Reviews by Kinetic Mouse Car
Science Fiction
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Comfort… centuries from now. Still comfortable?, March 6, 2023So warm. How lovely.
Welcome to your cabin.
Please, take a look around.
You find yourself in a cozy cabin surrounded by a winter wonderland. It belongs to you, and only you. It can be customized if you should wish. Just don’t mind me.
(wait a minute…)
Gameplay
Despite the surreal dreaminess that pervades the cabin, you can sense that someone is pulling the strings. And for good reason. I think the game's title gives it away, but I'll put it under spoiler tag anyway: (Spoiler - click to show) Your comfy cozy cabin is a simulation. None of it is real!
The gameplay follows an inconspicuous structure. There is a growing list of activities in the cabin for you to choose from. After three, you grow tired and fall asleep, unless you prolong your energy by drinking coffee (a clever little hack).
What would you like to do?
Drink something
Watch the fire
Read a book
Each time (or every other time) you wake up, a new activity is listed. Cozy activities. And. Activities that seem a little… out of context for this serene winter setting. For instance, the first new activity added to the list is "Watch the holoscreen." Huh. Seems a bit out of place. Things get weirder.
You also notice that the narrator has a habit of speaking directly to the protagonist. It is obvious that this entity controls the (Spoiler - click to show) simulation (again, I feel compelled to put that under spoilers), but the player feels powerless at interfering with the narrator’s soothing prattle. However, if there is a will there is a way. You have options.
Is possible to get under reality’s skin. The trigger to underscoring the (Spoiler - click to show) simulation is hard to find, and yet so cleverly hidden that I can hardly complain about its difficulty. I was too busy admiring this innovative way of using Twine’s visual features. Some players may find it too well-hidden, which is understandable, but it worked for me. Creativity like that pleases me in choice-based games.
I absolutely love the idea of a surreal game with unreliable layers of reality. That said, it could use a little more structure in its gameplay. There is no real sense of discovery where you are chugging along and stumble across something that tells you hm, this is different. A game that captures this subtly is The Twine Fishing Simulator. It strings you along but ultimately leaves it up to you when making the big discoveries. In COZY SIMULATION 2999, the narrator directly feeds the reveal to you. In fact, the narrator gives the impression of I’m totally not narrating the story! This is still effective, and even humorous, but much of the mystery is lost in the process.
So. How exciting can a winter wonderland be? Well, the story takes off when you fall asleep.
Story
When you fall asleep, the (Spoiler - click to show) simulation reveals its flimsiness. You have memories of (Spoiler - click to show) running through an industrial complex, being chased by unknown pursuers. Contrary to the safeness of your cabin, these dreams are a world of machinery, corridors, sharp edges, grime, and pain. The opposite of soft rugs and hot chocolate. The best part is when the game swaps out a new set of visuals that are FANTASTIC at conveying this change in tone. I’ll discuss that in the next section. FYI: (Spoiler - click to show) Memories can surface elsewhere in the game, but mostly through sleep sequences. That’s why it is important to explore every feature.
You want the truth? (Spoiler - click to show) After stubbornly refusing the help of the narrator, I realized that reality meant an industrial surgical ward operated by angels reminiscent of a Porpentine game. Turns out the angel- the narrator- attached to your body is the one pumping the simulation through your mind. And it means well, too. It was never, “ha-ha, you’re mine!” It wants to help you (sort of), but you can only live in a simulation for so long. Or maybe you can. The choice is yours.
I don’t know if I could go back to having pillow fights in the cabin while knowing that- I’ve spoiled too much. Please play the game for the full experience. There are three endings, and the author has kindly provided a built-in guide for reaching them. The author also says that neither are good or bad, but I suppose depends on your interpretation of quality of existence. Do you (Spoiler - click to show) want to know the truth and suffer or exist blissfully as external reality falls apart?
For those who have played the game: (Spoiler - click to show) What does everyone think? The narrator does not seem maliciously deceptive, only wanting to conceal the truth. Which I assume is that 2999 is a horrible year to live in. I thought the clementine description was an eerie indicator.
Sweet and juicy. A little remainder of what they once called summer.
Think about it.
There is some vagueness about being reborn. It’s something that appears in all three endings that I assume has to do with the shenanigans going on outside of the simulation. My guess is that the shenanigan in question is to integrate people into a hive mind as painfully and soothingly as possible. I suppose that is one way of being reborn.
Visuals
At first glance, even the game’s appearance oozes coziness.
The tan text is set in an off-white cream text box with a thick tan border. The font is small and delicate, with light tan links. Graphics are included along the text to depict cozy cabin imagery that adds nice polish. Finally, all of this is set against a white backdrop of a snowy tree, blurred enough to minimize distractions while finalizing the appear of a winter landscape.
Imagine my surprise when that changed. (Spoiler - click to show) Once dream-mode kicks in, the entire background goes black with thick dark-grey rounded borders crammed against the edges of the screen. The text is white, and the links are red. If you seek out the truth, some extra background visuals are added. They make you wonder if maybe staying in that warm winter cabin would have been a better idea than look too closely.
This change in atmosphere was perfect. The use of visual elements to signal (Spoiler - click to show) shifts in reality is one of the strongest parts of the game. Visuals have a lot of potential in storytelling, and I am glad that the author tapped into that. Going from a tranquil cabin to a (Spoiler - click to show) dystopian nightmare moment was powerful. That surprise of the screen going (Spoiler - click to show) dark with anxious-looking white and red text replacing the cabin paradise just had the feeling of Whoa. I love that sort of thing in interactive fiction.
The game uses visual effects in other ways to mess with reality. When text tears through the (Spoiler - click to show) simulation, it is shown in different text that makes it clear that you are straying from the program. For instance, consider (Spoiler - click to show) watching the holoscreen.
The new mental rewiring manufactory has reached 300% efficiency levels, according to StrexCo's fourth quarter and fiscal year 2999 financial results—
No, wait. That's not supposed to happen.
Just ignore that. I'm sorry.
Right. Just ignore it.
The first sentence uses a darker, bold text that is a sharp contrast to the rest of the writing. It represents a break from the façade where fragments of the past creep in. Clearly the narrator did not want the protagonist to see this. Naturally, this only makes it more obvious that the narrator is covering up the truth. The bottom two sentences are the standard text associated with cozy cabin land.
Through visuals you can clearly see the tug of war between the (Spoiler - click to show) simulated reality of the cabin and the nightmarish reality of the “outside” world.
Final thoughts
COZY SIMULATION 2999 is a great blend of sci-fi + horror hidden behind a seemingly innocent slice-of-life premise. There is a bit of everything! While I wish we could explore the backstory a little more (what is going on in 2999?), it feels like a complete game with a strong atmosphere and lots to offer.
It is also a strong first interactive fiction game. I know the author expressed in the game that they were not particularly confident with it, but heck, I had fun! Part of it does appeal to my love of sci-fi surrealness, but it really does demonstrate creative thinking while integrating story, gameplay mechanics, and visual design to create a piece that leaves you wanting more. And I want more.
(Note for the author: There is one small bug with the (Spoiler - click to show) holoscreen and the artwork activities. If you watch the holoscreen enough times, you run out of prompts and only see “lovely colours.” Similarly, if you keep making artwork, the option to do so is eventually replaced by “I don't like your art anymore.” I thought this was hilarious. The problem is that these remain unchanging when you start a new game. You can never revisit the interesting holoscreen channels or the cool artwork that you can “create.”)
At one point you wake up and ask: Does it really matter anymore?, March 5, 2023In prepare for return, you play as an AI stored in an underground facility with the task of making Earth habitable for humans. Following a series of disasters, Earth has become an apocalyptic world unsuitable for human life. Humans have left and will return once Earth is ready to receive them again.
Gameplay
The game begins with you powering on in the year 2851. The system that you are connected to is happy to answer some basic questions about yourself. You were constructed in the late 21st century by two corporations that have since ceased to exist since every human connected to them are either dead or left the planet long ago. It is time for you to carry out your purpose.
Your current hardware base is a Torsion Robotics AI Core, Model AI-05-3845-5000, housed in Room A48 of Reconstruction Facility 05, with six Intel W-39 Computing Clusters in rooms A49 and A50. More detailed information should be readily available to you through your operating system diagnostics.
Your job is to lead Reconstruction Facility 05 in rebuilding Earth, so it is not just habitable but also aesthetically pleasing for humanity. The gameplay is organized into “rounds” where you resolve alerts, modify objectives, and read status reports. After each task has been addressed, you enter sleep mode.
Editing Priorities:
• Prime: Prepare the planet for the Humans' return.
• Purification: Remove elements toxic to humans from the seas.
• Development: Contact any other remaining complexes.
• Biosphere: null
• Legacy: null
The first task is to choose objectives for several parameters, such as how to remove toxins from the environment or what to cultivate in the biosphere. The impact of your choices here is shown in the summary reports provided the next time you wake up. Initially, I thought this would be a simulation game. Not quite.
(Spoiler - click to show) The summary of each "round" is long with rambling paragraphs, though that may be intentional. I opened two windows to compare playthroughs and noticed that each summary was nearly identical to that from another playthrough. My choices appeared to be meaningless. Plus, Facility 05’s resources are being drained rapidly. Things fall apart. After a few rounds, the game ends when the facility runs out of juice and the AI falls asleep for the last time (I think).
Rather than a planet terraforming simulator, it seems that prepare for return instead strives to depict a noble goal with a (Spoiler - click to show) futile future. As advanced as Facility 05 is, there is a looming sense of never being able to reach the ultimate vision of bringing humanity home. The result is gameplay that focuses on ambience and subtle messaging rather than strategy.
Story
The story is a little reminiscent of the film WALL-E. Let the bots do the work so humans can return to a paradise. But unlike the film’s mobile robot protagonist, the AI in prepare for return is just that: an AI core stuck underground. It does not have the luxury of personally exploring the landscape and remnants of human-built structures. Instead, the facility’s drones carry out the exploration while a software program shares the occasional artifact on human history. None of it provides the AI with the depth needed to actually learn about humans. This proves to be a frustration that only compounds.
(The artifacts were interesting to read. They reminded me of decoding DNA files in The Archivist and the Revolution. Especially the Wikipedia citations.)
The trajectory is an unusual one. We typically perceive AI, robotics, and other technologies as constantly changing, upgrading, and finding new ways to defeat the elements. That is not the case here. You may be an advanced AI in a high-tech facility with a game plan, but the Earth is undergoing changes of its own. Changes that you cannot keep up with. Changes that interfere with your objectives. The result is (Spoiler - click to show) coming to terms with failure. As an AI, the only thing you can do is go back to sleep.
Characters
We’ve already been introduced to the protagonist, AI-05-3845-5000, but the character is best explored through the dream sequences. The AI dreams surreal dreams often underscored by human strife. Some are more exciting than others and typically make little sense. But this chaos is what makes it interesting. It gives you a sense of if an AI on a post-apocalyptic Earth were to dream, what would those dreams look like?
In my favorite dream, (Spoiler - click to show) a meeting is held in a cavern where a wise old master addresses a group of pupils. However, the NPCs are all arachnids or amphibians. At first glance, it seems rather comical if not for the underlying meaning about the protagonist and their functionality as an AI.
"Master," croaks the Bright Blue Leaping Toad, "the students are assembled."
In this dream, the protagonist sits among the students and tries to participate in the conversation. The students are given the opportunity to ask questions. Immediately, the students ask about being. But the master says that he is no philosopher, and that they should look for deeper answers elsewhere. Often, he brushes off the students’ questions.
The protagonist then inquiries about what it means to be lonely. The response is that loneliness is a human emotion and incompatible with an AI’s experience as a machine. Physical phenomena unique to one type of being is inaccessible to that of another. For instance, a human could not experience echolocation like a dolphin or whale would. At least, that is the argument.
"You," calls out Bright Blue Leaping Toad, "the living machine in the second row!"
But what about emotions, like loneliness? Surely pain can be felt by most creatures no matter how diverse. Oddly enough, the protagonist is called a “living machine.” If the protagonist is living, could they experience universal sensations? The protagonist tries to engage the NPCs with these ideas but is shrugged off and told that they are too different to understand.
This ultimately fuels the AI’s frustration at being unable to find ways to better understand humans while it works towards making Earth a place that humanity can call home. How do you make a home for a civilization you barely know? Once the facility is (Spoiler - click to show) no longer able to pursue objectives, its alerts are meaningless. The AI becomes someone who always hits the snooze button when their alarm goes off.
The facility’s (Spoiler - click to show) failure only alienates the AI from the planet on which it exists but is never a part of. There is no crushing disappointment about failing human masters. Only exhaustion and, at the end, indifference. Even if they could get out of bed, would they?
Final thoughts
The idea of terraforming planet Earth sounds so exciting, and while prepare for return takes an alternate route with that concept, it pulls off a compelling story from the perspective of someone who was simply (Spoiler - click to show) not given the resources needed to complete a monumental task. That someone is an AI left behind by humans with instructions to ultimately serve them.
I wish the game was a little more drawn out since there are only a few rounds. It would have been nice to have seen the balance between reasonable and more daunting challenges. Human culture, experiences, history, and mannerisms are all something in short supply for our AI protagonist. But the hard science of removing toxins from an environment seem a little more straightforward and in the reach of the facility’s scientific knowhow.
Nonetheless, prepare for return is an excellent choice if you are interested in post-apocalyptic existentialism, particularly one with a non-human perspective. It contemplates the lengths in which technology can go when saving humanity. Especially when humanity isn’t around.
You only came here for the loot..., February 28, 2023...and found drama instead.
You are BG Jackson, a smuggler in search of valuables. Your next target is an exploration vessel called the Achilles that went missing months ago, and you finally managed to track it down. Signs indicate that it has been abandoned, but experience knows that it is never quite that simple.
Gameplay
Fall of the Achilles features a gameplay structure that I call “free range of movement.” The term is when a Twine game (or other choice-based format) mimics a parser by allowing the player to move throughout a map and interact with items within it at their leisure. In other words, freedom to navigate a space. This game is a perfect example.
It begins upon your arrival at the Achilles. You are in the Corvus, a personal ship run by an AI named Sahil. After docking the two vessels, you explore the abandoned ship while communicating with Sahil. He does everything from friendly reminders to disabling locked doors. The objective is to acquire the code to the massive warp engines aboard the Achilles. Apparently, the code is worth a lot.
The screen is organized so that a list of actions and a list of exits are always neatly displayed on the lower left which enhances the feeling of a parser. You are still clicking on links, but the links are organized to feel like an arsenal of commands that you would otherwise type into a parser game.
—— ACTIONS ——
Look at the bootprints.
Talk to Sahil.
Use your blaster.
——— EXITS ———
North is the Achilles' bridge.
South is your ship, the Corvus.
The room title is listed at the top of the screen while inventory items and health points are shown on the left-side panel. These features create a parser-like Twine game with notable user-friendliness.
Be prepared: There are moments where you must make a judgement call. For example, (Spoiler - click to show) whether to kill Trace so she never poses a threat, or to spare her with the possibility that she will provide help later. I feel that this weighing of the pros and cons is a defining feature of the gameplay.
Puzzles
This game is full of puzzles but not quite a puzzle-fest. I never "needed" a walkthrough (I don't think there is one at this time), but there is enough in-game help to work around parts where I did get stuck. Sahil may not be a fancy AI, but he is quite helpful.
Generally, the puzzles are well-designed with a few exceptions. The puzzles for (Spoiler - click to show) filling the jug* in the mess hall and reaching the console in the warp drive were a bit tedious. You get injured at random and scurry back to the medical bay to heal yourself before trying again. The puzzle in the science lab was cool, though. The goal is to reach the end of the room while the space is influenced by deadly time warping properties. In truth, a mistake only gets you sent back to the front of the room where you started. A reasonably tame “red-light, green-light” game. The warp drive puzzle was a shadow to that.
*But the joke was on me instead: I could have just filled it in my own ship! I did not figure that out until the game lightly suggested that there was an alternate solution.
Also: There was one bug in the gameplay. (Spoiler - click to show) In one case, after I restarted the game, I was able to open the science lab door immediately after defeating Trace. It still had me punch in the password, which I remembered from the previous playthrough, but I don't think that was supposed to happen. I recall only having the password input box appear after you speak with Luisa. A similar thing happened again in another playthrough. Besides that, I did not run into any issues.
Story
About the drama… (Spoiler - click to show) There are two (human) survivors on the ship: Luisa Romero and Elias Zeres. They are on opposite sides of the big controversy that went down on the Achilles months prior. They also control the remaining ship systems. Since the protagonist insists on getting the warp drive code, you must choose to help either Luisa or Elias. Each character functions as a “quest” that shapes the gameplay which adds incentive for replays.
No matter how many questions you ask, there are unknowns about the story. The Achilles was an exploration ship where the crew members lived with their families. (Spoiler - click to show) Upon receiving a strange signal, the ship sent out a probe which came back carrying a strange sphere called the Crux. Everyone on the Achilles split into two factions and- as indicated by the carnage we find- waged war with each other. Embrace the Crux or reject it, those were the sides.
I’m not entirely sure of the dynamics between these two groups. Where did all the violence originate? Dead bodies are everywhere. Were people dragging each other to be thrown into the Crux? Who shot who? We see bodies of Star Patrol officers on the bridge who likely came to investigate. At least we know that they were shot by Trace after she was reprogrammed. The title is Fall of the Achilles. I want more info on the “fall” part. Plus, the ship’s name carries nice symbolism.
Everything accumulates to one key moment: (Spoiler - click to show) Deep in the storage bay, you see a weird probe carrying a sphere, from which voices- people- ask you to join them. There are people in there. Moving closer activates a hologram of someone kneeling before the device only to have their brain lasered in half.
I have to admit, the Crux is not doing a particularly good job at selling itself. Can you trust the voices?
Kneeling before a strange device surrounded by corpses sounds like the most obvious insta-death you-have-lost-in-the-worst-way-possible ending that you just have to be a sucker to fall for… but you'd be surprised……
Someone takes your hand.
......that's all I'm going to say.
(Except that I wish the game gave us long enough to hear what Sahil had to say. I really wanted to hear him finish his sentence. Shame he couldn't come with.)
If anyone is interested in further discussion, see the section after the end of this review.
Endings
Fall of the Achilles does not have endings in the form of "Ending 1," "Ending 2," etc. Rather they are general outcomes underscored with secondary events and objectives. These general outcomes are determined by (Spoiler - click to show) whether you sided with Luisa or Elias, of which there are variations. Secondary parts range from (Spoiler - click to show) your success in acquiring the warp drive codes to whether you depart alone. All of this creates additional incentive for multiple playthroughs, especially since it is enticing to mix and match different outcomes.
Now I don’t mean to be morbid, (Spoiler - click to show) but there is a technicality about the fate of Captain Yamashita that kept bothering me. Her body is in a medical capsule designed to heal the patient inside. By default, the end of the game says, “You failed to (mercifully) end Captain Yamashita's life.”
She’s already dead. The medical console reports that "The patient's prognosis is terminal. Brain functions have been inactive for 63 days and are unrecoverable." Sahil summarizes this as brain dead. And therefore, incompatible for the Crux. The capsule is trying to heal a corpse. Opening the capsule to reveal her body (it is not graphic, just sad) is the equivalent to giving her a merciful death, but that seems to have occurred before we even arrive on the ship. A little more explanation would add clarity to this scenario.
Writing
I want to quickly acknowledge the writing. Fall of the Achilles is not an eloquent masterpiece, but it has the occasional descriptiveness that enriches the gameplay. My favorite was when (Spoiler - click to show) you are searching the captain’s quarters for a DNA sample.
A quick search seems to turn up nothing—until you find an oiled wooden brush with large, thick tines like a comb’s. A long strand of black hair weaves through it like the solution to a maze.
It’s not, “oh, you found a brush with a strand of hair in it. DNA.” Instead, the captain’s quarters are personalized and goes the extra mile to make the action more meaningful.
Finally, the genre is science fiction, but there are horror elements that come to life partly thanks to the writing. Arguably, the biggest horror moment is (Spoiler - click to show) the cramped (at least in my mind, it is a cramped space) storage bay. It contains stacks of bodies and a weird object. Everything reeks of death. It's probably really hot in there, I imagine. See how easy it is to visualize this scene? "Stacks of bodies" may not impress you, but this scene was genuinely creepy. There's gore in this game, but mild gore that occasionally turns it up a notch for scenes like this. It always felt like there was thought put into it.
Characters
The game is not crawling with NPCs, but there are some interesting ones. Let’s explore a few.
Sahil
Sahil feels like a concrete NPC, although the game keeps his personality mostly neutral. What I love about his character is the convenience he provides for solving puzzles. Some form, a lot of function. He speaks up when something is worth noting and automatically incorporates bits of accumulated info from the gameplay into his explanations. It’s like having a polite notetaker following you around.
The AI’s assistance is streamlined and avoids feeling like, “talk to me for a hint!” I value games that use that approach, I really do, but I sometimes feel like the character is judging me a little when I ask for the answers. Sahil tells me what I need to know without making me feel lame. (But truthfully, I am thankful when authors incorporate in-game hint systems.)
Trace
Our first main obstacle in the gameplay is when we tangle with an android named Trace. She is referred to as the "universe's only sentient android.” That surprised me.
Sahil seems sentient. He may be a ship AI, but I feel like an AI could be dumped into an android body, or something to that extent. If the game's world possesses sentient AI technology, I'd think that sentient androids would be more common. I am drawing broad conclusions, but that leads to my next point: I wish there were a little more worldbuilding, particularly with the story’s technology.
I especially want to know more about Trace’s backstory as a sentient android. It is brief. (Spoiler - click to show) Trace was created by the “Sisters of Infinity,” a group of exiled scientists whom she refers to as her “mothers.” Cool! I’d love to explore that character feature. She is also a member of the *Interstellar Patrol with superhuman abilities for combat. We get a glimpse of that firsthand.
When you first try to access the main deck, Trace stands in your way in battle mode. There are two solutions. If you want to skip the frequency puzzle, you can just battle it out. However, the combat mechanics could be a little tighter. It follows a rock-paper-scissors style of combat where you choose between shooting, activating a force shield, or using a physical attack while managing health points. That was cool.
The issue was with trying to gain an advantage. She has more health points than you, although you have the option of sneaking off mid-combat to heal yourself in your ship before running back to resume the fight. That felt comical, and Trace was really testing my rock-paper-scissors abilities. Fight a few turns, run to the bridge, run to my ship, heal, run all the way back. She’s literally standing there saying, “do you want to resume this fight?” She can do this all day long. And she knows it.
I only did this approach to see what outcome it would lead to. I learned this: stick with the frequency puzzle. It'll take her out the same way. Then, you can decide whether to kill her. I don’t see a reason not to spare her, but you will have to see why. Even though the combat was not a highlight of this gameplay, it is always interesting to see how authors implement combat into the Twine format.
(*Just what is the extent of humanity’s space-faring capabilities and technological advances? For instance, the “Interstellar Patrol” implies that humanity has branched out of our solar system. When the game uses phrases akin to “bring the Crux back to human civilization,” I think of Earth. A few extra sentences for context would be welcome.)
Anyway, this section was longer than I planned.
Visuals
In a nutshell: Ergonomic, standard issue visuals that consist of a black background, white text, and blue links. But slightly different from the “default” Twine appearance of black background, white text, and blue links. I hope readers know which style I am talking about.
It is a super simple look that functions just fine. I want to make a special note about the text which is always well organized. That may seem like a trivial detail, but when text placement is a mess, that’s all you notice. Fortunately, that’s not an issue here. If anything, it sets a good example for text organization in Twine when you have a moderate word count.
The only flair is the helpful map on the panel at the left side of the screen. It’s a nice reference point.
Final thoughts
In conclusion, Fall of the Achilles is a potent sci-fi experience about a smuggler who found more than they bargained for. The trope of wandering a spaceship after it was purged of life from an incident is common but never one that grows old for me. I have a feeling that fans of the genre will feel the same way. It’s not perfect, but it is certainly a polished and high-quality piece worth playing multiple times.
I approach it partly as an example of the flexibility of Twine to create parser inspired gameplay even though it is ultimately a choice-based experience. If there are any readers skeptical about Twine’s potential with sci-fi adventures, consider Fall of the Achilles.
If you like the theme of exploring a lost and seemingly lifeless spaceship with a story wrapped around the ethics of mind-blowing technology in the hands of humanity, consider Reclamation. It's an Adventuron game where your task (as a corporate employee, not a smuggler) is to investigate a research vessel that went missing amid a vital experiment. You even get your own AI although he is definitely a different character from Sahil.
Discussion corner
(Spoiler - click to show) Time to bring out the big question: The game assumes that the death and violence aboard the Achilles will only spread if Luisa brings the Crux to humanity. Would that happen?
It's not the Crux itself that is dangerous (unless you kneel in front of it, of course). It just sits there. It's not a weapon. What caused all those deaths were the fighting between people about what to do with it. Ideally, if you had it in a nice little area in a garden where people could join if they wanted to or otherwise carry on with their day, things would be fine. But the likelihood of that occurring- if the ship is any indicator- would probably be miniscule. Plus, Luisa does not field this subject well.
Captain Tomomi Yamashita authorized Elias to be the acting captain if something were to happen to everyone in command. Her final instructions are for him to make sure that the Crux never reaches human civilization. Meanwhile, Luisa managed to weasel her way into becoming the acting captain instead, forcing Elias to camp out in the corner of the ship. She also (poorly) preprogrammed Trace against her will. It is kind of established that Luisa is the “villain” in the game. But does that sentiment apply to the Crux as well? Does it bias the player? There is no easy answer.
On a brief side note as I wrap this up: One of the voices coming from the Crux is Elias’ parents wanting you to tell Elias that they want him to join them. It’s painful. I really, really, really wish the player could do that. He probably would not agree, but that’s understandable. When you go back up through the morgue, Elias is waiting in the medical bay. I just wish there were a way of saying, “your parents asked for you, specifically,” and then leave it up to him. Oddly enough, if you join the Crux instead, you have no way of talking to Elias’ mother about him even though she is your tour guide for the rest of the game.
Thank you for reading!
You are on top of the world. That’s not always a good thing., February 5, 2023Earth is inhabitable. Its ecosystem is destroyed, and high levels of radiation are everywhere. Roughly 1000 humans have been selected to live in an underground bunker until conditions on Earth return to safer levels. The bunk is self-sufficient and designed with infrastructure to sustain a scaled-down version of society. It is thought that it will be safe to leave in about fifty years.
However, this sanctuary requires a particular kind of decision maker, someone to call the shots when something major happens. A neutral party with no personal stakes or biases. A person (you) has been launched into space to live on an unnamed space station with the sole purpose of keeping tabs on the bunker. The surviving humans consult you from time to time for serious matters when they need you to make a decision.
Otherwise, you spend your time in suspended hibernation until you are summoned once more.
Gameplay
Ultimately, the gameplay revolves around one major decision that ends your mission and the game: opening the bunker to allow the humans to explore and populate Earth again. It also marks your death. And no, that’s not a spoiler. The PC knows right from the start that this is going to be a one-way trip. You continue until you expire (this is one of those rare games I’ve encountered where hibernation tech does not preserve your body from aging) or open the bunker door on Earth.
The Last Sanctuary has high replay value and involves strategy. Most of the gameplay involves trade-off decisions where choices are made to preserve one system or resource over another. For every scenario there are two possible options. You may encounter the same scenario more than once, but the repeated success of either decision is variable. It forces you must keep track of decisions that are high-risk and high reward. If your bunker is crumbling away, play it safe. But even that is uncertain.
A stats page with colourful visual indicators is provided so you can keep track of the population size, bunker conditions, supply stocks, data stores, and communications levels. The most important stat is the one measuring radiation levels on Earth. It takes years for it to go down to zero. Your sleep cycles depend on the inhabitants. They may wake you up after six years, sometimes just after one.
When you open the bunker door, (Spoiler - click to show) the game gives you roughly four assessments. Earth’s habitability, genetic diversity based on surviving population size, the level of tech and data remaining, and the long-term state of humanity’s new civilization. This can range anywhere from thriving to dying thanks to radiation sickening within hours. Experimenting with different outcomes will keep you busy. You get a final score that is stored in the game’s high-score page. My highest was (Spoiler - click to show) 815.
My only complaint is with the achievements. When you open The Last Sanctuary, it pulls up a menu page where you input commands, such as “play” to start a new game. This menu includes an achievements page that keeps track of secret endings, how many encounters you have found (including special encounters), and how many general endings you have completed. The achievement reads as (Spoiler - click to show) Locked: (14/22) Endings, which means that there are 22 endings total and I only found 14.
I have no idea on how to get the remaining endings and seems to have reached a wall. My guess is that (Spoiler - click to show) some are about failing in certain ways, but it is actually quite difficult to fail before you open the door because you die of old age before your decisions wipe out the inhabitants. Speaking of which, it is impossible to lose every inhabitant. There has got to be an achievement somewhere for that. Nor can you run out of food or have total failure of the radiation shielding. The reason why I am going the destructive route is because I have exhausted the other (more optimal) outcomes in the game. These are the only unknowns left to explore, but I cannot seem to play the game long enough to see them through. I feel like the game is too tightly constrained in this regard. Plus, there is a secret console achievement that I want to reach.
Story
The premise of The Last Sanctuary reminds me of another Twine game called Seedship. Both put the player in charge of the remainder of humanity after Earth becomes inhabitable and involve making tough decisions. If you like The Last Sanctuary, please try Seedship, and vice versa. They have a lot in common while still being distinct high-quality pieces of sci-fi interactive fiction. Let’s take a closer look just for fun.
Seedship is about an AI of a ship carrying 1000 frozen colonists with the task of finding a new planet for a human colony. Just as the PC in The Last Sanctuary sleeps until woken by the bunker dwellers, the AI snoozes until the ship either reaches the target star system or is awakened mid journey by an unexpected event. You also make judgement calls that often make you sacrifice one thing for another (ex. Do I allow the sleep chambers to overheat or the construction system?).
The player manages stats that include scanners, ship systems, and data storage. Everything leads up to one all-encompassing decision that determines the outcome of humanity: landing the ship on your chosen planet. Like The Last Sanctuary, you get a score on your performance. The AI has cultural and scientific databases that colonists use to retain levels of technology and a heritage to Earth. If these are incomplete the colonies are less likely to build a flourishing colony. This value on preserving human memory is also shared with The Last Sanctuary.
If you have played Seedship, you are probably nodding your head. But this review is about The Last Sanctuary, and it ultimately offers a separate experience. Seedship, being in third person, makes you feel more like an observer. Meanwhile, The Last Sanctuary captures a stronger sense of self. You feel like the PC, and not just because the story is told in second person.
Every time the PC wakes, we get a glimpse into their thoughts, and the writing captures the feel of being a lone person on a space station trying to guide the remainders of humanity on Earth. We start to see what it is like to go from an Earthling to a permanent human satellite with only one purpose. That sort of atmosphere shapes and defines the game.
The Last Sanctuary also allows the player to see the effects of their everyday decisions on the people whom they are responsible for. Frozen colonists* have little opportunities to throw temper tantrums at your choices. But the humans in the bunker have no qualms about talking back, (Spoiler - click to show) starting cults, breaking things out of spite, and (Spoiler - click to show) demanding to be let out of the bunker at their own peril. If you think about it, the only reason you wake up is when they want you to. You definitely get that human dynamic.
*Actually, you’d be surprised at how frozen colonists can mess with an AI, but you’ll just have to play the game.
Visuals
The game goes creative with its visual design. The screen is just one big animated starfield that makes you feel like you are cruising through space. The settings allow you to control the speed of the stars (which was more fun than one would expect) including stopping them entirely which was smart since the starfield gets distracting. I would just stare at it and forget what I was doing.
Smack in the center of the screen is an illustration of an IBM computer. Appropriately, the game's text appears on the computer's screen, and the font and text colour also contribute to the “digital” appearance. There are even a few computer buttons you can toggle, although they don't seem to have any particular purpose aside from turning the screen off and on. Still, points for interactivity.
Most importantly, the use of computer visuals highlights the fact the protagonist is doing the same thing as you: sitting at a computer screen while weeding through inhabitants’ requests. The coolest part of the visuals was how the game makes an illustration of your civilization when it presents your score.
Final thoughts
The Last Sanctuary is a fun but introspective game where you, and only you, are responsible for providing some semblance of leadership to people you will never meet face-to-face. You call the shots for humanity’s survival and yet you are confined to a space station with no hope of returning to Earth once it has been restored.
But you can look at it both ways. You have the chance to put humanity back on the right track, and these themes were compelling to explore. In essence, it is a strong story with irresistible gameplay.
Gardening, anyone?, January 20, 2023From 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.
When trucking goes wrong… in space, January 18, 2023 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.
Hack into servers. Make friends. Find answers., January 17, 2023 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.
Has relevant modern day-themes but the gameplay is a mess, January 10, 2023There’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
Corporate space mission gone haywire, January 2, 2023Everyone 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.
Research rover on a mission, December 25, 2022You 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.
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