Ratings and Reviews by manonamora

The Chosen Path is a Twine interactive game where you are an unnamed AFGNCAAP character on a path to become a martial artist in some sort of unnamed and unreal world. Along your way, you come across Dr Syrup, the main antagonist of the game, which you will need to overcome to rescue the Author and Emily Short (and win a prize?).

This is as far as I could make sense of it, as the story is more of an absurd amalgam of references (which seem more done for the sake of referencing), than a coherent narrative. Even with its very linear progression (you don’t have more than 3-4 real choices in the 122 passages of the file), I was more confused with how parts moved from one another… until I gave up and wrote it off as this is all either just a dream or a really bad trip.

I’m not super sure of the point of using Emily Short as an NPC here, especially one that you’d need to rescue. With how influential she has been in the space (which the game acknowledges), it would have made more sense for her to have enough PLOT ARMOUR to not have been in this situation to begin with. Or that she would need the player’s “capabilities” to make her weapon work better than she could. It felt cheap.
But then again, I’m never really comfortable with the use of actual regular living people being used in games period (especially if the person has not given their consent for it).

As a game structure, when looking at the available actions and how the game responds to the player, it does feel like a missed opportunity not have used a parser format (or a hybrid one for the 2-3 choices there are). You are often set into rooms where you can EXAMINE objects or sometimes yourself, TAKE some of them, or USE others. There is also a section where you need to navigate through different rooms, with all the NSWE (and the diagonals) listed - all aside one being valid (the having to go back and forth is tedious). As for the Alice in Wonderlan - like puzzle (EAT/DRINK) it could have been an interesting puzzle of pacing out which item to use to get to the right height.

Kel (2024, words on screen) is a short interactive piece, describing the portrait of the titular character through snippets, each focusing on a part of a face or movement, before closing on the overall picture. You can really explore in details the face of Kel, as the IF Art Show, the jam inspiring the game, required.

Each section is just a sentence long, small enough to fit the rectangle interface, which mimics the frame of a portrait fixed on a wall. You can move from one section to another through the links mentioning another part of the face.

This entry reminded me of those studies of paintings, that would describe in details a piece with such vividness you could almost imagine it standing right in front of your eyes.

Labyrinth is a short interactive story made in Twine, where you play as the Minotaur, who after a long period of isolation, decides to leave the labyrinth he calls its home and venture out into the world. But before he does so, the beast takes a moment to recollect the time spent in this place and say goodbye to the comforting space.

The writing is strangely prophetic, starting with a snippet of Jorge Luis Borges’ The House of Asterion, which is followed by Today is the day. The day you will leave this place. You can’t explain how you know this, but you know it as firmly as the horns are attached to your head. in the next screen. Yet, the hint is just subtle enough not to realise the inevitable end that is coming. It ripped my heart out when I read the final words…

This was a really good entry!

Malachi And The Quest for Attention is a short story in Twine following the titular character in his quest to get people’s attention. Yearning for onlooker’s gaze on him, Malachi performs every day to the best of his ability, whether it is singing, juggling or dancing - though few pay attention to his display of skills. No matter how hard he tries, he fails to entice passers-by to stop and truly look at him.

In his desperation, Malachi turns to his friend Agnes, a fortune teller, who - unlike him - sees many people coming to her. Agnes, who believes in the mystical, shares with Malachi a way for him to grab people’s attention, if he doesn’t mind messing with people’s dream…

With the entry based on the Single Choice Jam, this is where the player’s path branch out: Malachi can stay and listen to Agnes’s proposition, call it a night, or brood by himself for a while. The different paths have an interesting take on the wish for validation for one’s work and how to deal with the failure of fulfilling this wish - whether it is letting it go of the pressure to achieve a certain level of attention or making it consume your whole self.

Quite distressing in its relatability. I liked it quite a bit!

sojourn is a micro interactive story, with a very intriguing way of formatting its text. Rather than having a clear beginning or end, the game lets you interact with the different links to display further text, but never more than two blocks at a time. All the paragraphs are connected with one another through these links, and you must cycle through different block to be able to read everything.

As for the delectable prose, it is really “a love letter to many things” as the blurb informs us. At time melancholic, serious, mathematical, musical, or even cheesy, the different little paragraph describe the things that the author holds dear to their heart. It’s delightful, and I was gushing all the way through reading it!

Neapolitan is a collection of three linear story meant for previous jams but never released until now. It was made in Twine. The stories are named after the Neapolitan ice cream flavours: Vanilla (following the creation of an Ice Cream Clicker), Chocolate (a story about break ups and moving on), and Strawberry (a conversation between twins about their struggles). When you clear them all, you get to read an Author’s note about the game and themself.

Although they are pretty short, each story do convey realistically struggles of doing things with your life, navigating through relationships, and accepting one’s self. It was fun to see each flavour being referenced in their respective stories. Like the ice cream, it was sweet.

Faery: Swapped is a short parser games where the central puzzle revolves around swapping names of things/people in the correct order to reach the end. As the title suggests, you (a non-descript child) believe 100% that the new arrival in the family is not actually your sibling but a changeling (swapped by fairies), though no one seem to care about your convictions. Since no one wants to listen to you (because what else but a changeling cant this wrinkled thing be?), you set yourself to prove it to everyone! Problem is: the baby is kept out of your reach.

The mechanic is pretty unusual (and I would love to check out the code behind it!) and ends up making things quite confusing after a few swaps - you will need to keep track of what is what to get to the end. Or write single detail down and make a plan before getting into the game.
It took me a while to get the hang on the puzzle itself and the order of the swaps. I had to restart a few times because I kept losing track of what I had swapped xD
Luckily, if you get stuck, there are some handy hints (given bit by bit so you don't spoil yourself too fast) to help.

A very neat puzzle!

Preambule: this was a good game that borked my brain a bit and put my thoughts in disorder. There is sense somewhere in this review, I think.

1 4 the $ is a Twine story about despair, the want to belong and feel loved, and manipulation. With a gloomy setting, where you play as a probably mentally ill, unemployed recluse, the game explores dark and confronting subjects: consumption in all its form. Going through the ups and downs of life (but mainly the downs) at the bottom of the barrel, you follow the protagonist's "last" days as they stumble upon a new crypto get-rich-quick scheme all the while dealing with a run-down lodging taken over by (a probably) sentient mould.
I say "last days" because of where the different endings take you.

The depiction of consumption in 1 4 the $ is multifaceted and very intriguing. From the literal aspect of the player consuming to sustain (even if it means eating literal mould), the mould taking over the protagonist's body until it consumes it all, online communities taking advantages of its members for entertainment, crypto shills targetting exploiting the gullible and disadvantaged. Everything is linked in some kind of way, working against/with each other to form the story, helping us (the reader) understand how the protagonist got where they are and the choice they make.

And on a level, it does not seem "bad", as the protagonist yearns for community themself, to feel understood or maybe just recognised and love, to feel like they have some sort of purpose or goal beyond feeling sorry for themself. In one path, they seem content to lose themself just to be a part of a thing. Or because they just can't fight anymore. Which ever depiction of the protagonist you end up with is incredibly bleak.

I quite liked the atmospheric background, with the glowing light animation, whose colour will depict a different part of the house, or the formatting of the text replicating social media platforms like Reddit or Discord, as well as the uneasy screens when you "talk" to the mould/yourself. The simple design added quite a bit to the disturbing vibe of the game.
Just small accessibility thing: the blue links are often not contrasted enough against the background.

If you've heard of D&D, get ready for its unfocused cousin: Dungeons & Distractions!

This game hits all the right spots: it's light-hearted with realistic characters and situations (even if everyone got mixed up with the witching hour), the writing is witty and simply delightful, you get thrown to the wolves without clear winning/losing actions, and it's just a fun time...

... unless you can't managed to keep the distractions down and find yourself failing your players by being a too unfocused DM. For you, an AD&D wolf-person proposed to set up a one-shot with a couple of friends, with the intention of making it a recurrent thing. But that will only happen if you manage to keep your player on track and end the session right on time. And your players are not the easiest ones to deal with, between your TTRPG-experienced girlfriend that tries to be "helpful", the easily bored witch with silver clunky bracelets (and you're a werewolf, remember?), the executive deficient player who can't make up her mind in how to act, ... Many wrenches are thrown in your path, and you will need to keep your head cool enough to get the session right back on track if you want to wrap up before the timer runs out.

I wasn't surprised that on my first run of the game I didn't fail terribly, but just enough not to get the good ending. I reached the bad guy lair, and introduced it before... timer ran out and the party broke apart. Pretty fitting for my I'd say xD

It was the perfect palate cleanser (for when I played it)!

The Film is a surreal Interactive Fiction piece following a group of friend dealing with the anniversary of the loss of Marko, the "glue" of their group. To commemorate his memory, they watch the hard-to-find Director's cut of the cult movie Narcissus. During the movie, each individual goes through a psychedelic experience and is forced to confront their truth and their relationship with the rest of the group.

The different endings can be reached depending on the choice each individual make. Some are bittersweet, some are bone-chilling. Although it does not seem like there is a lot you can do, the choices does branch out quite widely, especially by the time you reach the ending.

Considering the seeds chosen by the authors, this was not really where I thought the game would end up going, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. The confrontation of each individual about their personal relationship with Marko and the others, especially. It was so raw and unnerving.