Ratings and Reviews by verityvirtue

[Time to completion: 5 minutes]

This was written for the Tiny Utopias jam (https://catacalypto.wordpress.com/2016/04/13/possibilities-in-the-tinyutopias-if-jam), organised by Cat Manning (and is still ongoing!).

Skulls are not usual fare for utopias. Skulls mean death. Death means filth. But here, skulls are just another part of the PC's family trade, and what skull-scraper promises is plenty, abundance, enough for generations to come. Each skull holds a little vignette of experience, a ritual of transformation. Your role as a skull-scraper is not certain; what is certain is that there will be enough (see also Hannah Powell-Smith's take on the tiny utopia, Enough.)

Porpentine's Twiny Jam has sparked off a multitude of tiny Twines, each using 300 words or less, and it has been a veritable education seeing how people use those 300 words.

In The Tiniest Room, the author opts for a minimalist escape the room game. It provides the bare minimum you need to know, yet has all the usual keys and combination locks that you might expect from an escape game.

What really puts the cream on the cake is the ending, and so, as the Chinese idiom says (no, it actually exists), the sparrow may be small, it's nonetheless complete (麻雀虽小，五脏俱全). A good exercise in what you can do with very little.

[Time to completion: 45-60 mins]

Your Uncle Zebulon has died, and while you're sure you were his favourite nephew, he bequeathed you just one item - it can be any item from his house, but you can only take one out. Your relatives have been all over the house, though, so will there be anything left?

This game is one of the games I've played this year with longer parser puzzles. One of the reasons I have stayed so far from these is because I am very bad at visualising and manipulating machines in IF - I do better when I can actually move things with my hands, which is a bit of a feat in IF. The puzzles here, however, are well-hinted. As befits an old wizard's house, Uncle Zebulon's Will makes use of some simple mechanics which work once, but are consistently implemented.

The writing is enjoyable, and I know some have called it terse or economical. This was typical of the time, but it felt natural to me; also, as others have mentioned, the one NPC that you get to talk to feels convincingly bored, with in-character 'error' messages when the player breaks the game's rules (most notably being the one object restriction when exiting the house).

A very solid game with good implementation and enjoyable writing. Would safely withstand the so-called test of time.

[Time to completion: 10-15 minutes]

You're Amity, and you're out in the park to meet Li Anderson, your girlfriend, when somebody starts yelling for help. This starts as a cozy story about two girls, but abruptly turns into a story about fighting monsters.

The writing in the beginning is not as inspired, not as sharp as one might expect. There's some self-examination along the lines of "This is my average high school life", which is not entirely unwarranted. The conversation between the PC and Li touches on deeper issues, such as how sexuality is portrayed in media.

The later part moves faster, but I sensed that it was trying to hint at something greater through elements from mythology and metaphor and cultural references - as far as I could tell, anyway. It felt incongruous - perhaps because there was too little space, narrative-wise, to lead up to this.

I had strong vibes of Birdland and Astrid Dalmady's Yesterday, You Saved the World in this game, but the emotional impact didn't quite hit it for me. Birdland did it by establishing Bridget's and Bell's character and weaknesses earlier on, making their eventual triumph more satisfying. Here, there's a lot less tension from the start, which loosens the driving force for the resolution.

Some interesting elements in this one, and this game seems to have angled at invoking fuzzy good feelings, so it's probably good for a short diversion.

[Time to completion: 5-10 minutes]

Here, you are a husband to a grieving wife, and you have the curious power to rewind time. Each time you do this, it comes with a physical toll. Ever since the accident shattered your small family, you've been making more and more use of this skill.

This game is not always polished - in some places, the prose would have benefited from a rigorous editing. What this game does well, though, is give a sense of weariness as the narrator deals with what is now nothing more than routine - emotionally taxing and unusual it may be, but routine.

The in-game action of rewinding essentially gives a reason for undoing, but makes the reader think hard about the act. Do you want to risk hurting an already-unwell wife, or do you want to spare yourself an act you have been performing thousands of times? There are no happy endings in this game. It is not lighthearted playing.

The stage is prepared. The house is open. Now, you wait.

The author captures the inner landscapes of performance well here. There's the restlessness before the curtain rises. Reflecting this, there's a small number of things you can do in this game, which is randomised in parts. There aren't any obvious goals. You can do things for NPCs - tiny quests, if you will. Regardless of what you do, the curtains will eventually rise, and you will assume your role.

Another aspect of performance: the bleeding over of on-stage roles into how you see the actors themselves. NPCs are referred to by their roles - Chatillon, 1st Executioner - even before they get on stage.

I was attracted to this because I've had my share of performances, with very similar feelings. If you've ever been part of any kind of performance, you'll probably enjoy it.

[Time to completion: 5-10 minutes]

In this game, you are at the beach with your boyfriend, medicinal weed brownies and a lump in your breast. This game is not about the lump, not mainly. This game is about confronting your own mortality and anxieties.

The Ocean is surprisingly similar to Tapes: both have a female protagonist who has some kind of physical ailment; both are in a relationship with a man, but most of all both share the same introspective, melancholic mood.

The Ocean uses a stream-of-consciousness style, coloured with metaphors, to explore the protagonist's emotions. The tone is distant, as if recalling a long-ago event, but unexpectedly snarky in places. The reader, here, is the narrator's confidante and companion. The reader's role, here, is not to perform or do or solve problems: it is to listen. And in the act of listening - of clicking through the words and reading it - the narrator comes to a kind of peace.