Ratings and Reviews by JJ McC

Adapted from a SpringThing24 Review

Played: 4/4/24
Playtime: 1.75hrs, 4 plays, 4 fails

Have we culturally saturated ourselves on Star Trek riffs? I won’t leave that hang: No. No we have not. VoM leverages a deeper-cut aspect of its inspiration to tremendous advantage: reductive two-fisted approaches to complicated problems.

Let me start by acknowledging ALL narrative is reductive. Figuring out what to reduce to tell a compelling story is a core challenge of storytelling. What details are important to the tenor of the piece? What details destroy the piece with abject ‘realism’? Adventure fiction in particular uses two-fisted action either as metaphoric shorthand or as a mechanism to deliver morally-unambiguous thrills. In our post-COVID world, the idea of sending an under-fueled, under-gunned boat of cure through enemy territory with insufficient resources to get there… ridiculous! This is a diplomatic/large military operation of infinite complexity and nuance!

In Star Trek world though? THIS IS EXACTLY THE CORRECT APPROACH. Evoking that vibe bypasses any quibbles we might have and puts us smack into the right frame of mind. The piece does not provide thinly veiled caricatures of familiar characters. Why would it? There’s plenty of that out there already. Instead, it crafts a series of Trekky scenarios in just the perfect combination of unique and familiar. We are essentially watching a season-long arc (presuming Trek trucked in that) on fast forward. Our familiarity plays off these scenarios in exactly the right way to maximize our enjoyment and minimize drag. We don’t need the details, we get it. It is a terrific choice, implemented confidently, and lands like gangbusters.

We are blindly exploring a sensor-defying nebula, searching for the route to a plague-ridden planet. Encountering all manner of alien species, strange phenomenon and ancient artifacts, not to mention meddling Glingons. And solving them all via WWKD. (What Would Kirk Do?) Each mini-encounter is an abbreviated television episode where we are trying to wring out fuel, weapon upgrades or information and not lose TOO many redshirts. These encounters are satisfyingly broad, varied and dangerous. If we seize initiative and power through, with a little luck we might save the day.

First time, I didn’t . Ran out of gas. Barely skimmed the endscreen before cycling back in for more. On repeat play, some gameplay artifacts started showing. For one, encounters started repeating. Obviously I was more successful second time. For another, the path through the nebula randomized, meaning every game would feature blind exploration, with many possible deadends and backtracks. I failed again, this time as a result of an encounter decision I had no way of deducing. Just guessed wrong. Then out of fuel again on a third run.

Then a playthrough that broke me. Applying what I had learned to by-now-familiar scenarios, and focusing maniacally on refuel opportunities I explored to within four jumps of the end, with three doses of fuel. It was in sight! I was presented with a wormhole that promised to shoot me… somewhere. No way to predict, just guess. I guessed… wrong. It shot me so far from the goal, and provided no opportunity to refuel. I conclude: 1) the randomizer is not adequately constrained for balanced gameplay and 2) waaay too much weight is placed on blind guessing problem solving. The latter is bad, but at least manageable through repeat gameplay. Coupled with blind exploration, the former is death. To know that I can exhaust fuel through no fault of my own, or be placed in unwinnable state by random luck… these are deeply unsatisfying experiences.

Even with all that though, the charm of the setup and encounters still shines through. Yes, maybe they get a little tiresome once ‘solved’ but they haven’t yet chafed. Yes, it was a fun, immersive experience for the first few runs. No, it is not compelling enough to fight the randomizer until you win. But honestly, you still get plenty of grins without that.

I realize, due to my stream of consciousness ramblings, I have neglected to praise the MacIntosh-1bit graphics which are just delightful and resonate with the retro-narrative vibe in a terrific way. For whatever reason, Ink continues to showcase superior graphic design, and Marigold is a proud member of that fraternity.

Mystery, Inc: “We’ve got a Mystery on our Hands, Gang” Fred
Vibe: Boldly Going…
Polish: Gleaming
Gimme the Wheel! : If this were my project I would pay attention to the route randomizer, and ensure refueling opportunities are presented frequently enough to avoid dead runs. I would ALSO double, maybe triple the encounter mix, so that replays have a decent chance of showing some new ones in with the old. Reward replays with new challenges and opportunities to bellow loudly at the sky. GGGLLEEEEEEXXX!!

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

Adapted from a SpringThing24 Review

Played: 4/4/24
Playtime: 15min, two passes

I know I just said two passes, but this is a one playthrough game. It pretty crisply tells you exactly what it is up front - an exploration/simulation of the grey area between sleep and wake. The presentation is terrific - swirling backgrounds of symbolic dream images or sleepiness-contorted real world fragments. I think the plunging, swirling staircase was my favorite. It also plays with font and layout in intriguing and evocative ways very much adhering to its mission statement.

The story it tells is drowning in specificity, to its great benefit. It’s not trying to be a general dream state, with shadowy details that might or might not resonate with you the reader. It presents a protagonist of specific experiences, well and tightly described, then sleepily distorts those vignettes. That is its true power. Those specific details are our entry into this halfway-state. Only by understanding what clear looks like to we appreciate the depths of murky. I was swept along in its thrall, and happily report it delivers its intent with panache and confidence.

My first playthrough left me in a happy fog, kind of like an hour into an evening of edibles. Uh, so I’m told. Always leave them wanting more, right? Well, when I want more, I want MORE. In this case, that meant revisiting this short work.

Peppered throughout the proceedings are occasions where you get to select sleep v wakefulness. I decided to poke a bit, see what those choices amounted to. This was a mistake. During first playthrough, my selections had everything to do with the ebb and flow of the dreamstate. Where did it FEEL like I was going. That was cool.

Second time, deliberately playing with it, it looked to me like those choices had no effect on the narrative. Worse, the way I determined that was making a choice, then going back and making the other choice. Sometimes this was not possible, but when it was I detected no difference in the subsequent text. It didn’t seem to matter which choice you made. Except it did, because making a choice and rolling with it kept you in the flow of the piece. Stutter-stepping back and forth shattered that calm and effectively destroyed the mood of the piece. Which was really its whole point!

Learn from my mistakes, team. This is a really cool one-off experience. Like my oft-cited butterfly, examining it closely wrecks it.

Mystery, Inc: Shaggy. You know why.
Vibe: Pre-Munchies Fog
Polish: Smooth
Gimme the Wheel! : What would I do if it were my project? Good question, it is very accomplished at going after its goals. I think I would expand the use of music. Ambient sounds often try to reflect the current scene, but their transitions to new scenes are usually abrupt. Rather than disrupt the flow, I think I would commit to an unbroken, dreamy soundtrack. Music could powerfully underline the mood it is going for. Even better if you could engineer smooth thematic changes as the game progresses and avoid those jarring cuts.

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

Adapted from a SpringThing24 Review

Played: 4/4/24
Playtime: 30 min

Up front, the game told me this was part of an ongoing series to which I had no prior exposure. These disclaimers immediately prompt the question, ‘Am I too background disadvantaged to appreciate this?’ My success rate with these kinds of things is pretty high - Series like Little Match Girl and Lady Thalia notably ease new players in without friction and quickly get us in the swim.

Beseech didn’t quite achieve those heights. Interestingly though, for a while, it used that opacity to its advantage, creating an interesting frisson between a world that of course knew who our Power Throuple was, and me who was desperately trying to catch up. If I’m honest though, that frisson was kind of an artificial boost. There were some narrative choices and gameplay choices that didn’t play for me, and absent that ‘gotta figure out what’s going on here!’ charge, would have tired of it much sooner than I did.

The first narrative sin, for me, was the Power Throuple themselves. Cast as uber-Space-Marines who were so valuable that military structure bent over backwards to accommodate their flagrant insubordination. You know what that kind of double standard does to unit discipline? No, the work does not know. And worse, the Throuple were so, so, so smug about it. About the only time I can tolerate this kind of archetype is either when they subvert their competence somehow, or when we fast forward into outlandish pulp adventure. Beseech did neither.

The second narrative sin, though perhaps specific to new readers, was that their identity was revealed so offhandedly, so late in the story, that it was very much a ‘burying the lead’ moment. They are (Spoiler - click to show)Horny Space Demons! Maybe I could have learned that a lot earlier, certainly before they go on a mission? The reveal was so vastly underplayed as to effectively be anti-climax.

The last narrative sin was lack of interesting conflict. They were presented at the jump as final-resort weapons of irresistible effectiveness. They were employed as such. Sure enough, they lived up to that reputation. There were no reversals, no intricate plans, not even any portrayal of HOW irresistible they were. Hell, there wasn’t even any conflict - (Spoiler - click to show)the antagonist surrendered without protest, and in fact went out of his way to say how awesome they were. Uncharitably, the arc of the piece was ‘We are awesome. The enemy agrees. Now reward us!’

Now, as part of an ongoing series of games, maybe this isn’t so terrible? Maybe this is just a low-stakes interlude (as suggested by introduction) between high stakes adventures. It’s not unreasonable to see it that way. For me though, as a standalone story without background literacy, it did not work.

The narrative was not my only friction with this piece. The Twine link-select UI also chafed at me. Visually, it was attractive. A futuristic font with unique highlighting on choice links. The problem was, there were two types of links. The first was an aside - some comment on things going on. These were actually the best part of the piece. The wry aside observations from the protagonist were funny in their often blatant horniness. The second kind of link was the ‘proceed with story’ link. I did not detect any links of the ‘affect the narrative’ variety. The problem was that the words chosen as links gave no clue which type they were- not in phrasing or position. An example (choices bolded):

"There was no hail of gunfire, no clouds of smoke and war. Instead we were greeted with something shocking. Something none of us thought we would ever see in our life times."

You might expect from that construct that the first link would provide some additional detail, while the second would naturally push the scene forward. No, it was the opposite. The work did this ALL THE TIME. This example is somewhat atypical anyway, in that more often, the highlighted words seemed arbitrary. Like if they were ‘There was no’ and ‘thought we would’ in the above sentence. Even worse, many times there were multiple paragraphs, where the natural thing to do would be select links as you read them, except the first link might move the story forward and expect you to have read the whole page! Independent of any narrative quibbles, this link confusion drove me to distraction.

Between the character, plot and UI choices, this was not for me. I could certainly see this playing better in context of a larger series, and hope longtime fans appreciate this more.

Mystery, Inc: Daphne
Vibe: Horny Space Demons
Polish: Textured
Gimme the Wheel! : If this were my project, the UI is where I would put my energy. It is a linear novel of sorts. I would give a lot more thought to the link architecture and its impact on how the piece is read. I would especially make sure those nifty asides are consumed in a natural way.

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

Adapted from a SpringThing24 Review

Played: 4/4/24
Playtime: 1 hr, long civil war ending, but hey, no Hitler!

There’s a lot of folks ready to draw parallels between the rise of Nazism and current US politics. I’m not historically literate enough to contribute to that dialogue, but boy am I intrigued by (and sympathetic to) that analysis. My antennae twitch whenever the topic comes up. I ALSO happen to dig modern board games, particularly card-driven political games. So this entry could not have been more engineered to my fascinations unless maybe it included 80’s slasher icons. Boy would I play the HELL out of a Jason v Hitler game.

It wasn’t immediately clear what I was in for. Given the intimidating plurality of German political parties, each with their own permuted relationships and alliances, and public sentiment percentages that suggested a fine grained-navigation of cold algorithms, I feared my historical illiteracy would be a prohibitive handicap. Thankfully, and also dauntingly, there is a library of background reading to set the player up for what follows. The game had prerequisite reading! I don’t think I was at ease until I saw the Deck/Hand paradigm. Turns out the transition from apprehensive to ecstatic is super easy.

What followed was gameplay that echoed any number of cardboard experiences, requiring juggling party and government decks (each presenting a series of unattractive choices), a limited resources pool, and unstable political alliances to hopefully keep the country steady enough not to give the Nazis an opening. History has kind of foreshadowed how hard THAT was going to be. I was smitten after the first two cards played and just totally immersed from there, nevermind that my choices had uncertain impacts. Nevermind that some special powers were more opaque than others. Nevermind that most of the historical cast were unknown to me. I was fighting Nazis fer cryin’ out loud - no time to bemoan fog of war, just start swinging!

I cannot speak to the historical accuracy of the thing. It certainly presented as well researched. I cannot speak to the compromises, algorithmic or otherwise, made to facilitate gameplay. I can say my hour was a white knuckle series of challenges, moral quandries, and frustration with my fellow Germans. Holy Crap was it compelling. Behind it all danced the tantalizing ‘well this does/doesn’t have a modern US parallel’ dialogue.

This is clearly the gamiest entry in SpringThing24. The narrative is emergent, as most well-designed, themed board games are. Is it Interactive Fiction? Technically, yes, but maybe in a way that unnecessarily muddies what we mean by IF when there are crisper ways to summarize this experience. Is that a lick on it? Oh, hell no. My playthrough ended in civil war, because I was unwilling to cede to the Nazis. I got chills as I let the modern US parallels sink in.

This thing is bookmarked. ABFF. Always Be Fighting Facism.

Mystery, Inc: A construct this intricate? Fred
Vibe: Boardgamegeek Top 10
Polish: Smooth
Gimme the Wheel! : If this were my project, I would Kickstart this thing as a prestige-format board game. Wooden pieces, thick cards, the whole nine yards. Yeah, I’d need to lose the opacity of algorithms, and streamline mechanisms to adjust public sentiment, but small price to pay. Maybe as a backer bonus thresshold, provide US 2024 alternate decks.

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

Adapted from a SpringThing24 Review

Played: 4/3/24
Playtime: 20min, finished

I kinda love that there is a “children’s story” sub-genre of IF. We’re dealing with the breadth of human imagination, IF should have ALL THE THINGS, and our chronally challenged progeny deserve the magic as much as anyone. That said, there is no getting around the fact that I am not a child. Historically, I mentally conjure a childish avatar in my head when engaging these works, to assess how these things are landing. We just have a grand old time goofing together, this mental construct and I, like the brain-damaged maniac I am.

I found it harder to do with this work, and I think I know why. It wasn’t the presentation, at least not the graphical presentation. The excellent ‘painted’ backgrounds and animated-cell characters are Bambi-esque, immediately setting a friendly and welcoming tone. The setup is classic misunderstood-protagonist-winning-through-kindness. Revolutionary? No, though maybe in modern times we can use a lot more of it.

The UI paradigm though is punishing, and its primary sin is a common one: injudicious use of timed text. Text plays out sloooowly, not unlike someone narrating a book aloud to a pre-reading audience. Ok, thematic, except absent the verbal intonations and performance that make that tolerable it is just sloooow. Even if you try to speed it up by space-barring, subsequent text blocks remain delayed even after the current words are flashed up. Both choices are jarring. According to my mental avatar, kids are LESS patient than adults, not more so, so this choice is doubly defeating.

The UI has other issues too - the text box requires scrolling, but it is invisible so it is not immediately obvious WHEN it needs scrolling. This makes for some early delays in an already snail paced progression. Even a tinted, transparent box would have clued that better. (There are also a noticeable amount of typos in the text it bears observing.)

Then there is the narrative. There is almost no meaningful interactivity. Yes, you can decline to be helpful, but in a work titled Do Good Deeds … what level of sociopathy are we talking about here? ‘Click to continue’ is useful in IF for sure, but when ‘continue’ means more timed text, its welcome develops some back pressure. More to the point, there are a LOT of interactions. Story telling tradition recognizes the power of threes - Establish, Reinforce, Conclude/Twist. This is an especially powerful technique in kid’s lit. Deeds is embracing the power of… tens? Ten vignettes different in detail, but samey in result? Another dimension of drag.

All that said, the core presentation has a lot going for it. The individual interactions are varied enough to express a breadth of generous problem solving, with a large cast of woodland friends. The UI issues seem addressable to tighten down the experience. I could see this pushed into shape for my youthful avatar.

Mystery, Inc: Talking animals? It’s Scooby
Vibe: Kids’ Lit
Polish: Rough
Gimme the Wheel! : We talked about the UI and typos above. If my project certainly my first stop. On its heels though, I think clubbing the encounters into three groups of three, where the results of kindness escalate the protagonist’s acceptance in the larger loops would better leverage classic storytelling BKMs (Best Known Methods).

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

Adapted from a SpringThing24 Review
WARNING: Review is from an early, incomplete version of the game

Played: 4/3/24
Playtime: 2.25 hrs >7 fails until win?

I made a good-faith attempt to spoiler-protect this thing, but my responses are so specific… caveat emptor.

New as I am to the modern hobby, I am occasionally blindsided by obvious-in-retrospect conceits that are likely not surprising to others. I am familiar with the fanfic phenomenon - enthusiastic amateurs writing about copyrighted properties simply because they love it so much. It should not be a surprise that fanIF also exists in the world. Presumably less porn-focused, but hey I’m not judging either way.

This is a fanIF riffing on Balder’s Gate 3, a D&D-based AAA console RPG. I have no relationship with that property (Alan Wake/Remedy Games is more my speed), but c’mon I grew up in the modern world, I know what D&D is. Dream ably catches me up on what I need to know to provide a much tighter bottle scenario: escape a one room mental tomb with a vampire compatriot. It also lets you pick your D&D Class which, hey, if you invite me into the party you’re getting a Rogue. You just are. If you didn’t want a Rogue you shouldn’t’a invited me. That’s on you.

I ended up on roller coaster with this thing, and I’ll use an early quote to shepherd us through:

"This game does presuppose that your character cares what happens
to Astarion [the vampire party member in question -jj]. If you
don't like him (which is a very legitimate opinion to have, he is
an asshole) you should probably not play this game."

I laughed out loud encountering this the first time, as that could easily have been my knee-jerk had the game not warned me to play along. So I played along. The one room escape is a fiendishly clever Dark Room. Due to reasons, you have to teach yourself how to interact with the world, including seeing, speaking and touching. As you teach yourself, you haltingly explore a pretty spare crypt and have to figure out how to escape. I played in ‘Balanced’ mode, and it is CHALLENGING! Your companion’s health leaches away every day, and if Astarion dies, you die. You can slow the bleeding by talking and comforting him, but every moment you spend doing that you are NOT improving your abilities to facilitate escape. Events happen around you to increase the challenge, and there are few clues what the ‘right’ mix of activities is. He died in a half hour the first time.

But I was metaphorically trapped in this puzzle! The balancing act was interesting and fun. Deducing cause and effect, what is important, where things might go, USING MY ROGUE POWERS, all of this was magnetic in gameplay. I cycled more times, almost maniacally poking into new corners here, engaging the poor sap differently there, leveling up at different rates, always learning. It was Time Looping. I was Time Looping and I loved it more and more except…

…except it became more and more clear that the way to success was to (Spoiler - click to show)emotionally buttress my fellow prisoner, to slow his decay. Thematically I get it, its really clever actually. In PRACTICE it was increasingly irritating, on a geometric progression. Not only because I was spending greater swaths of my day just (Spoiler - click to show)holding his hand, when I could be, y’know, THIEVING SOME ESCAPE TOOLS. But also, with every loop, I got smarter while he didn’t get an iota less Needy. If anything, by keeping him alive longer, I was treated to increasingly unwanted codependent behavior! Yeah, I’m trying to set up a finely calibrated sequence of sensory growth, exploration and guard interaction, but BY ALL MEANS LETS TALK ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS FIRST.

Look, I KNOW it’s thematic. I KNOW it’s plot justified in the most elegant way. I KNOW it was slyly subverting dungeon adventure tropes for emotional narrative and an extremely vital exploration of the trauma of solitary confinement. I don’t even begrudge well-chosen gameplay compromises like after 150 days only NOW does his decay escalate; or famously immortal vampires cracking under pressure of advancing time. My problem is, after looping so many times, I was pot committed to a High Adventure rescue. I was not receptive to a segue to (Spoiler - click to show)slashfic. If that was the piece’s aim, it certainly held its cards close while I built contrary expectations. Additionally, I think there is a missing piece. It is clear what Astarion needs from the PC. It is not clear at all what Astarion provides the PC, emotionally or otherwise, why the PC should care. Maybe the original IP provides this? For a noob like me though, by repeating his neediness over and over via gameplay loops, it curdles to Cling. Have we not established at this point that I am an emotionless husk? This cannot be surprising to you.

Inevitably, I saw the writing on the wall. There was no High Fantasy rescue in my future. I needed to do what I needed to do to get him out of the fox hole. So I hid the pity in my eyes, looped 3 or 4 more times (over two hours total) and nursed him through. Things seemed to be progressing, and then ACT 1 ended.

Ok, that was progress! We didn’t die! (Spoiler - click to show)His clammy hand was clingy and we hadn’t escaped yet, but things were moving in the right direction at least. I had seen in Menu that there were three acts. I had presumed I got to play all three of them. Nossir. It seems the other two are not implemented yet? So after all that, the game ended and I DIDN’T EVEN (Spoiler - click to show)ESCAPE??? WHAT THE HELL AM I HOLDING THIS NEBBISH’ HAND FOR THEN???

There was a noise that came out of me I would not have believed I could make. For a game that needed me to care about Astarion, after I had gamely agreed to do so, it went to great lengths to break me of that then just left me twist. I am so sorry, that is just classic Scrappy.

Mystery, Inc: Classic Scrappy
Vibe: Gothic Escape Room
Polish: Gleaming
Gimme the Wheel! : If it were my project, I would perhaps engineer a High Fantasy Escape solution that balanced emotional maintenance with daring-do. If that was really anathema to the purpose of the piece (which it well could be), I would better clue the intent up front, then focus on Astarion - pay attention to how looping affects his character and give the player reason to care, rather than demand it as a prerequisite.

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

In deference to the idea that this is both incomplete and clearly not for me, I am omitting my rating from the average.

Adapted from a SpringThing24 Review

Played: 4/3/24
Playtime: 1hr, 14/16 clues, right cause of death, wrong drug

If I part the opaque mists of time, push back untold eons to my reentry to this hobby, reaching, reaching nearly two entire trips around the sun to the barely discernible epoch of Fall 2022… this authorspace was virgin snow to me. Every game came as single line on a blank slate - no context of author idiosyncrasies, platform biases, tell-tale prose and fascinations. Just the raw work itself. Ah, such a simple, untarnished time and state for a reviewer full of unearned confidence and bluster.

An interminable 18 months later finds the withered, corrupted husk before you: penetrating brilliance and revelatory insights dimmed and drowned beneath a cacophony of prior art and superficial connections. You require evidence of my tragic artistic collapse? Not even past the cover page of this game, the eureka that pushed all other thoughts from my head was “Oooh! Oooh! I know this!” For a mad minute, I thought it could even be a Twine reimplementation of that former parser effort.

As final, damning evidence of my intellectual bankruptcy let me now proceed to review this work, liberally comparing it to its predecessor.

IT IS BETTER IN EVERY WAY.

The Twine platform is used to great effect in this work - its game-pane setup, liberal use of mood-setting graphics, case file/interview subscreens, and even text organization all combine to immediately cast the player in role of no-nonsense, just-the-facts-ma’am detective. The Twine command paradigm of selecting highlighted links on the page provide a superior framework where links only allow actions that support the investigation, as opposed to a parser’s need to accommodate any number of mimesis-breaking player fumblings.

The mystery is very capably put together - enough red herrings and dead ends to make searching out truths fun and challenging, not too many to drown the player. Many different items and leads that branch and intersect in interesting ways. Even the flourishes like timed text are used to advantage that could easily be intrusive.

The author uses all these tools to push the player into the role of Forensic Detective, then opens the door on clinical test results, chemical names and lateral thinking. My biggest beef with the previous game was that it didn’t sufficiently show its stripes, and let the player muck about with parser puzzle toys instead. It wanted Quincy, but let you be Clouseau. This time, the player is aligned from the jump - get that Keystone Cops nonsense outta here, pros are at work! The work is better focused, and better showcases its strengths, for it.

I really had fun with this one. In the end, I drew satisfaction from legitimate deduction and clue connection to determine cause of death. I failed however to identify the chemical source of the problem. I did miss two clues somewhere, perhaps those held the final piece I needed. OR PERHAPS NOT. Because the first thing I did after informed of my failure was Google search some chemicals, and ON THE FIRST RESULTS PAGE, THE MYSTERY WAS SOLVED.

I COULDA USED GOOGLE TO HELP SOLVE THE MYSTERY ALL ALONG! God, I love that so much. This thing made me a detective and with just one more bit of extra-game lateral thinking I might have closed the case. LIKE A REAL DETECTIVE. I can’t remember a failure so satisfying, and the credit goes to the real-world, clinical vibe the game created through graphic layout, mystery construction and tight UI control.

I kinda can’t wait for the next one in the series. You better BELIEVE I will be testing if it measures up to this one. [spoiler aside to author - that said, there is a discernible pattern in these two works that casts a shadow… beware!]

Mystery, Inc: Velma
Vibe: Forensic Detective
Polish: Smooth
Gimme the Wheel! : If it were my project, only one tweak: the body’s apparent sex is left unrevealed when examined, leading to a strange few minutes of disconnect when finding female name references around the apartment. Yes, it can be deduced but doesn’t feel like that detail should need to be.

Adapted from a SpringThing24 Review

Played: 4/2/24
Playtime: 45min

We’ve been using ‘Interactive Fiction’ as synonym for ‘text-based game’ for so long, it’s like repeating a word rapidly until it loses all meaning. Hey, there’s a term for that! Semantic Satiation - a term that probably requires less reps than most for its meaning to dissolve. Anywho, we’ve been doing it to IF for so long we lose track of full meaning of ‘Interactive’ ‘Fiction.’ Thanks Quickenheath for the reminder!

It has been a while since I’ve seen a work this gamey land this far on the ‘fiction’ side of the spectrum, longer for one this accomplished at its mission. Yes, there are IF trope aspects of searching locations, collecting inventory, solving password and poetry clue-based puzzles, but they all spring from narrative so organically that they don’t feel like puzzles. More like the natural flow of events we’re just swimming along with. I don’t mean to imply it is on rails, its mostly not. I mean the world building, character motivations, important artifacts and events are all painted so crisply and clearly that the story itself makes it clear where we need to be with barely any artificial nudging or narrative-killing false paths.

It is a rogue’s love story of adventure, rescue and hidden legacy. Crucially, the non-daring-do aspects are given more weight, making for a reasonably fresh take on the genre. And by “fresh take” I mean “showing my whole @$$ with ignorance of romantic literature”. The story itself sells its earnest emotionality with matter-of-fact prose that conveys the sweet emotions without becoming cloying. The world building is precise: just enough to intrigue and bring wonder, and crucially fuel the plot, not too much to overwhelm or generate unanswerable questions. If I had a plot quibble, it is the love interest’s revealed identity. Isn’t it wild enough that they are (Spoiler - click to show)a fairy? Did they need to be a (Spoiler - click to show)fairy PRINCE(SS)? But y’know what? Those kinds of things are pretty de rigeur for this kind of narrative. The ultimate climax was still a natural, satisfying product of the entire plot, made more vivid through interactivity.

A lot of that credit goes to the narrative, but the presentation and technical choices are doing a lot of work here too. The different font work, use of color and layout, are all just to the perfect side of the ‘evocative-intrusive’ line. Most especially effective are the aside-links, that provide flashback details when clicked, and even more the links that cycle words and phrases on the page. Those latter so crisply evoke a character struggling with a concept or idea by testing phrasings and leverage IF’s strengths to do so more effectively than static media. Really, the whole package does that - combines interactive flourishes and techniques to perfectly enhance a narrative that deftly enables their employment.

Viva Valentine and Aubrey! Viva la narrative! Viva viva viva viva Viva viva viva viva Viva viva viva viva Viva viva viva viva Viva viva viva viva Viva viva viva viva Viva viva viva viva Viva viva viva viva Viva viva viva viva Viva viva viva viva Viva viva viva viva Viva viva viva viva

See? Semantic Satiation. It’s a thing.

Mystery, Inc: Daphne
Vibe: Fairy (ah? ah?) Tale
Polish: Gleaming
Gimme the Wheel! : If it were my project, honestly not sure I would feel compelled to do anything here. It’s perfectly coherent in form and function. Get onto that next project, author!

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

Adapted from a SpringThing24 Review

Played: 4/2/24
Playtime: 20min, two endings, 4 cycles

I can’t remember the last time I laughed, out loud, where I could be heard by others, on the opening screen of an IF. Yes, I’ve done it midgame at particularly good gags. Heck I’ve repeated the word ‘INVESTIGRAB’ aloud an unjustifiable amount of times during one game. But at the jump? Unprecedented. The artwork in this game is exceptionally expressive and delightful. If I thought I could get it past my wife, I would search out a framed copy for our house.

Talk about right-footing, I immediately wanted nothing but good things for this game. Charged with bringing peace to humans and their sentient potato neighbors? No further details needed, I’m on board! It gives me no joy to report I did not repeat that initial high during subsequent gameplay.

It is a limited choice game, often with screens of no choice, or ultimately inconsequential ones until the final scene. This is fine, some of the choices bring chuckles which is legit. Often though, the focus seemed to drift. There are tons of potato puns and witticisms, though nearly all of them revolve around cooking potatoes. That’s weird, right? It’s like if all our aphorisms revolved around cannibalism. At one point you are invited to eat potato chips. World of sentient potatoes. Feels unsettling seeing it written, doesn’t it? I’m not saying that can’t be used to good effect. Heck, maybe the potatoes in this world just LIIIVE to provide culinary joy, like maybe its their whole thing! What’s weird is not NOTING that its kinda weird, narratively. I don’t want to pile on this too hard, it’s not like I’m looking for sociologically sound world building with sentient potatoes. Its more like opportunity lost to milk some more fun from the bonkers premise.

Missed opportunity rings out throughout. There is a mystery to solve, except the prologue reveals its solution completely. Nevertheless, you still flashback to the entire (failed) investigation as midgame, only to arrive exactly where you left off during prologue. Missed opportunity to flesh out the humor or better set up the endgame.

I will say, the closure was stronger, in that it presented actual meaningful choices including a nice observation of hum…er potato nature. It also seemed to lose the farce of its setup and might as well have been commentary on US electoral politics. Well, except that that delightful artwork continues to tickle the funny bone throughout.

Those narrative/prose quibbles are real, but kind of incidental. Honestly, the potato-based UI and artwork alone would have buoyed me past all that if not for larger issues. It needed a little more …baking… to be done. (Eh? like a potato?) I hit lots of issues that kind of compounded on each other. Despite my giving it a fullscreen window to play in, the UI pushed control buttons off the bottom of the screen, often. Sometimes even selectable text choices. The mouse was somehow super finicky, many times it registered a double click, skipping me past dialogue screens. No other window on my desktop suffers this, it had to be the game. Lack of Undo/Back means I had to full restart to recover those. The protagonist, according to illustration, is clearly a woman, yet one character refers to her as a guy. Maybe my presumption, I suppose, but never clarified. I cycled four times, got an unnumbered ending twice, and the same ending another two times, once numbered 2, the other time #3. This is ignoring some jarring emotional escalations during dialogue. Combined, it lent an ‘unfinished’ air to the work.

Even at that, my overwhelming impression is still a lingering goodwill and appreciation. Look, it could be sharper, it could be more polished, sure. But I’ll always have the gift of that opening screen.

Mystery, Inc: Scooby all day long
Vibe: Political Farce. So, y’know, Political.
Polish: Rough
Gimme the Wheel! : For sure the technical issues would be first priority, were it my project. Clean up text, UI, window management. Get that out of the player’s way and jump on the back of that tremendous artwork.

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

Adapted from a SpringThing24 Review

Played: 4/2/24
Playtime: 1.75 hrs, 7/27 achievements, 230pts

Barely a year and a half into my re-engagement with the IF world, and ChoiceScript feels like a gap in my curricula. I have played maybe three of these games in this time, against innumerable Twines and double digit Inks and Textures, nevemind Adventuron, or experimental platforms including Google Forms fer cryin out loud. And so, so many parsers of course.

ChoiceScript stands out as a unique platform in that pantheon, one committed to provisioning assorted gameplay styles (RPG! SIMfortress!) in addition to choice-driven IF. It gives unique flavor to works that engage those mechanisms which, of the three I played, most do! (It is always a gamble when I engage topics I don’t really understand in reviews. I’m kind of 0-2 on that so far, let’s see how this pans out.)

This is a fantasy story about service to a mercurial lord, and trying to retain personal honor and initiative while doing so. It has some GOT vibes to it, not as over-the-top dire, but certainly the same ‘what are your options, REALLY if the lord is a dick?’ twists and turns. The setting is nicely conceived and conveyed, the story very engaging. It is also a low-grade military simulator. And a low-grade SimCity simulator. And a low grade dating simulator? Maybe not quite, but close. Of course gameplay is choice-driven, its in the name. But you are balancing civilizing a city, conducting foreign diplomacy, establishing personal relationships with periodic set piece plot movement.

Per recommendation, I played on Easy mode, which I interpret to favor story over grindy mechanics, very much my preference. That said, the grindy aspects were not unpleasant. Micropayment apps have long known the value of watching numbers go up, and the game lets you do that! Without the payments! I had the vague sense that those numbers informed my relationship to my liege though it was hard to see those as big movements. Certainly, some military encounters seemed to impact subsequent diplomacy in a satisfying way. The personal relationships… maybe wheel spinning (until the end) but at least some color. In one sense they felt like disconnected minigames I would cycle between, but in another it kind of conveyed my evolving role in the kingdom, and different hats that needed wearing. Not a finely blended gazpacho, but an interestingly chunky pico de gallo. Though crap, why did I say that? I love gazpacho.

In any case, the gameplay cycled around me building to a very engaging crescendo. I did not expect to feel so deflated by it. The Spring Thing version of the game resolved to two options. In deference to spoilers let’s call them ‘buy’ or ‘sell’. The deflating part was that based on some text, lore and buildup, I was expecting to see a more compelling third option: ‘destroy capitalism’. I didn’t get that, so I ‘sold’ and got an ok ending, but it left me wanting. Dramatically, I needed to at least see that third option. Turns out that option may or may not be available in a different version of the game. In the moment though, that was the least interesting observation for me as a reviewer.

A more intriguing dynamic would have been that it was included, but my numbers were not high enough to expose it. Suppose it had been a hidden achievement, then what? Then, this would be a game structured for repeat play to complete (some mutually exclusive) achievements, maybe try Hard mode, and by GOD expose that last finale. But to do that, I’d need to cycle through another near two hours of limited minigames, trying to jockey for different results, and reliving variations on a cool plot that may not hold many more surprises. And what if I did all that, and then there was still no third option??? Or worse, THERE WAS A THIRD OPTION, BUT I STILL DIDN’T ACHIEVE IT??

Could the game justify those levels of repeated investment and disappointment, nevermind clock time of further cycles? For me, no. I had a pretty enjoyable 2 hrs, all told, with a pretty solid story and diverting minigames. It’s not the game’s fault I set my heart on a little more. (Well, it kind of is, but it certainly doesn’t OWE me anything.) I appreciate what it had to offer, but it decided to pull up short and/or not better communicate its third path.

It made its…
(•_•)
( •_•)>⌐■-■
Choice.
(⌐■_■)
YYEEEEAAAAAAAAHHHH

Mystery, Inc: “We should split up to cover more ground” Fred
Vibe: GOT-lite
Polish: Gleaming
Gimme the Wheel! : If my project, I would better telegraph the third finale requirements to give players a fighting replay chance. If it doesn’t exist, I would take whatever time I needed to invent and plumb it in!

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