Reviews by manonamora

A Puzzled Soul is a short timed parser made in Inform, in which you are trying to escape a creature hunting you, by solving some questionable puzzles to get to the next section. If you take too long solving them, you’re sent back to the start to try again. There are two endings, dependent on your choice at the very end of the game.

Each section has multiple puzzles you can solve (though only one is necessary to get to the next section, and you won’t have time to do them all in one playthrough anyway), with seemingly different difficulty (really puzzled to how to solve some of them, I gave up pretty quickly). It was interesting to get branching in a parser, and giving the player agency in how to get to the next section… which is ironic because you are essentially forced to do awful things to progress and escape the creature (like (Spoiler - click to show)stealing from a confession box, poisoning a well, or desecrating a grave). Coupled with the sense urgency from the timer, it creates a pretty fun environment.

On the other side, I did struggle quite a bit with the implementation of the puzzles with regards to the timer. Because we have a limited amount of commands before the creature catches you, there’s only so much you can do/test before you’re sent to the start. And when it’s not always clear what you need to do to solve a puzzle (or what command to use to do something, because some are custom, like crossing wall instead of going west, where we’re told we can go). It became pretty frustrating at times, but with a bit of persistence (and Saving at every new room), it is possible to get to the end.

Die Another Day is a short resource management game made in Twine, where you play as a person who gruesomely dies at the end of every day, only to wake up the morning after as if (almost) nothing happened. And you can’t stop this groundhog-like cycle either - you will die no matter what - only exacerbate it. There are 3 endings, with different outlook on your future, dependent on your choices.

Aside from the obvious but effective metaphor for living with disability/illnesses, it makes an interesting point on the triviality of death. Forced to die again and again, each day, death just becomes an inconvenience: you don’t know when your body will stop working. What if you pass out in the middle of the street or in front of friends? What about the mess you need to clean the day after (bodily fluids/broken belongings)? What if you hurt yourself even more?

And so you must work around it - do you prioritise potential discomfort for an easier tomorrow? or convenience for (financial/social) struggles down the line? While you can prep some stuff, it’s not like you can really plan your day/life when you don’t know your state days/hours ahead - compromises can only take you so far. Your body essentially forces isolation from the world (how can you go out when your body might give out?) and yourself (can you spare the energy to do something for yourself?).

And so you die, every day.

Like a Sky Full of Locusts is a western/monster-y parser game in which you play as an Army man in the Far West, whose tale is derived from the titular epic presented by Rattlesnake Yates at the Castle Balderstone Horror Convention in 1969. Returning to the Fort after some unexplained adventure, you find it in disarray, and crawling with monsters. Simple man of arms that you are, you shoot them until they perish/disappear. There's one major puzzle to unlock the final scene, but as the *hint* command indicates: just explore and shoot.

The most trouble I had, while playing, was finding the glyphs. While most where in plain sight, a couple were hidden behind descriptions (so I went around the map maybe 4-5 times before finding them all. But that's essentially my fault for not drawing a map from the start. I was a bit anxious looking at the bullets in my inventory (knowing shooters, it's always an issue), but was pleasantly surprised that you don't ever run out ((Spoiler - click to show)I don't think I even used any of the other guns available, and still got to the end unscathed) because the game provides and doesn't let you waste the bullets anyway.

There's another layer, wrapped around the game, in which we are only privy to by being a guest to the convention, listening to Yates's epic poems (of which we get snippets through the game, the amount of rhyming is pretty impressive), or the other participants' criticism of the poetic tale. This entry being essentially my introduction to the Castle Balderstone anthology, that whole section after the first end kinda went over my head.
However, if I were able to add to the other authors' criticism, I wouldn't have minded having the choice to (Spoiler - click to show)decide the face of the Colonel, as the whole mess is essentially his fault, and honestly, considering the damage he'd done in the Fort, doesn't really deserve being saved just before the end.

Overall, a pretty engaging parser, even with the limited agency you can have, with an intriguing framing (story within a story).

Roar is a comedic action-focused game in which the animal kingdom has had enough of men and decided to wage war against them. You play a lowly soldier trying to survive to the increasing animalistic mayhem. Because of the focus on the action, it’s pretty fast-paced (expected), which is accentuated by the reading mechanic (scroll to display the next section/paragraph).
On this point, there was a bit of friction when I played, as I often ended up scrolling too far, which would show the next paragraph before I clicked on the cycling choice or display the chapter header (which covered the whole page) before I was done reading. This meant the game either made the choice for me, or forced me to scroll back to read the last missed sentences. But, considering this was completely custom, and made in 4h, it’s still pretty impressive.

Overall, it’s a zany game that doesn’t take itself too seriously, playfully overdramatic, with a fun twist at the end.

No More is a short horror one-room parser made in Inform, in which you, a young woman, are given an opportunity to escape your abusive preaching father before reaching the nunnery meant to imprison you. It uses a simple and limited command list, there is no losing state (merciful) and it includes a StoryMode for non-parser players (or see what you missed).

Stuck in a carriage with the patriarch, which you were forcefully thrown into, you wait for the right moment (and having enough courage) to strike back and set yourself free. On a bright full moonlit night, only a little push is needed to transform yourself. Examining your environment drives most of the story at first, until you get to that culminating point, where it hits that sweet sweet spot of cathartic.

It is most obvious (and pretty neat) in the shift in perceptions of the characters - how the description of the father and yourself change as the story progresses, when the newfound confidence and self-assuredness grows within you. The obvious shift in power marked in the mirroring descriptions of those two characters: your body shivering, which you try your best to stop, leading you to be scolded by the mighty patriarch VS the old powerless man shivering in fear as you tower over him. And that mirror is also seen between you and the objects in the carriage (with the lantern being another cage, the closed curtains as a wall between you and freedom).

It is also interesting how the story uses the werewolf to convey this story of breaking chains: the woman turning to an actual monster to regain agency and power in the unbalanced dynamics, because who else but herself can save her (probably not the nuns). Rather than monster to be feared, a way to freedom.

39 Trillion and 1 is a body horror game made in Twine, in which you embody a virus that infected a woman, with the means to spread further (but at what cost...). There are 6 endings to find (a couple are v similar), depending on your choices.

This was an overwhelming piece to go through, not just because of the lengthy passages filled with gruesomely detailed description of body horror (as the virus take over the body, expanding its reach, and how the body reacts to this) - not really letting you catch a breath - but also in the way it chooses to interact with the environment (the unconscious victim having little to no say in the matter). Those in contact with the virus/infection are subject to pretty graphic internal violence, depicted in a pretty disturbing way ((Spoiler - click to show)the ghoul-like section, where the infected woman is turned into an infectious puppet is particularly chilling), as the hosts become completely hopeless in the face of the illness ((Spoiler - click to show)whether they becomes food being toyed with or tool for its infectious goal).

In the excess found in the genre, I felt 39 Trillion and 1 crossing the line into the too much territory, to the point of cheapening the whole, making it look more edgy for the sake of edgy. I don't think it helped with how the illness being referred to with interchanging pronouns (It/He) or how confusing it changed who was controlling the body (the infected woman, the virus, or the voice (was that the hive mind of illness? something different/godlike? I'm still not sure).

This was particularly most obvious in the section where (Spoiler - click to show)the woman is not just a body fighting a losing battle against the virus, but having stronger thoughts and voiced opinions, and being able to interact "like a regular person". Up until that point (and through the other paths), humans were just there, ripe for the taking/infecting, just existing. Almost unreal. But now, two women have names, and background and layers, and the POV switches away from the virus. The switch is pretty jarring and feels out of place.

how to fly a kite is a short interactive piece made in Ink, based on poem by Refaat Alareer. In it, you play as a spirit in a war-torn setting, crossing path with a young child. Being able to inhabit and move objects around you, you help the child to build a kite. While it is mechanically pretty repetitive, the poetic prose shines here. The way it contrasts the bleak environment, revealed bit by bit, with the child’s joy in gathering the materials and building the kite is both haunting and touching.

The Column is a Cluedo-like game made in Twine, where you embark on an expedition to explore a desolate island, with a strange and cursed structure. To life the curse and save themselves, the team must trust each other - though the curse will try hard to break those bonds. There are two endings, which can be easily found (the game lets you skip back to the first choice to retry).

It’s beautifully written, with a very enticing introduction. A rag-tag team, each with its own specialisation and personality, stuck together on an island with no other choice but trust each other to get out? Sign me up! And the reveal of the column really built up my expectations for what was to come. That introduction does a pretty good job at laying down what you need to get to the mechanic.

And it’s an interesting mechanic, as a social experiment, focusing on your deduction skills from the information provided - though it doesn’t really punish you if you miss the mark in the combination of choices, even for the high stakes. Not knowing is the hardest thing, and the game forces you to rely on your assumptions to make a choice… and accept you might fail.

It’s a pretty tightly built game overall, but the selfish part of me kinda wished there was a bit more (especially with the introduction being about half of the game) - like getting a few more in-game days, or talking to the NPCs before/after the choices and make them sweat a little. Then again, there was a lot already for a made-under-4h game!

Hotel Halloween is a collection of short scary games created by young students (of the Seneca Thing group), centred around the theme of horror hotel. We have 8 different rooms, each with a different take on Halloween, or creepy elements, or horror. Overall, it's pretty diverse and creative!

Room 10 is a simple story, which follows a person on a holiday, given a key to the titular room and finding a pool of blood by the door. Follows a branching sequence in which you either realise (Spoiler - click to show)you are dead or find a way out. I think there were 3 different (non-repeated) endings to find.

Room 16 is a survival story, in which you decide to relax before the Halloween Quest Game, except there are weird things happening in the room. At every turn, you are given a choice, where your (in)actions will mean life or death. You'll need a bit of trial and error to get to a Good Ending (there are multiple), and advanced to (Spoiler - click to show)an unfinished level 2 :( . Because of the arbitrary consequence of each action, the comedic tone of the writing works pretty well (the Bad Endings line were absurd, in a good way).

Room 102, strangely located underground, is another survival story, where you must escape your room to live. It was a time a bit confusing, which actually makes sense, since (Spoiler - click to show)it's all happening in a dream, though we don't really find out how or why this all happened. I liked the details of the hotel, that made things unsettling.

In Room 113, we play as a werewolf staying at the hotel for a vacation. This hotel is not dangerous for humans, but also magical creatures, which means that with one wrong move, you are out. The consequences are sometimes very sensible (like (Spoiler - click to show)why would you try to pet a dragon xD ), and sometimes pretty arbitrary (like checking into the bathroom). But it does so with humour, so that helps.

Room 444 is doll-themed, with a bunch of creepy dolls in various state throughout the room. And you are given an ominous warning if you decide to stay. The writing does a good job at describing the unsettling nature of the dolls, and your transformation if you get too curious. Very creepy.

Room 505 is another escape room situation, where you are magically transported into a dangerous maze, and given binary choices to find the right path and leave. It's really a coin toss on what you should to pick to get to the end, and I kinda found myself more interested in the Bad Endings after finding a couple (they are pretty funny).

Room 555's puzzle is centred completely around one very important object, which will determine whether you live or die (in various horrific ways). It reminded me a bit of the towel in HHGG in that sense - there's no real reason to need it, and yet... Both Good Endings were pretty nice, but the very matter-of-fact plug-the-wall one was very funny in context of the whole.

Room 666 is probably the darkest game of the collection, with a focus on body horror (and I think no "good" endings). The recurrent attention to the eyes really gave me the creep - I kept hoping I wouldn't have to see it again. It was a good utilisation of the haunted mirror trope, no matter the outcome.

Jumpscare Manor is a silly tiny jumpscare game made in Twine, where you explore the titular Jumpscare Manor, for if you stay a whole night within its walls, you will own it. There is only one end, which will happen randomly (otherwise it wouldn’t be a jumpscare).

It’s really silly, filled with jumpscare red herrings (like the dusty armour stand in the entrance). It was funny trying to go through the rooms and realising they’re all connected to another (Spoiler - click to show)through a secret passage, so you’d start on the ground floor and end up two stories higher - not surprisingly I lost my sense of direction pretty quickly. It’s really a gag entry, one you’d expect from Damon Wakes, and it does what it sets to do.