Reviews by IFforL2

It's been a long time since I've seen a new genuinely interactive text in Mandarin Chinese. A lot of what is called 文字冒險遊戲 or 互動小說 is really just web novels with very little or no reader/player agency.

This CYOA actually offered a lot of choices. I didn't feel disappointed or railroaded with any of the bad endings even though I started out pessimistically trying to sabotage the PC.

It lost one star due to the simple writing style. (Though for beginning or low-intermediate Mandarin learners it's probably right on the money!) It was fun and entertaining for a little under an hour, but never really wowed me, so I couldn't give it a fourth star.

這正是文字冒險應該要有的樣子。
This game is exactly what a text adventure should be. Even if you don't like escape rooms, you should play just to see how East Asian IF is improving on language-based interactivity.

English: You can play in English, but you may not recognize the sheer genius of the interface as it works better in Chinese than in English.* I do think this concept could work marvelously in English, but an author might need to be a native speaker.
Interface: This is a parser hybrid. Instead of typing commands, the player can obtain action and object cards. Each is stored in a separate inventory. For example, if I "examine flowers" I might consequently obtain the ability to "smell flowers." (This is not a game example or spoiler.) You grab and drag the cards to a place in the sentence.
Game play: It's an escape room. This is not a ground-breaking concept but the author made the right decision here. (S)he's introducing a completely new kind of interface to the Chinese gaming community, after all. There simply were no parser games in Chinese until now.

*One of my Chinese professors thinks Chinese learners should abandon the western concept of individual adjectives, nouns, verbs, etc. Instead, she promotes thinking in terms of "subject phrases," "attributives," "predicate clauses," "adverbial adjuncts" and other parts of speech.

Although I enjoy many works of interactive literature just as well as text adventure puzzlers, I observe that puzzles help language learners to read IF with more focus, care, and investment. Therefore, I find it unfortunate that few East Asian visual novels include puzzles. Those that do tend to limit themselves to instant death by wrong choice. The Poisoned Soup is a rare piece in that the fluently bilingual author is well-read in a variety of IF genres. These range from parser-based puzzle games, to parser-based literature, to choice-based (and basically linear) East Asian visual novels.(Spoiler - click to show) Steven Dong intentionally makes it difficult to select all the right choices in the first play-through. However, wrong choices don't usually lead to instant death without clear warnings. Rather, most wrong choices cause trauma to the PC. As I made progress in the game/work, Dong's method caused, in me at least, a sense of desperation and increasing cautiousness, as well as personal investment in the PC's lot.

I would have to say that this is currently my second favorite Mandarin game after 逃出去 | Escape.

這段恐怖視覺小說設在台灣的大學校園。寫作風格是還可以的, 有點陳詞濫調。有很長的無選擇的敘事，特別是在前面。後來一些選擇導致突然失敗，雖然可能把故事帶到兩個不同的結局。

This horror CYOA is set at a particular university campus in Taiwan. For this reason, it may appeal only to a very specific audience. The quality of writing is not bad, but unremarkable. There are long stretches of narrative without options, especially at the beginning. Later, there are a couple of binary choices, one leading to sudden death, and the other continuing the narrative. A few consequential choices do exist, and it is possible to find two different endings.

In my experience, Chinese language visual novels are often puzzle-less electronic picture books. Many stories offer few and trivial choices. As a language learner, I prefer IF to have at least some game elements to focus my attention and motivate me to keep reading. Monochrome Impact is unique in a couple of ways. The characters are not glamorized/sexualized humanoids. The puzzles are very easy except for the endgame. But at least they do not allow the reader to simply click to the end without reading and understanding. (I actually tried and got stuck briefly, after accidentally losing my progress in the middle.) The vocabulary is quite simple; only occasional words exceed HSK level 2 or 3.

However, I took off a point for interactivity because I still felt there were too many times the game could have released control and let me make some moves. For example, it automatically moved me to a couple of locations and used inventory items when it should have let me do that.

A word about the development and publishing system, Bassavg. The first Chinese language IF community to discover the English language community is at Qiaobooks.com. Bassavg.com is probably the second. Bassavg stories are very similar to Ren’Py in appearance. Unlike Ren'Py stories, Bassavg's html output allow bookmark tools and plugins such as Mandarinspot that assist language learners. Almost all games are browser playable without needing to download.

Depresiv's El Archipiélago is one of the greatest fantasy IF games in the Spanish language. After finishing it a few years ago, I wanted more, but learned that Depresiv had been silent for years before I ever discovered his few works. La Casa al Otro Lado de la Tormenta did not disappoint. The fantasy world, story, interactivity, and action kept me glued to my laptop whenever I wasn't stuck.

This is one of the first truly retro games I actually bothered to complete. I didn't even know what an emulator was. I recommend the emulator QAOP by Jan Bobrowski. It works from your browser and has buttons for saving, etc. which a lot of emulators don't facilitate so well.

I was addicted to MetaComp for two full working days. (COVID-19 had closed all of the schools in Taiwan, but teachers still had to show up. So this was a godsend.) I found the puzzles in MetaComp challenging but not frustrating. The overall game is thought provoking and obsessively fun. I'm slow on the uptake, so I missed a crucial piece in my first review. n-n very kindly gave me a nudge. He makes some of the most playable games on the Spanish IF scene. I personally love what I call "toys" in IF, and n-n's games always include neat toys to tinker with if you get stuck or if you've already beaten the game.

I began playing this much acclaimed (see caad.es) game a couple of years ago, and I come back to it from time to time when new inspiration dawns on me. I'm now in act three, and the end still seems far away. Unprepared to write a full review, I gave this master work a brief compliment on another website. To my surprise and delight, Guillermo Crespi responded with a gracious and humbling letter of thanks! So I must at least make the beginning of a review in English. He and this work deserve as much recognition as I can attract.

This novel-length work is written in Argentine dialect. It's suspenseful and difficult. It's also superbly implemented and delightful to read. The NPCS, props, streamlined movement system (i.e. "ir a galería") all demonstrate how much effort the author put into making this work user-friendly and deeply immersive. It includes an in-game hint system. However, 'Undo' is disabled, so save often.

I've needed to resort to the hints more than I've wanted to, and this is probably because I'm not a native Spanish speaker. Perhaps larger breadcrumbs in the story itself would ruin the puzzles for smarter readers than me. Nevertheless, this is one of those games where you can have a lot of fun toying with the puzzles before finally admitting defeat. For example, (Spoiler - click to show)I had a lot of fun figuring out how to interact with the dog. Still, I needed the hints to tell me what I actually needed to do with him.

BYOD begins with the gender-neutral PC as a new employee in an awkward situation. It quickly gives you (Spoiler - click to show)a a fun toy, (Spoiler - click to show)a hacker app, to play with.(Spoiler - click to show) You can use it to help someone or to create mischief. (Spoiler - click to show)It reminded me of the magical language in Suveh Nux, but in a modern technological and bureaucratic setting. This makes me wonder, do hackers sometimes feel like wizards?

The author, n-n, was kind enough to email back and forth with me before I decided to write this review. He showed me how (Spoiler - click to show)the app can do even more than it initially appears to. He also told me that the NPCs are inspired by (Spoiler - click to show)stories of office harrassment he'd read and seen in the news.

n-n's English is perfect, as far as I can tell, and this work deserves a translation. I did not feel frustrated by the puzzle, because there was so much fun to have while figuring out the mechanic. I continued playing with it after I finished the reading. The plot revealed itself in an ingenius way that further increased the replay value. It also revealed something to me about my personal ethics when I'm being snubbed. I actually felt a bit (Spoiler - click to show)guilty once I realized (Spoiler - click to show)that I had been making trouble for the wrong NPC, who wasn't my antagonist at all! I just had to give myself a Groundhog's Day as a sort of apology to my own conscience.

This is a detective game where the player interrogates witnesses, suspects, and informants.

The Good: The style and format of the website create an ambiance of mystery and foul deeds. I enjoyed the story the more it unfolded, and found myself caring about the characters, and wanting to solve the mystery. The "Improved Version" helped to make the game more playable for me.

The Bad: Mesagames entirely ignores IF conventions and courtesies surrounding the parser. Games with a limited parser can be lots of fun, but it's nice for the author to explain this beforehand. (The Improved Version does help, however.)

There were at least two unfair puzzles that require specific out-of-game knowlege. One of the unfair puzzles was a mood-killer for me, though another gave me an ego boost when I was able to solve it.

Finally, this game has at least one "nasty" puzzle in the Zarfian sense. Worse, there is no way to save your game! As I said, I enjoyed the story, but that doesn't mean I want to do it all again.

Note: This game includes one or two adult images and frequently references adult themes. It would not be appropriate for primary or secondary classroom.

https://ifdb.org/help-forgiveness

Este juego se trata de un detective que debe interrogar testigos, sospechosos e informantes.

Lo Bueno: El estilo y el formato del sitio crean un ambiente de misterio y hechos malvados. A medida que se desarrollaba, lo disfruté más y más. Comencé a preocuparme por los personajes y a querer resolver el misterio. La "Interfaz Mejorada" para mi mejoró la facilidad y calidad del jugar.

Lo Malo: Mesagames ignora por completo las convenciones y cortesías que rodean a la máqina parser. Jugar con parser limitado puede ser divertido, pero el autor sería major explicarlo al comienzo. (La "Interfaz Mejorada" proporciona una verdadera mejora).

Sentí que al menos dos de los puzzles eran injustos. Requirieron conocimiento fuera del juego. Resolver el primero era como una ducha fría. El otro fue un refuerzo del ego. A lo menos para mi.

Por último, este juego tiene al menos un acertijo "sucio". (Me refiero a la "Escama del perdón" de Zarf.) Peor aún, ¡no hay opción de guardar tu progreso! Como dije, disfruté la historia, pero eso no significa que quiera volver a hacerlo por segunda vez.