Reviews by manonamora

You Can Only Turn Left is a surreal piece exploring "the hypnagogic state between sleeping and wakefulness", based on a past dream journal. Though it may seem quite linear when going through the text, the game actually includes multiple endings, affected by the choices you can made throughout the story. I found two out of the four coded.

The game is quite unsettling from the start, with a fast animated sequence of moving text, uncomfortable sound, and changing background, asking you whether you are present or still dreaming. This aesthetic, along with blurred or flipped text, continues on in the rest of the entry, emphasising on the unreality of it all (whether it is describing dreams, "memories" or pure hallucinations). It often veers on the uncanniness of things (especially one ending), edging on the nightmarish.
There were some moments where reading the text was almost impossible, as the white text would barely be readable behind a light moving background, or bring too blurry to make out the different letters.

This vibe is also mirrored in the text itself, as you move from memories to dreams, with the narrator waking up, only to find themself still dreaming or going back into that hazy realm. You will go from very detailed and vivid settings to just a passing blurred line in the distance, real and grounded moments to bizarre and skin crawling hallucinations.

This was very strange, and yet very familiar (fudged sleep pattern with insane vivid dreams). It is bizarre and comforting.

Bydlo; or the Ox-Cart is a minimalist micro Bitsy piece about, according to the blurb, the triumph of art over drudgery.

Using a simple orange and white palette, and the dreary Mussorgsky's Bydlo theme from Picture At An Exhibition, the game lets you control a little sprite (farmer?) navigating through its field, day by day, as an ox cart passes through the screen. Each sequence (about a dozen) shows a different iteration of the field, with boulders, plants, and carcases blocking your path. Yet, you must continue on, weaving through the obstacles to reach the next level, and the next, and the next...

Until... the cart exit the screens. And so can you.

There is very little you can interact with in the environment, only moving about the screen. You learn nothing about the setting or yourself, why you are here and what you want further. There isn't any text aside from the title and the final screen. Only the chirped version of the melancholic theme...

I am not really sure what to make of it still... Monotonous work pushing people into boredom and daydreaming? Tediousness making us wish for an easier time, a more fun time? Or is it a confrontation of how we view labour (i.e. seeing beauty and art in the mundane)?
Or... should we just enjoy a piece without reading too much into it...

A Woman’s Duty is a short epistolary game, made in Ink, set during some undisclosed war, where you, as Mary, correspond with your sister who has been sent to the front and another private who was put into contact with you. Through the exchanges, you learn of your family’s relationships, the state of the war, and the moral of your correspondents.

While you send about a dozen letters before the game abruptly ends, most of them only having some sort of variation in the content of your letters, you neither affect the fate of your correspondents with your words, nor the overall situation.
Granted, the latter could have been a big shot, but there is very little impact with your words, unlike what was promised in the blurb. Though, this is less obvious with the letters sent to the private, who seem to react to the different prompts you are given.

I wonder if the piece should have maybe focused on the correspondence of only one of the subject, rather than both, and explore that path more fully - maybe even affect their fate in some way.

Him (and Us) is a short conversation, made with Ink, between Theomer and Heron before dinner, though it starts with a bit of difficulty, as Theomer is awfully quiet. Playing as Heron, you have different ways of pushing your partner to talk, forcing him to reveal an unpleasant interaction prior to this.

There is only one ending to this entry, one where you finish the conversation with dinner. Though, whether you learn about the secret interaction will depend on your choices. (And it took me a few tries to finally get the right combo… which I got more by chance than by conscious choice).

Still, you don’t really learn who was the interlocutor (though it could be an easy guess), nor the reason for that interaction, only that it was not pleasant and you do not seem to arbour any good will towards that person. The silence answers it all…

Printjob is a horror short game about “labour and machinery” wherein you play as a job-seeker filling an application at the conglomerate Heavex. Soon, you a offered a job and must discover what your purpose in this company ends up being. What kind of cog will you become in this organisation?

The tension builds slowly, with you disregarding any potential red flag because you really need this job, before settling in and spreading all around you, taking over you. It is visceral and bleak, and with no option of escaping. For your job matters more than you, whatever that job ends up being.

However, as good of a job it does in the horror department, there is quite little dialogue. Most of the text is narrated, describing your situation rather than conversing, even describing past conversation rather than playing them out. I do wonder how more powerful it could have been had the entry followed the rule of the jam more closely…

Also makes me wonder whether it was influenced by The Stanley Parable game, it definitely has this vibe.

Off the Podium — One Last Lap is a ChoiceScript game set around a GP race, where you play a middle-of-the-ranking driver on their last race, before they retire. Through conversation with your team, friends and family, you can learn about the state of your driver and how they ended up in this situation. You can also train for that last race, modify your vehicle, set a game plan and… start driving!

I don’t know much about racing competitions, aside from knowing cars go around a track as fast as they can without getting into troubles. Even through the technicalities of the sport (turns out there’s a lot more that goes into the driving), I was pretty engaged, trying to min/max my car’s stats so I could win the race (I never managed, is it even possible?). I learned a couple of stuff about the sport even (like you need some serious muscle neck strength).

The writing itself is separated into face-to-face dialogues and online/text exchanges between you and other characters (or voice commentators describing the race). There are a handful of non-race-related choices, though they mainly affect pronouns or names, rather than the story. There were also at times where you borderline on monologuing, creating pretty long paragraphs (maybe a bit too long for ease of reading).

I’ve done a few rounds, one losing the race badly, one reaching a qualifying spot (7th), and, unless I didn’t reach a high-enough spot, it seems the game only has one ending. And, strangely maybe, losing the race felt more fitting to that ending…

A Winter Away is a high-quality short visual novel about a Duckling moving to a foreign region to follow her dream, exchanging letters with the ageing mother she feels guilty having left behind.

Between the dialogue, the letters received, and the ones composed, you get an emotional story exploring the hardships and fulfilments of moving to a different place - I so could relate to this, having moved quite a bit myself… It’s hard! People you love now live far away, and you can’t just drop in for a chat or a hug. You don’t get to be there for the big moments. The things you are used to do or have might not be possible. And it can feel pretty alienating if you are not fluent in the language. But it can be so fulfilling, too. Meeting new people, learning new things, finding passions… With the limited length, the game managed to encapsulate all this.

The game itself is so beautifully done, I can’t believe it was made in just 5 DAYS. It is so polished in its presentation, with the SFX used, the different illustrations and sprites… it reminded me a bit of children’s book in the style. It’s really lovely!

An Exercise in Emotional Honesty is a short conversation between you and (I think) the author of the game, where the latter opens up to ongoing struggles with their health and creative drives. Made in Twine, the interface and use of music emulates a light Visual Novel genre, where the sprite changes along with the conversation, smiling at you or looking away.

There is a very comforting and sweet vibe to the piece as a whole, and the warmth of sitting down with an old friend to catch up. And the discussion itself were quite lovely, opening up this way about the want (nay, need) to create but being unable to. Really nice.

The Impossible Conversation is, like its name suggest, an impossible conversation, or at least one that will probably not lead to a happy ending in its current form. You (an unnamed person) is having a conversation is your (probably former) best-friend following an unexplained conflict. Your choices in where you bring the conversation forward should influence how your relationship with the person go.

Due to the nature of the conversation, the writing is heartbreaking and painful. The end of relationships are hard, especially when people have strong bonds with one another, and it is the more painful when both parties have hurt one another (though, in this case, the hurt seems more one-sided). The bareness of the interface (keeping to the base Harlowe UI) and interactivity (click to show the next words) does add to the struggle and dreariness of the situation.

Come back soon, Oddie is a short linear Visual Novel, formatted mainly as a monologue from an unnamed soul, waiting for their friend, Oddie. The soul, shown as a shadow in a field of yellow flower (symbolising friendship), awaits the death of his friend, so they can be once more reunited - though he still wishes for Oddie to live a long and happy life until then.

Aside from its gorgeous interface and calming music, this game also includes voices, narrating the text with an emotional tone, balancing longing and grief. It is quite touching, the way the words are said aloud. It was really lovely.

I also didn’t expect Oddie’s actual name…