Reviews by manonamora

*Door(s)* is a tiny game where you are shown doors on the screen, which you can click open or close, and throw them off the screen. Mess around enough with them and the screen will change, showing a different bit of text. Though it is obviously interactive, there isn't much narrative wise - the text only amounting to a sentence.

I guess the concept is interesting in a philosophical way, in that doors can open and close before us (opportunities/paths), or we can leave them behind (changing direction), but that they can still be there? There is only so much you can extrapolate from just a sentence...

Murder at the Manor is a short pulpy murder-mystery game, where you play as Detective Picton, tasked to solve the an unsolvable case. The game, however, only lets you interrogate the different suspects. The corpse and murder weapon have been sent for testing, and you don't even get to investigate really where the murder took place. You only get information about the case through the suspects' answers (who give very little, throwing blame on one another).

With the murdered chosen at random with every game, the whole mystery relies on a he-said-she-said about each other's alibis - each suspect never changing their location but sometimes changing their stance on whether they saw the other NPCs. After talking to everyone (which you are forced to because the butler is weirdly invested in being part of the investigation), you can accuse someone and the game ends. You are told whether your choice was correct or not in an ending sequence, which, if you were successful, mention how tight your investigation was, with a folder full of evidence (WHERE?).

Because of its length, and the surface-levelness of the investigation, neither the good or the bad ending feel quite satisfying. You accuse someone and thrown forward in time to after the court case, told only of the result. Not knowing why the suspect would murder the major, or even how they could have done it... what was the point of it? Where is the conflict? Why was there a murder in the first place? How could they have done it?

I restarted the game a handful of times, randomly picked a suspect without going through the whole interrogation... and managed to get the correct murderer half the time. I think it would have worked better if you could actually do some investigating, searching for actual clues, maybe get the coroner's report or more information about the weapon, or pressing for motives.

On the interface side, the chosen colours for the links made it pretty hard to read with the dark background. The "Undo" button wasn't working either when you reach the end. There didn't seem to be a "Restart" button either.

In the format of a kinetic visual novel (you have *one* choice that doesn't affect anything), the story follows an almost fusional couple, brought together by a traumatic event. With surprisingly similar principled values (pretty conservative and somewhat condescending views on relationships and intimacy), the couple faces a bump in their relationship when Patty Nicole starts behaving strangely.

Unable to go to certain spots or to talk about what is bothering her, the games makes it obvious what happened to her (CW: (Spoiler - click to show)attempted assault), though it does it with a twist ((Spoiler - click to show) the assault wasn't physical at the end, because she escaped him, but he cursed her by "removing space" with magic???). Honestly, it feels like trying to make some sort of allegory for sexual assault on pure/virginal women, but spoiling it with its implementation of an otherworldly/fantastical element. SA is a very touchy subject, and the game handled it carelessly.

The games lays it on thick on the critique of society, especially the loose morals, individualism, and the focus on money rather than relationships. It comes out as pretty patronising, especially when opposite values are presented to the couple -- if you don't follow their principles you are bad -- and almost childish.

And that's without going into the last third of the game, where the couple deals with the Patty Nicole's issues, which weirdly turns into some sort of anime-like fight, with the big baddy monologue before the "power of love" punch ends it all. It does cheapen the whole thing...

In the format of a kinetic visual novel (there really aren't any choices), the story follows an Harvester - an otherworldly being who 'harvests' human memories - on a case: a young woman wanting to erase the memories of her former lover and the child she gave away.

I... don't know what to take from the game honestly. I can't say what the message of the story was. It seemed to be critical of one-night stands and loose morals - almost condescendingly, with pushing the almost unattainable 'pure love' - while dealing very carelessly with the situation of a child ((Spoiler - click to show)in what world was the child given away without getting the father's approval?? when the father was told about the pregnancy and birth? It seemed to hint the child was some months old?). It was as if the story put itself into a corner with having the child involved into the woman's back story and just... yeeted it away when it became too cumbersome. That was... very uncomfortable.

As for the climax of the game, the story kinda pulls the rug from under you, by having the Harvester (Spoiler - click to show)"seeing the light" and becoming a human because of what he witnessed with that case. I don't really get how *this* was the turning point for them to change this way. It felt a bit cheap?

I did like the introduction of the game, with the exposition of Harvesters and one of the humans who used their services.
I thought it could have been more interesting following *that* person after losing their memories...

I could not be furthest from the intended audience for this game: I absolutely hate running. I just don't get the appeal or why people would push themselves to exert themselves this way. Anything related to it will give me the hives...

Yet, I found myself engrossed with the story. Your will to finish this gruelling race, hopefully getting a good time too. Your frustration with your running companion, who is unusually lagging behind and whose condition is starting to worry you. And your struggles with the path, not quite as safe as you hoped.

While you are the character advancing the story, I felt it was more about Susan (or your relationship to Susan) that mattered most here. There are hints through most of the game to why your companion doesn't seem like herself -- though her condition is only vaguely mentioned in the ending, it is easy to assume what's what. Depending on your actions, the ending you get is heartwarming, even if a bit bittersweet, or pretty tragic...

The game is pretty short, with three and half room and hinted puzzles, branching into multiple endings (I think I managed to get three by myself?). One branching choice seems to have a random component to which path you'll end up taking (with the correct direction potentially changing with each playthrough).

It was a good well rounded short game!

We love games that make things accessible for newbies! :heart: walkthroughs

This was a very trippy experience, as lucid dreams can often be. It is surreal right from the start, finding yourself inside an airlock rather than cozy in your bed. Jumping from dreamworld to dreamworld, each with their specific "puzzle" and logic, you learn that you have trouble finding sleep, resting sleep especially. Having tried different remedies (each bleeding into the dream snippets funnily), you still struggle with getting good sleep.

The writing is pretty playful, going smoothly from the strangest descriptions of the dreamworld to a more frustrated tone of your awaken self. And vivid - painting lovely images, especially in the dreamworld.

The puzzles are fairly simple and fairly well hinted in the room descriptions and command responses. Even as a parser noob who doesn't always find the solution easily, it was still a smooth short game, with a satisfying end.

I wish my lucid dream were *this* fun!

Thanks for including a downloadable walkthrough too! I got to experience the "good" ending thanks to it!

Holy moley, what a game! Grabbed me by the throat and would not let me go...
I was at a loss for words for a long time when I reached the end.

Based on After the Accident, a poem by Sophia de Augustine, the story flips between the present, where excruciating pain and confusion overwhelms you, and snippets of memories, walking down a bittersweet memory lane. Showing that love is complex and relationships are complicated.

The mirrors between the present and the past, and the different snippets themselves, each adding details to what has come to be, bring powerful imageries and strong reactions towards the story and the characters. The deeper you go in the story, the more heartbreaking it becomes. But there is little you can do to change things. You know how it ends anyway. It is inevitable. By the end, I felt like a wreck, feelings in shambles.

There was an interesting aspect in the incredible writing: the function of mundane objects to convey the state of things. (Spoiler - click to show)The car is a wreck like the PC's relationship. The offered gift feels soft, giving you a warm lovely embrace, but still smells of the fight for the PC. Bread-making is used as a (re-)bonding moment, but drips of milk outside of the bowl breaks the hope of a good reconciliation. A meaningful portrait at the start of the relationship especially points out the PC's physical flaws, like a hint of what is come in the following months.

It is incredible powerful, raw descriptions of reality, painful depictions of love and hurt.

The entry does an interesting thing with the mechanic, limiting the playthrough to a 60 seconds - though it lets you "rewind" and try as many times as you wish. The games track which passage you visited, making it easier to find the ones you still have left.
I get why the discussions were timed, but they ended up being more frustrating to read through they they should have been because of the timer...

Though that restart may remove all that pressure from the large timer in the background ticking down the minute, it ended up stressing me out so much I found myself clicking aimlessly rather than focussing on the text itself. I had to restart the whole file (because of the tracking formatting) and "hide" the timer from the screen to actually take in the story. The "game" would still end after a minute, making it a bit more sudden, but I wasn't anxiously counting down the seconds...

The story itself is not so much narratively driven but a more exploration or snippets from a third-party perspective. You don't really do anything but look at what is around you, happening regardless of you. A bit of a voyeuristic take, wishing you'd be part of the world you are looking at, but still being incredibly distant from it.

It was an interesting experience.

I had completely forgotten about this short story until I tried to pick up the cookies. I thought this was going to be a Pick Up the Phone Booth and Die type of game, with multiple possible actions - but the game adapts more faithfully the short story than the title may let on.

The game does encapsulate the story pretty well in a parser format, leaving you with little to do but follow the events of the story (I did try to not pick up a cookie first...). It's pretty concise and very Adam.

I was not prepared to feel that secondhand embarrassment again...

free bird. is a minimalist hyperlink puzzle game, where you play as a bird (cockatoo?) locked in a cage yearning for freedom.

Using the seed “Feathered Fury” by Amanda Walker as the setting (locked birds by poachers), and “Room; Closed Door,” from Charm Cochran to format the text (only adjective + noun combo), the game takes us right inside the mind of our feathered friend. It is very effective in portraying this non-human perspective on the environment. And even with the minimalist writing style, the choice of adjectives gives a lot of personality to the PC (or bird-player-character).

The game has also a pretty clever set of puzzles, making you interact with different elements around you. Sometimes requiring a specific order, sometimes asking you to pick up an object and move it somewhere else... Its sparse hints give you just enough to nudge you the correct way. I still struggled a bit, picking up objects and going around the rooms, hoping it would do something... Still, it was pretty fun interacting with all those objects, carrying them on my back, and trying to trick other NPCs in helping me out.
Having different formatting between the interactive objects and other "rooms" made things easier when trying to solve the puzzles.

A pretty neat short game.