Reviews by manonamora

This game felt like a snapshot into a life, with hints and fragments into the previous night as well as further back into the past. I liked how you could piece out a (incomplete) whole with the little bits of information parsed through your “exploration” of the room. There are some suggestive elements in some passages (which are quite endearing),

While you can try to get your partner to come back to bed, there are three endings to this game, with varying levels of success to that task (if that is what you ended up wanting to do). Some will feel closer to the song the game is based on, but all are pretty satisfying.

This is a short and surreal entry, where your goal is to escape… the Unholy city. It is not obvious however who or what your pursuer is at first, as the text focuses explicitly on you wanting to get away from they/it/etc. It is pretty eerie from the start, with the interface going darker as you get closer to your goal (or do you?), embodying a lucid-dream-like of narration - with the sudden jumps.

It’s a bit claustrophobic, with the sense of inevitable failure, hinted by the title. You can’t escape your fate no matter your actions.

With each participant given a playlist of songs to be inspired by and to use as a base for their entry, this game does not only take inspiration from all songs, but the theme of the jam itself. Through a sequence of snippets, which you can read in order or at random (like a playlist!), each inspired by a song, you get to uncover the backstory of different characters, they trials and tribulations, and maybe their ending (which you can choose).

The story takes on an interesting turn after you go through all snippets, as a way to link all stories together. Didn't see the twists coming.

The interface, made through Decker, is pretty interesting: showcasing each story in the form of a "deck of cards", with a retro/pixellated aesthetic. It gave me a bit of a StoryNexus vibe, with the story selection.
The game also provides the option of a "cheat" mode, to be able to re-read the stories and choose different outcomes for each characters without having to go through the whole game again.

This was neat!

This is a short and emotionally charged entry, split into two mirroring branches, each providing a perspective on the relationship and set of events. Complimenting each other, as they provide insight into vague mentions, the story goes back and forth between snippets of the past and the present meeting. Said meeting is bittersweet, filled with regrets and sadness for past actions, but also reminiscing on the beautiful moments and feelings that was.

It was very touching.

Made in Decker, this point-and-click game follows Linus (you), a young adult still living with her parents in what seems to be a Scandinavian Arctic town. Linus has not had the easiest of time, being a shadow of her brother, unsupported by her family, and having gone through a breakup. In this cold afternoon, you explore Linus’s home, looking first for a bite to eat, rummaging around and reminiscing about life.

With its low-bit and dithered aesthetic, the game falls deep into weirdcore when you hear a strange noise. The pixelled background sound and flipped palette renders the already melancholic-to-depressing atmosphere to a legit skin-crawling creepy one. I don’t know whether Linus was having some sort of out-of-body episode or some otherworldly beings were at play. I don’t think an answer is needed to enjoy the game however.

The entry used all songs, and explicitly indicated where those bits can be found in the game on the game page and the credits. Each song has been used in different ways, from taking snippets of the respective music video, displaying lyrics on the screen, to using it as an inspiration for the setting and story. It is a nice blend.

This short entry combines my favourite things: wizards, space, and crime(-ish). Following Castillo and Daffodil through their little adventure (though it seems like you might be playing as Daffodil), with the goal of removing a curse casted by Daffodil's ex, you must participate in a little heist to gather enough gold.

As with every heist, things go wrong and flight must happen to save your behind. Being a wizard, you can cast some spells to thwart the guards and escape! Choose the wrong ones and... : /
I didn't have that issue, picking all the good ones from the get go, and finding the sweetest ending!

As for the spellcasting mechanic, the game provides you with different level of difficulty: a description of the spell, only the emojis representing the spell, or both - with the middle option being the hardcore one. A spellcasing book explaining each spell is also available for download.
And the mechanic is very charming, especially with the emoji chosen to represent the spell itself. I would be so down playing an extended version (maybe even with the same characters) with even more spells and shenanigans!

Being part of the ShuffleComp, the entry was based on the song [**Charlemagne by Blossoms**](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLeThsTGTKM), whose vibes were very much anchored in the game (with the break up/hurt vibe, the magic from the video). The entry also included lyrics of the song between scenes, forewarning the next snippet.

It was very sweet and charming, with the right amount of tension at the right spot.

This binksi game is an text-adventure adaptation of the *Jabberwocky* "poem", with hand-drawn background to represent each location/bit of the story. The text is quite a faithful adaptation to Carroll's whimsical (and slightly dark) style, and I'd even see the illustrations being part of a printed edition. While I managed to beat the monster on the first try (completely at random, because I forgot how the poem went - a poem included in the game, btw), it was fun restarting the game and try other directions, finding other monsters - ones you are not prepared to fight...

I think the synopsis says it all: it is a reformatting of an old short story, accompanied by contemporary pictures and music. This is supposedly meant to enhance the ambiance of the short story. You can go back and forth in the story, which is shown a couple of paragraphs at a time.

Though I do like adaptation of older work into an Interactive format… It didn’t really work for me, especially when portrait-oriented pictures were included (forcing you to scroll up/down the page). I found the contemporary pictures kind of going against the story, not finding the link between the specific picture and the text shown on the screen. I think it might have worked better if the adaptation also included more interactive text…

In this pulp-like murder mystery, you play as Detective Picton (the same as in Murder at the Manor), now accompanied by his strangely attired assistant (a sci-fi suit?? in a 70-80s-like setting? the uncanney valley of her face creeeeeps me out), set to solve a new murder! This time around, the suspects are Peter and Paul, the nephews of the victim.

Visiting the murder scene, you get to investigate different rooms of the victim’s home, under the watchful eye and comments of your not-always-so-professional but very competent assistant. After finding a couple of required elements, the game ends abruptly, like it was bugging/freezing - but it is just the end of the demo.

The game does an interesting thing, mixing choice-based actions with point-and-click mechanic on images (I liked being able to “move” around the room and get a different angle)… though it is a bit finicky getting the element to click rather than bringing the image forward (a white outline above bright images are pretty hard to see).
The images sometimes disappear when clicking on certain elements (the ones that display a new interactive picture). It would be nicer if those interactive pictures could be set more apart from the text…

The context to which the game was first released (the *Worst Game of the Year* Jam) helps understand this pretty strange game. This short minimalist bitsy game introduces a handful of "maze" screens, where you must find the element to interact with (often a "sense") to move to the next screen. It is pretty silly and nonsensical, and if you manage to pass the first screen (I think your cursor is "invisible"?), you'll be in for a wild ride...