a spoiler to discuss it even here, but one of the ending branches just left me thinking, "you are kidding me," where you are so surprised, you are not sure whether to be annoyed, pleased, or confused. I still don't know what to think about it. It does provide some closure for certain drastic events which I think players will appreciate since this is a rollercoaster of a game. The only mild downside is that it gave me a slightly skewered view of the other ending branches, hence my reason for not wanting to discuss it. It was a surprise and I like how it tests your understanding of reality as you try to navigate this wonderous world of advanced technologies that we can only imagine.

…………………………But then it does it a SECOND time!!! There is an ending (another branch of endings, actually) that tops even that! You are still required to go through the ending branch that I just mentioned to access it which only makes it more surreal. It tricks the player by saying, “oh, you thought you saw the bigger picture? The ‘actual’ layer of reality? Sucker. Think again!” It was wild. The game truly, truly (this time) caught me off guard. The only impulse my brain had was to applaud. I am being dramatic, I know, but it reminded me of the saying, "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.” If such a statement could be applied in interactive fiction, it would be here. If the author is reading this, thank you for creating this game.

For a hint, it reminds me of a particular Rick & Morty (I love that show) episode. It is up to you to figure out which one it is.

Characters
Esra
Esra is one of the most empathetic AI NPCs you can find in interactive fiction, and the first character we meet in the game. You choose whether Esra is male or female but for this review I will just use "they."

Esra operates the Progenitor that allows you to respawn and carries out genetic modifications. They also have access to your Rosetta implant and will communicate with you throughout the game. There is a whole backstory about Esra- you will realize that this is the case for many characters in this game- that reveals how advanced, sentient AI is developed in the game’s world. Even the AI has a backstory? Yes. It’s quite fascinating.

They are also the NPC whom we interact with the most. The early gameplay contains more casual banter, while later conversation becomes more focused on immediate objectives. When I first played the game, these early interactions seemed to suggest that the relationship between the PC and Esra was malleable. Dialog options had distinct attitudes consisting of friendly, polite, no-nonsense, standoffish, and mean demeanors. Because of this, I figured that you could decide on your relationship with Esra and then see how it manifested in the gameplay.

1. "I'm sorry you have to watch that."
2. "I'm glad you're watching out for me."
3. "If you've got time to watch, why don't you help?"
4. "Geez, I don't get any break from you, do I?"

In one playthrough I was a complete (Spoiler - click to show) you-know-what to Esra (tick off the AI NPC to learn if it results in a certain ending, right?) in all the dialog options to see if that influenced character development over time. I kept waiting for them to turn on me, but they never did. Then I reached (Spoiler - click to show) Ending 10. Despite what I did, (Spoiler - click to show) Esra went the extra mile to make sure I came out top at their own expense. I felt so ashamed. Several minutes went by where I just stared at the screen, that's how much it elicited a reaction out of me. I didn't deserve them.

Once the gameplay moves past the introductory parts, the protagonist and Esra go into teamwork mode for survival. There are some small (and interesting) disputes that you can pursue but they will not influence the characters’ overall relationship. Esra is devoted to your success regardless of your attitude.

Everyone else
I am not even going to try to write about every character. As I mentioned earlier, there are three factions on the planet that you will eventually contact in your explorations. It does not happen all at once. Each faction has its own unique NPCs that play a part in the story. Characters are also shown in the flashbacks, but those come with heavy spoilers. Every NPC, whether you meet them face-to-face or not, adds something interesting to the game.

There is (optional) romance in this game, but that part did not really fly for me. Some of it, especially “flirting,” was almost a bit cringy. The protagonist’s sexual orientation is determined by the voice you choose for Esra, and there are about four choices that let you decide how to approach romance, if at all. Some players might like it, but I was too busy with the rest of the story to be interested.

(Confession: When I first picked up Trigaea, I was kind of hoping to play the villain. That honor goes to- major spoiler- (Spoiler - click to show) just kidding, you will have to play the game. Then again, “villain” is subjective, isn’t it? At the beginning, all I had was this wasteland and the ability to come back from the dead. I had an AI who would splice my genome with that of animals. I could have dominated it and made it my own. But as the gameplay started rolling out memory flashbacks and NPCs were added to the big picture, I realized that the PC is meant to be more of a heroic protagonist while leaving “heroic” up to the player’s interpretation. Oh well. Maybe in another game.)

Critiques
You are probably wondering why I am giving this game four stars instead of five (although it came pretty darn close) after raving about how amazing it is. My main critique is repetition, which is tricky in extra-long games like this one. What baffles me is how the game manages to be repetitive and dynamic at the same time. I know the phrase “repetitive gameplay” can scare players away but know that these occasional lulls are overshadowed by riveting, everchanging gameplay. Repetitiveness is boiled down to combat and exploring the wasteland.

Esra gives you advice on what to do which is helpful. But sometimes the only guidance you have is to explore and harvest microchips. During these parts the game shares the symptoms of a repetitive combat simulator- that is, until something does happen. Then the game pulls a surprise rabbit out of the hat of wasteland drudgery and makes things engaging once more with a new development that redirects the gameplay to something interesting. Yes, eventually you will notice some repetitiveness, but it takes a while before you start to feel fatigue (and even then, you can’t stop playing). I also noticed that even when the randomized combat lost its charm the plot-oriented combat scenes were still exciting.

The one tedious component that grated on me is how you gain microchips by killing things. It makes sense with a person since you could theoretically just search their body for microchips, but why would some random animal out in the desert have them? You kill a man-eating starfish and microchips come spilling out of the beast as if it were a piñata. The logic of that does not quite resonate with me. Unless microchips are the equivalent of oxygen… maybe I should just ignore this technicality.

Notes on formatting
The game occasionally suffers from purple prose. You say that your eyes are blue, and this is how the game interprets it: “Your eyes are scholarly and sharp, and tinted as blue as a old mountain lake. Your pupil looms in the middle like a full stop, dotted with parchment ink.” It seems contrived.

There are also some spelling issues. Sometimes Esra’s pronouns were the opposite of the ones I selected. In one playthrough Shay’s pronouns flipped flopped between him and her. Frequent grammar issues are also present. “They looks heavily injured,” taunted me everywhere. In one case, “googles” instead of “goggles.” But in all fairness, these errors were like drops in a swimming pool compared to how much text there is. This game has been thoroughly tested, and it shows.

Visuals
Oh man. This is where the game really looks like a professional piece. There are dozens of detailed sci-fi/dystopian backdrops that would put a visual novel to shame. I looked at the credits and saw that the artwork is from contributions of quite a few artists, and it goes a long way. Even if you decide not to stick with the game in the long run, at least you get a glimpse of the visuals.

Trigaea is also a great example of the possibilities of Twine stylization. Design elements are used to create a flashy interface. Experimentation with symbols, borders, colours, and text boxes add a futuristic vibe. It is easy to forget that you are playing a Twine game.

Final thoughts
I think a lot of players will appreciate elements of Trigaea, such as the smooth visuals, but if you are not a sci-fi fan, your interest may waver early on. It is also not for the impatient. I love science fiction and was in it for the long haul and yet there were times where I was hoping that the game would just hurry up already and move to the next part of the story. It’s worth it.

Sci-fi fan or not, this game is intense. The story is vast and full of tragedies. Thick backstory. Rugged characters. Bizarre technology. Violence. All packed together into lengthy gameplay. But beneath it all is a solid framework. The build-up of all this is for the player to gradually realize the protagonist’s purpose and responsibility as a Corrector, and then make difficult decisions based on the endless content poured on them over hours of gameplay. The notion of finally reaching the point where a major decision is placed in your hands is what makes this game resonate.

Anyway, great stuff. Thank you for reading this saga-length review.

Was this review helpful to you?   Yes   No   Remove vote  
More Options

 | View comments (1) - Add comment 

GONCHAROV 2073, by sweetfish
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
An espionage game about sabotaging an AI's film, December 16, 2022

It is the year (I assume) 2073. The most recent technological advancements of the ages have taken a disturbing turn, and you and your tech-savvy friends want to disrupt it. Your target: A film premiere with an audience of six thousand people. The film, GONCHAROV, is the first of its kind, directed and produced by an artificial intelligence called MATTEO JWHJ-0715.

What is up with Goncharov?
I did not know anything about "Goncharov" until I saw the posting of the Goncharov Game Jam on IFDB and decided to do some online searching for background context. The competition posting also has information.

Goncharov (if you already know this, just skip ahead) is a recent meme about the promotion of a gangster film called Goncharov. The film was released in 1973- wait a minute. That's not quite right. Sorry, Goncharov is a nonexistent film said to have been produced 1973. An alternate timeline version of 1973. If you see the "poster" for the film, it's extremely polished and convincing. Martin Scorsese is listed as the director while (someone?) Matteo JWHJ0715 is the film’s writer. It even drops actors’ names. Even though people knew this was fake, they still had fun formulating a fandom/following for it. You can almost convince yourself that you have, in fact, seen the film before…

Also, (yeah, I used Wikipedia) I saw THIS: On November 25, 2022, a game jam of Goncharov was run by Autumn Chen on itch.io.[14] There’s an article attached to it. Pretty cool!

Gameplay
Gameplay is not particularly interactive. Instead, it relies on the story, dialog, and visual presentation to carry itself through. This can be a risky gamble, but I think it succeeds. In fact, the only player choice opportunity is to (Spoiler - click to show) decide whether to show a warning, promise, or memory scene during the team’s sabotage of the film. The espionage undertones keep a steady pace, and the gameplay is short enough to maintain the player’s attention as the story unfolds.

The entire gameplay occurs over communication lines with your teammates. The plan is that Varda, your teammate/friend goes to the theater for the premiere while the rest of the group works remotely. The protagonist's picture is always at the upper right corner of the screen while NPCs are shown near the lower left corner, both of which have dialog boxes. The black box at the center of the screen is not dialog, rather it is the game's narration.

There is scrolling text, but it did not bring the scrolling text fatigue that I sometimes experience with games. When you read text like a laser beam, any scrolling effects can feel sluggish. In this game, however, the effect is minimal. Once the text appears you tap the screen to move to the next sequence. The game does not rush you. This translated into a stable gameplay experience (this was my first encounter with the tape window development system).

Story
The game contemplates the real-life neck and neck competitive nature of film production companies as they strive for innovation and to be the first product on the shelf, especially with premieres. A premiere is critical because that first audience glimpse is the big money maker. Now, in the game, Perennial Pictures tries to take it to the next level. The AI’s film is described as the company’s “most prized weapon in the war for attention.”

Regarding this “weapon,” GONCHAROV 2073 considers the wild possibilities of technology available during 2073. Here, corporations have adopted the practice of “artificial resuscitation” where a subject’s digital footprint is used to capture their voice, mannerisms, and other defining details to create an eerily life like simulation. People must give permission for this, but the system is opt-out. This means that everyone is automatically said to have given permission unless they opt-out to do so, raising potential ethical concerns.

Perennial Pictures is one such corporation that seeks to embrace this new technology. Artificial resuscitation is still a controversial matter, and GONCHAROV is meant to earn favor with the public. Its film features the same actors included in the meme inspired movie poster that I discussed at the start of this review. But the twist is that artificial resuscitation is used on the long-dead actors to create “actors” in this AI’s film. The human element has been removed in the film’s production, and yet it can leave the illusion of a human impact on the audience.

One of the more unsettling scenes in this game is when (Spoiler - click to show) the Perennial Pictures personnel are trying to stop the sabotage and alter their Martin Scorsese simulation to soothe the audience with familiar visual cues: They've hastily programmed a new expression onto his face: an apologetic smile. That apologetic smile can do so much damage. If we really did have this technology, could we make Goncharov a real non-nonexistent film with all the actors and intended details? Wow.

The big tragedy (spoiler time) of GONCHAROV 2073 is when (Spoiler - click to show) Varda totally betrays everyone. The game evokes a gradual yet increasingly rapid downward slide of emotions in this final scene. It starts with confusion, then unease, then shock, and finally panic. This avalanche kicks off when you hear Varda talking to someone over her comm line about submitting a report and receiving payment. Then, when you talk to her, she goes on a tangent on how the mission was a mistake and starts dropping some concerning implications about her behavior. Suddenly:

Behind you, down the narrow hall - the sound of heavy footsteps at your front door.

Really, Varda? Or should I say Leica since you don’t care about code names anymore? The betrayal is strong. Here, the game gleefully heaps on the suspense. It shows no mercy. Those footsteps just keep coming. Before you know it, Perennial Pictures’ military forces are breaking down the door, and the game ends.


My understanding is that (Spoiler - click to show) Varda sold everyone out because she needed the money due to increases in living expenses. She agrees that it hardly counts as an excuse but that she did it anyway. At least she is not trying to take the moral high ground about selling out her teammates. Still. I’m not a fan.

As for the mission, her perspective is that the demonstration is only going to encourage people to want to watch this AI-directed film to witness the artificially resuscitated dead man who seems to embody every nostalgic feeling a person can have (and previously never had) about film, culture, and everything else. The tragic part is how the demonstration aimed to protest capitalistic domination of film production and other artforms, particularly with its commoditization of deceased individuals, only for her to betray everyone for money.


Characters
You play as Kon in this endeavor. That’s your code name, at least. The other members of the crew are Varda, Tsai, Sissako, and Vertov. Everyone has their moment of dialog, but character interaction focuses on Varda. The characters sound cool and look cool, but don’t have much exposition. Oh, there is one other NPC. (Spoiler - click to show) Artificially Resuscitated Martin Scorsese. He gets his own character portrait and everything.

Visuals
Visuals are atmospheric and stylized. The black and white background scenery is that of an office (or safe house, if we are getting into the espionage spirit). The artwork is pixelated which creates a cool gritty effect. Characters also have their own portraits that appear onscreen during dialog. Some portraits are tinted with colour that adds a nice contrast.

Final thoughts
The ending will leave you thinking, what just happened? It’s like a riptide. Pulls you in whether you want it to or not. The atmosphere is strong, and I enjoyed the story. It also introduced me to a meme, well, it seems more than just a meme now. And now GONCHAROV 2073 gave me a new perspective on that. I’ll have to check out the other games in the Goncharov Game Jam to see people’s various interpretations of Goncharov. This is a fun game, especially if you are looking for sci-fi espionage themes.

Was this review helpful to you?   Yes   No   Remove vote  
More Options

 | Add a comment 

Neurocracy, by Joannes Truyens and Matei Stanca
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Activate your neurometric colloids and dive in, December 16, 2022

Solve a murder in a near future world by diving into the Wikipedia of that world

This is one of the coolest games I have played.

In Neurocracy, you explore a website called Omnipedia, the apparent replacement of Wikipedia, upon its release on September 28, 2049. Days later, tragedy strikes. Sift through the articles to piece together what really happened.

Neurocracy caught me off guard at first. I opened Omnipedia and was immediately hit by an intimidating wall of cookie privacy settings that seemed to request access to things I had never heard of before. What does it mean by asking to use my "neurometric colloid" for neurometric montages? That sounded like a big deal. But sometimes you have to take things in stride. I opted out of everything I could and continued the game. Later, I made the connection.

Neurometric colloids are a technology portrayed in this game, implanted inside the brain. If you, the player, are supposedly reading a Wikipedia-modeled website in the 2040s, then it is quite possible that you would have a neurometric colloid of your own. The “privacy setting” idea was as seamless as could be for immersing the player. If this were any indicator of the game’s worldbuilding then Omnipedia was just getting started...

Gameplay
You navigate the game like you would Wikipedia by clicking on hyperlinks that lead you to different pages. You can also type in search terms. The central gameplay mechanic used to solve the mystery is the change history feature located on the right side of the screen that allows you to observe edits throughout the timeline. This feature uses red, yellow, and green colour coding to keep track of changes, additions, and deletions which opens a window into new developments and content that is trying to be concealed.

Neurocracy is overflowing with content but designed so the player can keep up with the exposition. Hovering your mouse over words underlined with a grey dashed line spell out the word’s abbreviation while words underlined with a blue dashed line provide definitions via a black popup box. You really learn things. It is a great sampler of modern-day subjects paired with more speculative, fictional ideas. This game will not give you a full working knowledge. But it does offer a micro bite-sized crash course for topics in real-world discussions about ethics and technology. Learn about AI, neuroscience, quantum computing, genetic engineering, genetics, biology, aquaculture, and even sushi.

There are some articles where if I scrolled down halfway to the page, covered all the dates, and then asked you to read it as if it were a Wikipedia entry, it would take you several minutes before you realized that it was fiction (consider the article titled, "Piscine transmissible amyloidotic encephalopathy”). There is even a convincing reference section at the bottom of the page. If only I could click on those articles. I was extremely impressed with the realism. The game also gives a shoutout to familiar topics such as COVID-19 or Elon Musk’s neurotechnology company, Neurolink. These topics are smoothly integrated into the gameplay and are fun to discover.

It takes a bit to adjust to the slick interface and gorgeous visuals before you stop flipping through articles excitedly and finally sit down to absorb the content inside them. Random curiosity-driven excursions through Wikipedia for me often consist of a mix of thoughtful reading and skimming. The deeper down the Wikipedia rabbit hole, the more I resort to skimming as my brain flits from topic to topic. Omnipedia was the opposite. Conjure up the idea of having so many presents you do not know which one to open first. That was me. I finally told myself to pick an article and read it, and for 20 minutes or so, that's all I did. The next step was piecing everything together.

Story + Characters
The lifeblood of this game. Here is an overview of the surface story:

The game’s overarching story focuses on Xu Shaoyong, founder of Zhupao, a huge technology conglomerate, and the wealthiest man in the world. On September 30th, two days after Omnipedia is released, Xu Shaoyong is assassinated when a security drone open fires at his private helicopter upon his arrival at an airport in China. Along with him was another prominent figure, Yuri Golitsyn, who ran a large-scale energy company. This ripples across the world in complex ways that you must decipher. The assassination narrative is spread across ten days, the tenth day still portrayed as being an ongoing event.

A major theme is the balance of biosecurity and personal privacy. The gameplay is filled with the aftermath of the CMD (Cariappa-Muren disease) pandemic where an entire stock of genetically engineered bluefish tuna was found to be a vector for a prion disease. The resulting CMD phobia only spurred an argument in favor of heightened biosecurity. We see the usage of quantum computing, neural networks, and other technological advances to conduct surveillance and collect vast amounts of consumer and personal data, justifying it for the sake of monitoring biological threats. While part of this reasoning has merit, we see major problems with this approach. Whistleblowers reveal a lack of transparency in data collection and unethical usage of consumer products, often for corporate advancement. Neurocracy takes this a step further asks about the implications of these practices in more futuristic technologies such as brain implants. Cyberattacks are already a familiar phenomenon in our world, but what about brainjacking?

As technological advancements emerge, the realm of ethics only continues to grow. Even Omnipedia is shrouded in controversy. Wikipedia fizzled out and Omnipedia stepped in among criticisms of its supposed corporate favoritism. But by utilizing the revision history feature you can come to your own conclusions.

As for the characters, I found them to be intriguing even if we only learn about them through the pages of a website. (Spoiler - click to show) Connie Muren's death was especially saddening given her commitment to her work although her posthumous comeback against Spencer Hagen was quite moving. The characters themselves were just as interesting as the story.

Visuals
The best part. I could say that about most things in this game, but the visuals really are a defining feature. This goes beyond the visual interface which already boasts of a clean-cut design with a blue Wikipedia reminiscent logo at the top left-hand corner of the screen. Neurocracy also features plenty of artwork of people, logos, locations, and technologies commissioned by artists. As is the case with Wikipedia each page only has a few visuals, but the quality of the art makes each piece shine. I can recall at least one article that had a small video imbedded in the page, which was a cool surprise.

Thoughts on structural design
After a long while I reached the point where I had viewed and analyzed a large chunk of the story’s content and wondered what to do next. I went online to learn more about the game, only to make a startling (to me, at least) discovery: (Spoiler - click to show) the player’s investigation is independent from the gameplay. I thought that the act of going through the content, of digging deep, would have some payoff within the game. A payoff beyond the deductive reasoning that occurs from article to article. Excalibur comes to mind.

Excalibur is another excellent and ambitious interactive fiction game. It is made with Twine and designed to look like a wiki fandom page for a fictional TV show by the same name. You read the articles to spot the controversies behind the show while pondering fandom culture and the dynamics of shared memories of media content. It too is open ended, but the twist is that content surfaces as a result of your explorations. For instance, reading about certain material results in more material being “posted.” The pinnacle moment of the game’s interactivity (go play the game) comes later, but even after that, the game never ends. There is no winning or losing or a congratulations for “completing” the game. You dive below the surface, and the game quietly acknowledges your participation.

I was anticipating something similar for Neurocracy. But Neurocracy is not Excalibur. They are two different games. And quite frankly, this game does not revolve around me. I decided to see it from the authors’ approach. Originally, the game was released episode by episode in 2021 to the public where players were encouraged to take notes and share theories with each other while waiting eagerly for the next episode to be released. That is the true investigation of game’s story. You take the investigation out of the game and into the audience. Meanwhile, I play all of it in one go a year later without any attention to this structure. There is also something to be said about accepting that sometimes games do not intend to give you all the answers. That in itself is part of the experience. And on that note, if anyone wants toss around theories, do not hesitate to comment on this review.

I must admit, the game’s design cleverly maintains the illusion that you are in fact sitting at your computer in 2049 leisurely browsing Omnipedia. Having the game act like a game would risk breaking this. Briefly, I wondered if there was an angle with the neurometric colloid privacy permissions. If you had such a thing would your browsing experience with Omnipedia be different? I opted into the privacy to setting to see if it changed the gameplay. It did not, but that type of experimentation is also part of the fun. The game entices players to invent ways of interacting with it.

Ultimately, (Spoiler - click to show) my sadness was about not being able to learn more about certain subjects. I was deeply disappointed because I was drooling for more. I felt like I had barely scraped the surface of this story’s vivid universe. As I described earlier, blue words with an underlined dash have popup definition boxes, but later in the story, some words turn into links with their own pages. I had my eye on several character names and terms that I hoped would become articles. Learning otherwise was a bummer, but it also made me appreciate the sheer volume of content- writing, artwork, user interface- that went into this game to produce over thirty detailed pages of glossy, futuristic wiki material. It remains, without a doubt, one of the coolest games I have ever played. That is nothing to sneeze at.

Final thoughts
Now that you have (finally) reached the end of this review, all I can do is recommend playing Neurocracy. It will blow you away. Its story is fascinating and deep, the artwork beautiful, and the interface is effectively convincing. You do not need to be an interactive fiction fan or a sci-fi fan or a Wikipedia fan to enjoy this game. And even if you don’t, the game’s discussions about the intersections of technological advancement, personal rights, and societal ethics will still linger in your mind as you draw parallels from today’s world. I thank the game’s creators for creating and sharing such a fascinating piece.

(As a formality, I found and accessed the game through its listing on IFDB which took me right to the game’s website.)

Was this review helpful to you?   Yes   No   Remove vote  
More Options

 | Add a comment 


Previous | 41–50 of 146 | Next | Show All