Ratings and Reviews by Cory Roush

I'm a huge fan of casual simulations and resource management games, so when I stumbled upon this game, I was definitely intrigued. Fortunately, the game lived up to the expectations I had for it, which were appropriately low given the limits of the medium and my lack of experience with similar IF games.

This is not a difficult game... in fact, it's one of those simulations where it quickly becomes very obvious how to win. But instead of just amassing huge amounts of wealth, the path to victory is paved with emotional twists and turns. Another reviewer commented on how much affection you can discover for an "orphan" that is nothing more than a name, gender, and age, and I entirely agree. I wanted to see it through to the end not so that I could gain over 10,000 coins or some arbitrary end-goal, but because Ethel came to me as a dirty, sullen toddler and at the age of 16, was beautiful, healthy, and charming enough to stand in as a model for an artists' portrait. She'd later go on to work as an apprentice to a local entrepreneur, and I'm quite certain that if I checked back in with her in twenty-five years, she'd have a family of her own and a legacy to leave them.

The game is presented as a "beat an orphan" simulation and I think it's selling itself short. Yes, it's all sarcastically written to point out how horrifying orphanages have been throughout history (and, to an extent, still can be) but it's got an inner layer of charm that I wasn't expecting to find.

If there are any downsides to the game overall, it's that the difficulty is either completely impossible (but not on my most recent playthrough) or much too easy. I'd also love to see a version of the game that incorporates some visual cues to let you know you're doing, so long as they don't shatter the boundary between immersive simulation and game; color changes to the text to show negative/positive outcomes of your actions, for instance.

P.S. The "Play Online" version of the game appears to be v1, and unfortunately I did not have the time to go back and play v3 to see if the game was improved in any of the ways mentioned. If you have access to an interpreter, I imagine that's the version of the game the author intends for you to play.

Another in a series of Emily Short's fractured fairy tales, but without the depth and complexity of "Bronze"... so unfortunately, not as enjoyable.

I appreciate the experimental nature of a game like this; not only are you given limited ways to control the outcome, but your character is limited by nature itself as you play a bird in a cage.

Two problems stand out in my mind, though:

1) Available conversation topics are shown after THINKing, but it always seems like the topics come one moment too late. By the time you actually SAY something, the other characters have already proceeded, and it's not always clear how your input changed the course of the conversation.

2) With games like these, with multiple endings and a limited window of opportunity to branch the storyline, I'd love to have a system that tracks how many other endings I have to discover. I wouldn't want the "clues" to be too descriptive... something like a Choice of Games' Achievements system where the author could allude to one of the many paths available. Without knowing if I've already discovered all of the endings, going back and replaying after a few restarts seems potentially fruitless.