Ratings and Reviews by IFforL2

This well-received story pretends to have Asian influence but is remarkably western and male oriented. It should be no secret that cheating is culturally different in rural China, urban China, and western pop-culture. The scene where (Spoiler - click to show) the husband catches his wife in his own bed with his employee seems more like a scene from the old TV show Friends than a plausible event in in set China. In reality, in pre-Revolutionary and post-Revolutionary China, women, not men are undeniably the overwhelming victims, not the perpetrators, of cheating. When a woman does cheat, and is caught, her husband, the divorce courts of her government, and her neighbors will all ensure that her punishment is far greater than her 'crime.' Taiwan is little better, especially now recent court decisions have ensured that women do not have the right to safety. (People who attack rapists in the act are punished more severely than the rapists themselves!)

A story of a Chinese man who is the poor helpless victim of adultery is about as preposterous as a story of an American white man who is the poor helpless victim of racism by his African-American neighbours. Moreover, (Spoiler - click to show)three men team up to destroy one woman using absolute authority over another woman!

But I understand we all like a story of East Asian flavor that reads like a fortune cookie and ignores reality. I'm sure the author has read the take of several Western authors on Confucian, Taoist, and Buddhist thought. HE probably did not intend any of the bitter irony that I'm reading into HIS story.

In a few days, I'll probably be embarrassed by something or everything I've written here and delete this review. I'm normally spineless. But I'll post it now while outrage fuels my, probably unjustified, courage.

While it's unwise to judge a book by its cover, I tend to make inferences about an IF by its development system. TADS is for computer people, Inform7 is for very precise non-programmers, and textadventures.co.uk is mostly for youths.

Twine is unlike other choice-based IF systems because it has a history of providing an digital literary voice for oppressed communities. What I like best about this example is that it publishes real accounts. The traditional way to publish short first-hand accounts and brief primary sources is by collecting excerpts into anthology books. Here, in contrast, the various accounts are triggered by the reader's choices. (Spoiler - click to show)Even better, the final choice leads the reader to an activist website! So the Interactive Non-Fiction continues with the reader's real-world choice of what to do about this issue, starting today!

Two questions for the comments:
1) Are these eyewitness accounts harmed by the second-person narration? These happened to real women, not to the fictitious IF character named "You."

2) Is it unjust to present a dangerous incident of harassment with a clickable set of options? (Or even with a parser's command line, for that matter?)
(Spoiler - click to show)I was offended when one of the women was being attacked and I was given the option to "react" or "wait." I'm SO glad that neither choice led to more abuse towards her than the other. But putting that choice there strongly suggests, to me at least, that the victim is somehow responsible for what happened to her. She should have made the other choice. Then again, I could just be mentally imposing some of the unfair Twine-game choices I've seen onto this literary work. Again, neither choice was a wrong choice. I'm just uncomfortable that it looks like she has to make the right choice.

I read this piece once in English and three times in Castilian. The English translation is quite good, but uses a tamer, less stinging choice of words. If you know some Spanish, I recommend the original. (Even if you have to use a dictionary. It's short.)

This Spanish work does a good job of being at once a game and a story. It was quite fun, but it felt like one of those graphic point-and-click adventures. The game world is medium sized; I didn't need a map, but I would have moved more quickly with one. Each chapter consists of an initial choice-based backdrop scene followed by a puzzle-solving exploration session.

Again, this game really was fun, but it could have been even more fun with consistent implementation. (Spoiler - click to show)Each magical device only works once to solve a specific puzzle. You can't tinker with the cauldron, the garden, or anything. After I solved the growing fruit puzzle, I tried to do it again, but the game just asked, "Why would you want to do that?" I tried putting other things like water and a rabbit into the cauldron and even lit the fire. Nothing even cooked! That rabbit is a survivor!

Most of the puzzles are standard for parser-games. Some of the puzzles use ascii graphics to imitate graphic adventure type puzzles. Whether or not such puzzles belong in IF, it would be courteous for an author who employs them to hyperlink the controls. The act of typing a command just to make a minuscule adjustment started to feel tedious after a while.

I considered one of the normal puzzles unfair. (Spoiler - click to show)Any interaction with the eagle suggests that she can't communicate with you and she's dangerous to touch. But lo and behold, you suddenly can communicate with her and touch her only when one puzzle requires it. When I consult an in-game walkthrough, I believe I should think, "Oh, duh. I would have thought of that if I'd given it enough time and patience." With this puzzle, I felt irritated that the game steered me away from the correct solution at every prod.

For Spanish language learners, I'd rate the vocabulary as roughly intermediate level. However, the work includes a warning that it is not for readers younger than 14. A walkthrough is accessible within the game.