Ratings and Reviews by Wanderlust

I was drawn to this game by its title and I'm really glad I played. As I write this review, I'm still waiting for a piece of me to return to my body. The game opens with the option to select how potentially triggering you would like it to be, on a scale of 1 to 5. As someone who has struggled with disordered eating habits, I selected 4, then changed my mind and selected 5. Knowing that the author is in recovery makes the game more personal, and the writing speaks with a voice that can only come from experience. The linear storytelling and delayed text really captures the same type of obsessive thinking behind a compulsion, and even now, my skin still has goosebumps.

In terms of plot, this reads a lot like the old school choose-your-own-adventure gamebooks. Y'know, the ones where you're in a jungle hunting for lost treasure, and you choose to shelter in a cave, and oops! suddenly you've discovered a secret society of mole-people. It's fun and silly, but also a bit jarring, because things just sort of happen without much build-up.

There's at least five different endings from multiple playthroughs, and each were as distinct as the last, with maybe two of the five containing minor puzzle elements whose solution you can kind of stumble on. Only one of the five endings I discovered seemed to have any narrative consistency within the larger framework of being a stowaway on a ship, and it was also the one I found most emotionally satisfying. Nonetheless, I wouldn't consider this to be a fault of the game itself, and more of an incompatibility between what the author is trying to do vs my preferences for interactive fiction.

Interesting premise, decent writing. By and large, the story is pretty linear, differing only in the artist's choice of demon and their decision on what to do with it. Our protagonist's familiar, Pixel, was a cute, snarky sidekick and behaved exactly like a cat— surprisingly loyal, but don't make too much of a fuss about it. For better or worse, the antagonists were annoying; a cartoonish, uninspired evil, though maybe that's also because I've had the misfortune of dealing with that type of personality in real life.

All in all, it's a fun game to play during your lunch break, and not bad at all for the author's first foray into Twine.

In Chronicles of the Moorwalker, you play as a budding witch investigating the mysteries surrounding your birth and your mother's murder, while evading the grasp of the Inquisition. As you hone your skill in blood magic, you'll discover relics and talismans, collect potions and trinkets, and improve your relationship with your familiars.

I floundered on my first few attempts, since I struggled with the combat mechanics. There's a quick tutorial for your first fight, but to fully understand the stats involved, I highly recommend reading the rules in the Settings page. I played on the medium difficulty level, and found the encounters to be tough, but fair with a good dose of strategy and some chance. I ran into some difficulty trying to replenish my Vitality outside of encounters, though maybe that's because I couldn't figure out how to develop my alchemy skills. Towards the end, I started avoiding and outright skipping encounters, because I couldn't get my hands on healing potions until I was quite literally at the Big Bad's doorstep. Even so, the fights were rewarding to play through, with the generous use of the save/reload save button.

While the plot was a little predictable, I really enjoyed exploring the map and learning about the magic system. Alternate 13th-century Germany felt rich and full, no doubt enhanced by the sound effects, music, and illustrations. I especially appreciate the detailed accessibility settings for screen readers and touchscreens.

Finally, a little bug catching: A few times during the game, I couldn't return to the main story after opening the Journal, Inventory, or Settings page. Sometimes, there would be a pop-up that would give me the option to go back to the previous passage or completely restart the game, but more often than not, I would be stuck on a blank page. There's also some small typos here and there (E.g. "lose" >> "loose," "through" >> "trough"), but for a game of this size, I'd still consider it pretty polished.

Litrouke excels at creating horror scenarios from mundane situations. As with Please Answer Carefully, the game makes use of environmental audio cues and glitches to build suspense. Whereas PAC’s survey provides a linear progression with no wrong answers, A Man Outside increases the difficulty with multiple choice vocab drills, while a man stares outside your window. The three different endings encourage replayability, though I was satisfied with the ending I received.

Please Answer Carefully is an effective, realistic horror piece. A seemingly innocuous survey about Internet habits turns into an obsessive interrogation. The smooth interface does a really good job of emulating actual research surveys, and increases the dissonance of the increasingly intrusive questions. As someone who used to volunteer to complete research surveys and is wary of digital privacy, the slow, creeping dread stayed with me long after the game ended.

I was quite charmed by the first installment of Dungeon Detective and was a little worried this second game would disappoint. I needn't've worried; our intrepid clue-sniffing hero returns with his laconic humor, memorable side characters, and a character portrait to boot! I thought the idle animation of Sniff chewing his paw was very cute, and I really enjoyed the little glimpses into our protagonist's backstory, especially (Spoiler - click to show)meeting our old packmate Smash and (Spoiler - click to show)the will o' wisp's imitation of Spotmother.

The introduction of multiple possible suspects, red herrings, death, and the explicit demonstration of fantasy policing and racial bias really amped up the stakes for me, and felt like a natural progression of the themes introduced in the first game. I thought the currency system was a nice touch for the more urban setting, and was pleasantly surprised when it also tied into the larger themes at play. I was initially anxious that the day-night cycle would mean a time limit to solve the case, but my fears were unfounded. With a few exceptions, you can repeat previous dialogue, and the inventory system also stores clues.

Despite the additional content in this sequel, I did find myself frustrated by a few bugs. Namely, (Spoiler - click to show)the game freezing on the three balls during the juggling mini-game, despite having "caught" all three successfully. I had completed the mini-game the day before, and returned on the second day in hopes of earning a little more money through juggling. The bug persisted even after resetting the encounter. At another point, when speaking to Marathonis, I accessed an item in my inventory, and upon closing it, was greeted with a blank textbox--- no narration, no dialogue choices, just the option to save/load save. And finally, while this isn't strictly game breaking, I thought it a bit odd that (Spoiler - click to show)Marathonis can still ask Sniff to find his pet chest mimic, if you return the mimic to him before he makes his request. Out of curiosity, I returned to the dungeon, and lo and behold, the mimic was still there, as if I never gave up the emergency dagger to retrieve it.

Regardless, I'm quite pleased with this sequel and would recommend this to anyone who enjoyed the first game and was sad there wasn't more. My advice? Use one save slot as a quick save, and one for larger plot beats. I think a more accurate rating from me would be 4.5 of 5 stars, but I'm not one to be stingy.

On a scale of 1-8, I would rate this game outstanding. Strong replayability with a highly branching storyline and all the characters are distinct and memorable. The little bits of narrative meta are absolutely delightful and I love the nonlinear storytelling. As someone who can be quite paranoid about stats, failing stat checks are sometimes more desirable than succeeding them, because they're so entertaining.

For those who are fans of Kreg Segall's other works, the Jolly Good series shares a universe with Tally Ho!

Cozy, slice-of-life retelling of the Persephone myth. I've followed this game's development since the first release of its demo, and I'm thrilled it's available to the public. The writing is superb and the characters are all very well-fleshed out. Easily one of my favorite titles hosted by Choice of Games, and I'm excited for its sequel, Blood of the Living.

As an elementary birder, this game was an unexpected delight. The writing and presentation is like a virtual tour, so the experience almost felt like going on a birdwalk with the author, who included photos, image descriptions, relevant links, and the thought process behind bird identification. It's edu-tainment, and a nice introduction for anyone who's interested in the hobby. My only suggestion is that it would've been cool to include a link to all the species observed at the end of the game, and to include audio files for the observations that were heard, but not seen.

My favorite part was how well the author captured the peaceful, exploratory nature of birding. The player is invited to meander along whatever paths they choose while life flows around them--- brief interactions with other strangers enjoying their day, passing observations of the people around them. It's a perfectly relaxing Saturday morning out in nature.

Minimalist, well-designed Twine fiction in an evocative science fantasy setting. I enjoyed the cycling choices to emulate spiraling thoughts and the illusion of choice, as if the narrative could have had a different outcome (Despite the title warning us in advance). Although I tend to find flashback sequences jarring, they were incorporated smoothly in this game, and the added context made each iteration of the fight in the cathedral more heartbreaking, exacerbated by the music.

This is, as the chronically online kids say these days, giving doomed yuri. While there's no explicit romantic tension between the two female protagonists in the game, the dynamic is the same, and reminds me of the Richard Siken quote, “Someone has to leave first. This is a very old story. There is no other version of this story.” In this case, who leaves first is a little more ambiguous, but it sets our story to its inevitable conclusion.

Yes, the title of my review is a reference to the Dawn Machine from Sunless Sea, but to be fair, it was hard not to, with the references to clockwork and solar present in the game.

I quite enjoyed it overall. The writing was tight and tension immediate, even before the (Spoiler - click to show)famine began--- the need for control and perfection from an absolute monarch, one who already seemed high strung when all was well. Playing this was what I imagined Caligula was like, and my heart sympathized for the poor subjects of the king of Xanadu.

A fun game to play on lunch break! I liked the punchy (Ha!) sound effects, and even the simple stick figure cover art had its charm. Playing the game was pretty nostalgic for me--- it was reminiscent of those silly stick figure flash games I'd play with my friends.

While a single playthrough can be quite short, the game has high replay value, due to its many branching paths, presented as binary choices, and the ability to navigate forward and backward to explore alternate paths.

It's like an anti-joke. It's a joke entry in this competition. It's a meta commentary on the nature of interactive fiction. Is a refusal to engage, thereby winning the game, still a form of interaction? I appreciated the novelty of it, if nothing else, even if it doesn't make for a very fun game.