Reviews by JJ McC

Adapted from a SpringThing25 Review

Played: 4/11/25
Playtime: 1.5hr, 4 endings

There are some tropes in IF that are pretty well established. Expectations that are common enough that they exert a pull on gameplay and frame expectations while simultaneously represent a subversion opportunity to the author. Things like ‘explore everywhere,’ ‘collect all the things,’ ‘lying will be punished,’ ‘lore will become personal,’ all these represent opportunity to streamline gameplay with unspoken guidance and/or to create dramatic moments when subverted. There is one expectation I didn’t list due to its spoilery nature, one so ingrained a player may not even notice its presence. It’s going to be a challenge to dance around though, because its subversion is among the most noteworthy accomplishments of this piece.

This is a work unabashedly occupying the well-trodden ground of ‘lost sci-fi setting of historical secrets needing explored by faceless PC.’ It wears this tropey setup on its sleeve, leveraging its familiarity to smooth player expectations and gameplay. This turns out to be necessary, because it implements a timer of sorts, a looming danger that every move brings you one step closer to. It knows what it’s doing balancing tension and fair play into a very engaging scenario. If I had a quibble, it is that because I wanted to provide a transcript, I did not use the author’s interpreter of choice. This choice made guidance like ‘the timer is visible in the right corner’ an outright lie. If there was a way to access it, I never found it. Not a deal breaker by any means, but feels like a missing element of the author’s intent.

You poke around 3 small to modest sized areas, conducting your collect-use-ungate parser gameplay, all the while finding artifacts and documents that fill in historical gaps. As these things can be, the revelations are staged into a nice series of context shifts: "Yes, And.."ing itself as the lore builds and twists what it already told you. While the plot beats are not necessarily revelatory in and of themselves, you’ve probably seen most of these elements before, they do capably build on each other in satisfying ways. All the way up to the final closure.

Aaand here is where I dive into that final expectation in the most spoilery way possible. If you have not played it yet here is the takeaway: Go ahead and play it. It’s fun. Read no further.

If you HAVE played it, you full well know the expectation I am alluding to. That successful parser play means (Spoiler - click to show)‘player lives and/or triumphant when game beaten because finish = success.’ SubVERTED!!! The ending was the most noteworthy thing about the work, evoking (indirectly) two different pop culture properties for me: (Spoiler - click to show)Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series and (Spoiler - click to show)The Twilight Zone. I’ve been blurring, but that’s about to stop so if you still haven’t played, GET THE HELL OUT OF THESE PARAGRAPHS.

That second of those two resonances is the one that worked the best for me. The work is very peppily paced: between the ever present timer, the tight location space, the crisp descriptions cuing areas of interest naturally, the thing zips along with little drag. This as much as anything matches the tempo and discipline of the best of that second IP. It sells its twists through momentum, each subsequent twist just that much more impactful, culminating in a monster subversion that I really liked. I am prepared to hear that others might find that subversion a step too far, and somehow deflating, but that was not my experience of it. To the contrary, I admired it all the more for the bold (Spoiler - click to show)Serling of it.

The resonances of that FIRST property though, really the engine behind the plot twists, those I found less compelling. I find critiques of that first IP (which I will shorthand to F for the remainder of the review) more compelling than F’s canonical text. F is an interesting intellectual experiment, well suited to storytelling, but posits a technological determinism that undersells both random happenstance and human perversity. Do I need to explain the thesis of F? I’m going to assume I don’t. I find F great as a conversation starter, unconvincing as a conversation closer. So basing the twists so heavily on that premise kind of undermined it a bit for me.

Only a bit though. Because the resonances to that SECOND PROPERTY do a lot to redeem it. The pacing and sometimes shorthand allusions play directly to that tradition of ‘this is a clockwork of plot manipulation. The CLOCKWORK is the fun part, we can hand wave the individual gears.’ Agreed! Especially as it built to a rare, fun subversion of form.

Horror Icon: Jigsaw
Vibe: Just As Planned
Polish: Smooth
Gimme the Wheel! : The easiest little tweak I would make, were it my project to tweak, would be to add a timecheck in text mode. Either in the banner, or as a standalone command. Just something to focus up the ticking clock a bit.

Polish scale: Gleaming, Smooth, Textured, Rough, Distressed
Gimme the Wheel: What I would do next, if it were my project.

Adapted from a SpringThing25 Review

Played: 4/10/25
Playtime: 1hr 10m, finished

If there is a word for this series, it is ‘inventive.’ Hey, there all millions of words! We could ALL get one! I think I want to dibs ‘maladroit.’ Match Girl gets ‘inventive.’ This deep into the series, it doesn’t seem like there should be a strong need for summary, but keeping to review discipline: Hans Christian Anderson’s nameless Little Match Girl gets Daddy Warbucks’d by Ebeneezer Scrooge (and takes his name) while having cross-time adventures because fire is a time portal for her. And gradually assembles an entire portfolio of wildly disparate weapons, skills and allies while doing so.

There is a bit of a Dr. Who vibe to things, with most every stop in time being either an idiosyncratic historical pull (death of Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens!), a completely fanciful distant period of time, or a quick revisit of characters past. As often as not, the puzzle solving involves a clockwork of cross-time dependencies including how to find the flames needed for continued travel.

This episode does not disappoint in any of those dimensions, most especially the far future techno-religion that is this work’s main antagonist. This iteration compounds its formula with two specific new elements that work (and work together) like gangbusters: real-time dialogue and a countdown timer.

The real-time dialogue is essentially snooping on the antagonist radio frequency, getting to hear their (often amusing) back and forth as the plot progresses. I heeded the work’s guidance to play in an interpreter with html-like formatting support and was glad I did. This choice gave me font and color cues to help differentiate the different timelines, but also was used to great effect in incidental dialogue. The illusion of realtime responses by active NPCs was very strong, not the least of which because the conversations were so DEEP we never got into ‘mimesis death via robotic repetition.’

That last was itself partially due to the realtime countdown timer addition. Yup, from the jump, an uncomfortably tight and graphically centered countdown timer hangs over you like a Damoclean Sword. How relevant is a realtime timer to a time-hopper? How relevant is: 'shut up'? What a great dramatic device this was. Timers have a focusing effect on the player. This will be no leisurely saunter through the author’s implementation space, casually and belligerently poking into every crack until you find the implementation threshold then harumphing superciliously. We all do that, right?

No, the timer focuses you relentlessly on the immediate task at hand. In tension with and reinforcing the realtime dialogue, it represents a disincentive to test the author’s limits. You want to listen in more but HAVE NO TIME. It really is a wonderful mechanical synergy that sells the conflict and setting.

The timer ALSO really focuses the parser gameplay. A lot of parser games are characterized by experimentally fiddling with bizarre artifacts to find the complete left field way it needs to be manipulated to make progress. No time for that here! Every unsuccessful puzzle attempt drains away your remaining time making things sweeter when solved and tenser when not. It almost goes unnoticed that the DIFFICULTY of those puzzles is finely tuned here too, giving the player a fair chance at success and letting the timer inflict the tension, not the puzzle itself.

The prose is similarly tuned to the pressures of the game. No extended descriptions, elaborate joke setups and payoffs. No, everything is streamlined to the accelerated playstyle. Most especially the wry humor of the piece.

All in all, I found this a hugely successful iteration and tweaking of the franchise, even if it might hide a TERRIBLE SECRET, spoil-blurred: (Spoiler - click to show)I don’t think the timer is real! Not as real as it presents. There are enough relief valves to provide moments of build and release around accomplishment, themselves very well distributed into dramatic mini-crescendos. These releases felt both earned but also subverting of the conceit. Now, I did not test this, even though it would be trivial to do so. This is also due to the effectiveness of the conceit - even with my suspicions I completely embraced the work on its own terms because that delivered the best experience.

I know I dibbed ‘maladroit’ earlier, but is ‘satiated’ taken yet?

Horror Icon: Jigsaw /Freddie
Vibe: Bonkers Adventure
Polish: Smooth
Gimme the Wheel! : Honestly, I’m kind of at a loss here. I think if it were my project I would be satisfied with the precisely engineered experience on display. Perhaps smugly so.

Polish scale: Gleaming, Smooth, Textured, Rough, Distressed
Gimme the Wheel: What I would do next, if it were my project.

Adapted from a SpringThing25 Review

Played: 4/10/25
Playtime: 5m, 2 endings

This is a tight little work about strangers on a train, cresting into family dramas with a hint of the supernatural. It knows exactly what it is about, sets up a really nice early twist, and builds confidently to its emotional climax. It is SO short, if I give you anything more concrete than that it will end up spoiling a mathematically significant chunk of it.

Pacing wise it is pretty breathless, which is about right for a work like this. It dispenses background lore quickly, economically and clearly, building to a climax of some emotional complexity, though what is left UNsaid still looms large over it all. It also makes a nice decision to background the mechanics of its conceit in favor of the emotional tale. On the one hand, this leaves the player a little asea as to what appropriate responses might be, but that seems like a fair trade when the story’s aims are so wide of “Who can beat up who?” Its brevity makes restarting with new knowledge not really a hurdle at all.

It purports to be a first effort, which, I admire the discipline of it. Especially early in an endeavor it can be irresistible to bite off more than we can chew. Here things are focused tightly, to the story’s credit. There are some typos that creep into the work, some dissonances (like a teddy bear charm that is described more as an actual full-sized teddy bear) that could use a bit of polish. There are also some nice lines. I particularly liked

“offer what little empathy your undead heart can squeeze out.”

All in all a very worthy first effort. Look forward to seeing where this author goes next!

Horror Icon: Leatherface
Vibe: Spiraling Violence
Polish: Textured
Gimme the Wheel! : If this were my project, I would do a pass on those typos and tighten down dissonant descriptions. With a work this focused, it could be polished to a SHINE!

Polish scale: Gleaming, Smooth, Textured, Rough, Distressed
Gimme the Wheel: What I would do next, if it were my project.

Adapted from a SpringThing25 Review

Played: 4/9/25
Playtime: 1.5hr

This work announces itself as a fictionalized-but-biographically-based relationship drama. Why, creative community, WHY?? Are we trying to see how MUCH damage my oblivious intentions can do in the minimal amount of time? Do I have a shot at the record??

No one wants to see me grapple with self-doubt and aspirational angst for ANOTHER review, so I am going to lean hard into the ‘fictionalized’ claims of the this visual novel and strive to inflict as little collateral damage as possible. This is a work that grapples with the emotional unreality of interpersonal relations, ESPECIALLY in an age where physical presence (and attendant physical cues) can be bypassed completely.

A pre-narrative extended online flirtation leads to a 3-day meatspace meet up where two characters try to plot a path forward. Even if this were not explicitly acknowledged as biographically rooted, it is so stuffed with specificity and detail I would have accused it of being such. The details are constant, offhand, and build a crisp and complete picture of the narrator(s) in our heads. There is no question of the ‘reality’ of these two, they are established fully in every moment of narration. This is like the holy grail of character work.

And we get two of them! The narrative gives us a god-view of BOTH characters’ inner lives, expectations and disappointments throughout the quick visit. The nature of the work is that it is unclear where the narrative might end. Unlike books, where we feel the heft of unread pages, there is no signpost here how much more narrative remains. We start with a full arc with one character… hey this COULD be a single character study! Then we get the OPPOSING character’s journey through the same events. Ok, it COULD be a contrasting narrative of two character studies! Those were effective, but to my eye slightly unsatisfying. Unsatisfying in the sense that both characters were a bit oooh, I almost typed ‘selfish’ there. Substitute another, less charged word please. Inward focused? One was reflecting their own expectations and disconnects on the events, the other treating it like a dating sim where the optimal choice of date events will lead to… SMOOCHY CUTSCENE!!! Neither were truly engaging the other outside online paradigms.

This seems a deliberate narrative choice, possibly at the heart of the work’s artistic aims. Their relationship blossomed online, initiated through avatars. Of COURSE it was more internal than external. Absent physical cues they were simultaneously able to bypass inhibition to expose their intimate inner lives quasi-anonymously while also free to project their own wants and desires on an unresisting avatar. It was both MORE and LESS intimate at once. That dynamic encourages the most idealized, optimistic and distorted view of relationships that can’t HELP but buckle a bit in real life. Sidebar - I found the graphical presentation to reinforce this in a stunningly effective way. The graphics are actual photos of London and environs - as real as it gets - superimposed with cartoony anime-styled characters. Further, those characters are EXPLICITLY from the POV of their partner! Is there a clearer way to emphasize the artificiality, the superficiality of how each sees the other?

So at this point we are left with a mirrored mini emotional tragedy. The work then does something I think elevates it but maybe also falls short? Hoo boy, please don’t think I’m saying ‘The real lives behind this didn’t work for me.’ I am REALLY leaning into the fictionality here, like HAAARD.

Crucially, once we have a ‘filtered’ view of events from each of the two characters, where their motivations and stresses have so thoroughly colored those events, each unreliable to at least a little degree… the narrative goes to third person omniscient. We no longer have access to either’s inner life, but get a script-format instead, practically a court transcript of dialogue. It is up to us to infer the inner lives based on what we have seen so far. The vivid detail we have digested makes this super effective. We kind of shed distortions each character works from to see it more dispassionately. Honestly, prior to this I respected the writing and scene-setting but was still a bit removed. This section really hit a new gear for me.

I really, really hope though, that WHAT I responded to was consistent with the authors’ aims. See, unfiltered by inner lives, that dialogue is kind of… bad? I don’t mean badly written, not at all. Drawing together the previous scenes into a coherent whole, with surprising emotional beats is REALLY cool. I mean the dialogue reflects badly on the two having the conversation. On the one hand, they FINALLY breach their anxiety barriers to have something approaching real communication. On the other, Nica’s response is self-serving outrage without an ounce of empathy for Chun. And only a hand-wavy acknowledgement of their own culpability. This is totally believable, we are watching artificial expectations crumble in real time, of course it can result in lashing out. It’s not exactly admirable, though. We, the readers, understand both Nica’s frustrations and Chun’s motivations, and how devastating these attacks will be. Nica is both oblivious and uncaring. (I do feel there was a disconnect between the heat of Nica’s attacks and Chun’s even, almost accepting responses. Given the emotional brittleness we had seen before, I half expected a concurrent dissembling on Chun’s side.) It had the effect of magnifying and exposing their self-preoccupations, their mutual unreadiness for something less idealized and more real.

At this point I should highlight I barely have a toe in modern online culture. While I understand the concept of parasocial relationships (hell, I’m having one with all of you right now!), it is really a vanishingly small element of my life. That said, Nica’s accusation of (Spoiler - click to show)stalking was completely unconvincing to me, in terms of these characters and this setup. It read like hurt passion overtaking reality in a disheartening way. This was not some rando in the comments getting weirdly familiar. This was a person YOU ENCOURAGED A RELATIONSHIP WITH, desperately trying to UNDERSTAND YOU MORE FULLY THAN THE ARTIFICIALITY OF THE MEDIUM ALLOWED. Were they supposed to NOT Google you? What kind of expectations did you think sexting would build? TO NICA, WAS THIS FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT THAN JUST WATCHING PORN???

The effect of that scene was to strip away the sentimentality we developed by living in each of their heads, and expose the flawed, flawed characters with fresh, less sympathetic eyes. Dramatically, this really worked. I was deeply afraid this was NOT the intent of the piece.

But wait, it’s not over yet! There is a final scene, of Nica returning home, digesting the entire visit, and plotting a path forward. As conflicted as I was about that previous scene, I am not conflicted at all here. I found this to be a really strong, delightfully ambiguous ending. (Spoiler - click to show)We see Nica doubling down on the online relationship, somehow unpurturbed by the previous scene, unmoved by the heat of it. This is either a breakthrough, getting past the hurt and betrayal into something approaching a fuller relationship, or regressing to the idealized comfort of the icon-distorted parasocial status quo. I have a pretty strong feeling which.

I will just close with my favorite line from the work: “melodrama is only melodrama to those that don’t share the same concerns and stakes of the characters.” Thankfully, the authors threw me a bone to confirm I was not hopelessly in the weeds with these takes. With as much time as I spend in those weeds, you'd think I would recognize them by now.

Horror Icon: Babadook
Vibe: She said/she said
Polish: Gleaming
Gimme the Wheel! : Nope nope nope

Polish scale: Gleaming, Smooth, Textured, Rough, Distressed
Gimme the Wheel: What I would do next, if it were my project.

Adapted from a SpringThing25 Review

Played: 4/9/25
Playtime: 10m, 5 (of course) playthroughs

Here is the order you should play this game: 1-5-2-4-3. You’re welcome.

That’s a jarring approach for me to take, right? This is an autobiographical-feeling work of art, detailing a dire, debilitating emotional and physical disorder. Yet here I am, superimposing myself between you and the work, telling you how it should be experienced. I’m probably going to go on and tell you how you should feel about it. Then maybe how successful or unsuccessful it is. I kinda have a history of this. Honestly, who the f*#$ am I to weigh in on any of this?

On some level, this is how I feel with ALL deeply personal works I presume to review. Where is the line between dissecting a piece with the same toolkit I use on, I dunno, Cyber-Swordsman Detective, and dismissing actual experiences by actual people, striving to communicate their anguish? I’d LOVE for that line to be “intent,” whooo boy, I’d wear that like armor. But you don’t really get to say “Sorry my Coat of Sharp Knives sliced you up so badly, I was really just trying to find some space in this subway car. Oh, this old thing? Just something I threw on this morning.”

This is a work about eating disorder. It plays with the concept of “trigger warnings,” presenting various levels of trigger to select among. I appreciated this conceit, overlaying narrative on those selections while challenging the player with explicit charges of misery-voyeurism. I found the graphical presentation minimalist, but effective in its aims. The choices of what each level communicated were wry and effective, escalating as you expect but also embedding commentary with WHAT each trigger level could actually express (and the inherent artificiality of it), relative the underlying reality. How close are we willing to get to someone else’s pain, how much of it can we ultimately experience? And what are our motivations in doing so?

I think that is about as much as I am willing say here. Why do I even own that coat?

Horror Icon: Leatherface
Vibe: Confessional
Polish: Smooth
Gimme the Wheel! : Pass.

Polish scale: Gleaming, Smooth, Textured, Rough, Distressed
Gimme the Wheel: What I would do next, if it were my project.

Adapted from a SpringThing25 Review

Played: 4/8/25
Playtime: 15m, 5 endings

What is the line between dream logic and Dada? The obvious answer is, that depends on the dreamer. Dream logic is pretty famously associated with a deeper, sub-logical collection of images and scenes that feel and flow naturally in the moment, but become bafflingly disconnected when considered in retrospect. Dada, by contrast, intends to shock in the moment with dissonance. That is arguably its entire point. These are not opposing states of a dichotomy though, these are points on a continuum.

Ok, I am obviously ignoring the most important thing about Dada, its political motivations in its historical context. Maybe I’m just talking about Surrealism. Dada is just a much more fun word to say though, so I’m sticking with it.

Stowaway opens with the titular protagonist, but quickly spirals from a Treasure Island vibe into something fractured and weird. And honestly, kind of fun. As you navigate the ship, to initially uncertain purpose, maybe to steal some food, it quickly becomes apparent via navigation links that the setting is mutable and uncertain. It spins into wildly different spaces and settings in the dreamiest of dreamlogic connectivity. You encounter a wild variety of fantasy, sci-fi and otherwise unexpected NPCs, in service of loose fetch/use IF puzzle play, before cresting to an abrupt ending. Series of endings really, depending on your path.

Ah ha! I see you now, game! You kept me off balance for a bit, but you are really one of those “collect-all-the-endings” games! So let’s do that! Here’s the thing. For a work this short, this bonkers and varied, it has a remarkably narrow and similar suite of end states, different in detail but pretty samey in effect. This work was not going to have a ‘plot’ or ‘character’ based arc of setup and resolution. It could have an artistic arc, though. Treat its belligerent reality-defiance AS the character, develop this dynamic from its early discovery, through its escalation and expansion into a crescendo of weird dissonance.

Instead, it was kind of like we found a Golden Ticket, experienced the wonder of the Wonka factory, but then decided to just sell it to Nestle’s. For me, these kinds of works hit much better when the ending-collection is as or MORE disparate, bonkers and unpredictable than the midgame. Like, instead of a corporate buyout we get on a glass space elevator and fight cosmic turds or something.

I appreciate what the work was doing, and doing so economically, but I wish it commit to its Dada all the way to the end. Ings.

Horror Icon: Freddie
Vibe: Surrealist
Polish: Textured
Gimme the Wheel! : If this were my project, I would really explode the ending space, both in number and variety. Make them every bit as surprising and disconnected as the steps that got us there.

Polish scale: Gleaming, Smooth, Textured, Rough, Distressed
Gimme the Wheel: What I would do next, if it were my project.

Adapted from a SpringThing25 Review

Played: 4/8/25
Playtime: 1.75hr

Notwithstanding Clint Eastwood’s descent into deplora…bility? Yeah, deplorability. (Proving yet again, as if needing further corroboration at this point, that we will all “die a hero or live long enough to become the villain.”) Notwithstanding that, there is a slice of his filmography that I find compellingly mythic. His western Man With No Name character was featured in only a very few of his movies, but I find them the least poisoned by time. Dirty Harry reads as a parody, but at some point both the actor and the culture decided, no, that was GOOD, ACTUALLY. Bleah. MWNN rather embraced an existential unknowability of mythic forces apart from human concerns, but nevertheless imposing on them a code of justice that is as compelling as it is terrifying. A pressure-relief valve for the universe that makes us question ‘justice at what cost?’ and ‘is Justice actually about us at all?’

Cut the Sky evokes that archetype. Better, it evokes it by letting us inhabit him (just gonna go with ‘him’ here, in deference to the iconography, sorry) but never really UNDERSTAND him. What a fine tightrope to walk! We are the motive force for the character, but the guardrails are firmly universe-driven to keep our human concerns and responses at bay. This is driven home both in the text, which resolutely refuses to expose any inner life, and in the interactivity, which limits our possible actions to less than two hands-worth of options. There is no nuance to the MWNN, everything is one of 9 actions, of which only 4-5 are actually ACTIVE. This artificiality of constraint, more than anything, engages us with the mythic protagonist, reinforcing his unknowability to humanity. It is a use of interactivity I hadn’t seen before.

There follows a series of puzzly interactions, steps on the protagonist’s journey, where we are encouraged to creatively use these 5-9 actions to resolve a series of conflicts. The fact that, ultimately, every problem IS resolvable with those actions underscores the mythic nature of the role. MWNN doesn’t NEED more actions. Armed with those 5, he is immune to nuance and human complication. He CUTS through it if you will. (What, did you forget who was writing this review?)

Even the journey he is on, through a far-future, post-apocaplyptic landscape, we only vaguely understand as weigh points. Both the motivation and consequences are revealed to us so casually, so off-handedly, it is clear our understanding is tangential to the protagonist’s work. Yes, we direct him, but we don’t DRIVE him. It’s all we can do to keep up.

All in all, I found this a dynamite evocation of this compelling mythic archetype. The ability to put us IN this character but not diminish the mystery of him is a really cool approach, very successfully realized. If I had one quibble – and petty as I am, it loomed large – it is that, despite one of 5 active verbs being KISS, infuriatingly, one could not (Spoiler - click to show)KISS THE SKY.

In. Ex. Scusable. Wisely, this unconscionable oversight seems to have been corrected in subsequent release.

Horror Icon: Pinhead
Vibe: Man With No Name
Polish: Smooth,
Gimme the Wheel! : If this were my project I would never have let it escape into the wild without that final action. IT WAS JUST SITTING THERE, RIGHT THERE!!! HOW DO YOU NOT PRESS THE BIG RED BUTTON???

Polish scale: Gleaming, Smooth, Textured, Rough, Distressed
Gimme the Wheel: What I would do next, if it were my project.

Adapted from a SpringThing25 Review

Played: 4/8/25
Playtime: 45m

The conceit of this work, like a lot of genre works, is doing a lot of lifting. Genre fiction (interactive or otherwise) gets a lot of bang for the buck in wild conceits. Arcane magic or hand-wavy super science can create bespoke scenarios that range from full on metaphysical metaphor to nuts’n’bolts lore-wonkery where exploring the setting (and clever twists by the author) is every bit as engaging as any symbology or themes. It is not a lick on this work to say it skews to the latter, because it does it so WELL.

As a player, we are co-piloting (let’s not pretend the author isn’t ALWAYS also at the stick in these things) an artist. A painter, trying to live off commission work while hiding a secret that they can enter the reality of their paintings and bring back artifacts from them. (Ok, yes, you and I would drop everything to labor on our civic-mural-scaled STACKS OF CASH TRYPTYCH. This protag doesn’t. Just roll with it.) He also has a partner/pet of a talking cat. Yeah, even I am beyond blinking at that at this point.

Follows some nice intrigue, evolving lore and ever-more-clever twists on the conceit that are both completely reasonable and completely satisfying. Do not underestimate the finesse this requires. “Going deep in the lore” and “Crawling up your own butt” share a LOT of common imagery and perils. For me, CK consistently fell on the right side of that dichotomy.

It is enhanced by a lot of tangible, unadorned writing. In particular, the details of the painter’s craft were just as present and tactile as you would expect for this kind of protagonist. The writing went a long way to casually and matter-of-factly establish his bona fides as a working artist, and that in turn helped sell the really outre’ developments to follow. If there was a facet that was shortchanged, it was the characterization of the protagonist. Other than a REAALLY strong reluctance to bathe (seriously, what is THAT about? SO many grooming actions available, uniformly rejected by the narrative), and the physical details of their craft, they were more or less a blank slate. Now in IF, this is not generally an issue. The protagonist is often explicitly intended to be a player surrogate. Thing is, specificity in detail works against that identification, so we fall into a weird middle ground where the protag is not US, but isn’t really an identifiable OTHER either. This stands in contrast to NPCs that are quirky, motivated and interesting. Even the rather moustache-twirling antagonists are narratively justified and fun in their one-dimensional-ness.

What? You want me to say it? In print, attached to my name in perpetuity? Fine. Yes, the cat companion was quite fun. Happy? I feel dirty.

As the narrative progresses you work with the protagonist to untangle the implications and nuances of the wild lore, satisfying stakes that range from ‘losing an apartment’ to ‘slavery and death.’ I mean, what, you didn’t want it to escalate? I found the whole thing a really enjoyable lark, not the least of which because it enabled me to reclaim some dignity for those most-unfairly-maligned of creatures: no, not cats. Their malignment is totally fair. I speak of (Spoiler - click to show)giant spiders. Yes, I was not satisfied with my status as feline pariah, I must bolt headlong into FURTHER social marginalization! I regret nothing!

All in all, this was a nicely calibrated plot engine, just about the perfect size for its preoccupations. It also gifted us with a new legendary beast for the Monster Manual: the Artistivore. So good.

Horror Icon: Leatherface
Vibe: Reality bending
Polish: Smooth
Gimme the Wheel! : If this were my project, I think I would endeavor to flesh out the protag, just a little bit more. The nature of IF is such that players usually do not begrudge inhabiting a complete character who is NOT them. Would be worth pulling this protag in that direction.

Polish scale: Gleaming, Smooth, Textured, Rough, Distressed
Gimme the Wheel: What I would do next, if it were my project.

Adapted from a SpringThing25 Review

Played: 4/7/25
Playtime: 15m

Over the last few Comp cycles, Bez has treated us to a few works marrying art, voice and narrative IF. Each of them has had its own personality, its own quirks and fascinations. In terms of raw presentation, it feels like things are creatively cresting into a very next-level appealing package. The artwork here, combinations of hand drawn characters and scene setting background is immediately compelling, and laid out terrifically against the text space to make for an inviting interface.

Even more noteworthy than the graphical package was the voice acting. Bez has employed this in the past, to mixed success to my ears. There are a couple things here that really work though. First and foremost, the script really aids this iteration. When voice acting is less successful, it represents a drag on things. We read the text, then wait for the voice actor to catch up, repeat. Here, with really only one or two notable exceptions, the dialog is natural, but bounded. Relatively short observations, answers, then next prompt. This flows very naturally, and not for nothing doesn’t give us opportunity to get ahead and have to wait for the game. In particular, the Mack character chose a delivery that was rapid but natural and really kept things bubbling along. The other characters were not quite so economical, and Yancy had an extended monologue at one point that DID drag, but I find it noteworthy that that was the exception in this work. Otherwise it was quite tight, and made for an enjoyable time.

Now the function all this form was in service of. The work is a lazy afternoon with friends doing Tarot readings, as catalyst to have some friendly conversations about their friendship, including some mild tension around one of them harboring a secret. These characters have a history here, in a work I consider a unique combination of compelling thematic genius and biting family tragedy, swimming in a crowded sea of less successful dramatic elements. The friendship at the center of this work is one of the latter. If, however, I divorce the characters’ history from their presents, it is kind of sweet and amiable.

Up to the point of the plot twist. It’s…BIG, this twist. So big, it challenges the natural, friendly vibe.. no that’s not what I mean. What I mean is, it’s so big it SHOULD challenge that vibe and doesn’t. The LACK of incredulity, followon questions, other explanations in the face of unquestioning acceptance, PARTICULARLY when the foundation was already some suspicion of deception, did not ring true, not for this quiet afternoon.

So now I’m off balance, trying to figure out how we got here and where its going to tumble, and then it ended. Hm. Ok. Maybe I was a bit hasty. The revelation was huge, kind of bonkers huge, but we are talking about a world of animal-people. Oh, did I not say that? Yeah, these friends are all ani-people. In THIS world, which the narrative tells us nothing about, maybe this wild revelation is not as strange as it reads to boring people-people? Certainly the overriding takeaway of this work was as an interlude, some connective narrative bridging the previous work and leaning into a followon. I assume. It certainly plays like that. If so, on the strength of the artistic growth and next level voice work, count me in! I mean, how do I NOT hear how this bonkers development gets resolved???

Horror Icon: Carrie
Vibe: Afternoon Hang
Polish: Smooth
Gimme the Wheel! : If this were my work, I might take a look at the revelation’s reception, make sure it is playing out precisely the way the next work needs it to. Ensuring the jarring effect on the reader is deliberate. (There is a good chance it already is!)

Polish scale: Gleaming, Smooth, Textured, Rough, Distressed
Gimme the Wheel: What I would do next, if it were my project.

Adapted from a SpringThing25 Review

Played: 4/7/25
Playtime: 10m

This is a Ren’Py game, kind of an under-represented platform in my IF journey. A visual novel, with IF choice-making as an engagement engine.

The visual part of this visual novel(ette) is attractively realized. A very distinctive artistic style rendering protagonist and their home for us to loosely navigate on the way to work. The protagonist is an endearing mess, with her daily routine juuuust barely, and amusing, beyond her grasp in the full view of her creepily-intrusive electronics. The art provides the perfect informal, warm vibe, kind of mirroring the protagonist’s attitude. It makes some choices that raise eyebrows, not in a deleterious way, but in a ‘carving its own place’ way. For example, you play as a cat-girl with rabbit-person friend… who also has an actual cat. Is it just me? It’s not just a hat on a cat – that’s wild, right? People don’t keep people as pets, do cats keep..? I don’t know, I can’t stop wondering how that works. Also, our cat person uses skin cream but not fur cream…? Where does the rabbit hole stop???

Look, I get that I could light a pipe, put on a sweater with elbow patches and digress into artistic representation vs underlying reality but… why? That sounds pretentious and joy sucking and dull and SO out of step with the fun of the piece.

Complementing the art style, is a sassy writing voice that is snortingly fun. Here’s some examples:
“its ass oclock”
(para)“did you know you can lose 87% of your joy eating zuchini?”
“absorbing the power of 350 incels”

The whole thing is rendered in this matter-of-fact, cynical, put-upon voice and it is just thoroughly winning, the more so contrasted against the cartoony hello-kitty characters. The premise – flailing to get through a morning of trivial challenges – could end up hopelessly twee if this last element were missing. Conversely, the presence of the wry voice transforms both art and premise into something worth riding along with just to get more one liners! The frisson is as much the joy as the sly language itself.

So there I am, bubbling along happily in this cozy, witty flow. And then it ended.

Wait, what? Yeah, if I have a quibble with the piece its that in its vanishingly short runtime it gave us a lot of fakeout (low) stakes, humorously trivial setbacks and then… ended. There was no arc, dramatic or otherwise to the piece. No escalating tensions, needs unfulfilled, setups and payoffs, just a really fun hang with a charismatic character that abruptly stopped. I mean, that’s cool, it WAS undeniably fun. Without those other things though, I’m not sure how much sticking power it has.

Other than questions that will never leave me like “…DO THEY FIGHT OVER THE CATNIP???..”

Horror Icon: Freddie
Vibe: Beleagured
Polish: Gleaming
Gimme the Wheel! : If this were my project you would know it because there would be more dogs. If I were to finesse this project, I’d have to try to provide some semblance of a dramatic arc. Something, anything to stop me wondering how MARKING works in that house.

Polish scale: Gleaming, Smooth, Textured, Rough, Distressed
Gimme the Wheel: What I would do next, if it were my project.