Reviews by manonamora

Temporal Thief is a moody ChoiceScript piece where you play as a time-traveller (or well, a time-thief), trying to change fate (their fate). With a dark modern fantasy setting, the prose really embodies the atmosphere of those gloomy back street, where nothing good ever happens. As to whether you do change things, only rewinds will tell…

Obsessive Tendencies is a short branching piece about the hold obsessive tendencies can have on people, and how it can disrupts someone’s state. Told from a very personal perspective, the piece shows some harsh realities of seeing themselves becoming obsessive specifically over fictional characters, knowing something is not quite right about it, but being unable to find a suitable solution to overcome it. A courageous effort.

Census is a short ink conversation between a retired widowed teacher and a strange census caller. The census starts pretty simple, asking (insistently) your run-of-the-mill questions. Though… something seems off about the questions asked and their responses. The hint of uneasiness from the conversation veer the short piece into horror territory… unless you hung up.

the vile want is a short piece in Twine set in an undescribed fantasy world, where you are a (elven?) fighter having a final showdown with their nemesis (I think? you are not told how/why). After such a long time since you last saw him, with your hatred fuelling you forward, you get to confront that person, and end him. Yet, you still hesitate to finally fulfil this want of yours. A very absorbing prose.

A Dodecapedic Box is a tiny parser where you are being chased by a dodecapedic box and must find a way for it to make it stop (or at least calm down). It involves fairly simple puzzles (AND YOU HAVING TO DO CRIMES!!), even if they are not always very sensible (I SAID CRIME) or logical at first glance. Still, with the absurd situation of it all (maybe it’s just all a dream), it was a pretty fun parser to complete! Quick and easy!

Oh Father, Please is a short interactive piece about a trans experience, being outed to an unsupportive parent and abused by said parent in retaliation. Your father, outraged by the new information, demands you give up parts of yourself to appease his sensibilities. You get to choose (or refuse) which part you can leave without to deflect his anger - the more important to your identity, the calmer he gets. But all comes with a price. Staying authentic to yourself bring his wrath, relenting to his request forces you back into a role that does not fit with you.
It’s pretty sad.

The One With Antlers is a fantasy mini-piece, where a knight returns to the castle with a Princess (which he probably rescued?) but meets a strange man on the way. Approaching it, they realise the man is more creature, with antlers and hooves: a satyr blocking their path, a dangerous aura defusing from it. There are a few options to go around it, though, none really lead to a happy resolution. A neat darker retelling of the princess rescue trope.

Bluebeard’s Not-Wives is a kinetic retelling of the Bluebeard story, in which you play one of the wives of Bluebeard ahead of the marriage. Except, the prose breaks the original mould about Bluebeard and his wife. Bluebeard is not some tyrannical blood-thirsty husband, but a misunderstood soul dealing with prejudice. And though the wives are never to be seen, you are not fearful of this terminal fate, for living as society demands of you actually feels like death.

The entry does a wonderful job at building the story, bringing the pieces together in such a lovely way, leading to a very touching end. It was very sweet, and though I would read a whole book of this, perfect the way it just is.

Thread unlocked. is a short interactive chat-sim like piece. Following a rough discussion, a (Forum?) thread is unlocked, enabling you to post something. Unknowing of the previous messages, you are given four different choices of words, leading to one of 36 different possible sentences (which you don’t know the content of either).

Ranging from short and sweet (which really makes you wonder what happened in that thread), to pretty antagonistic (which also makes you wonder what kind of arguments we had to deal with), with so few words, the piece does a pretty good job at giving a limited snapshot of what you could see after a Forum argument, when tension has supposedly died down and everyone has moved on. How so little words can really swift the vibe of a thread one way or another. Words that you know will just kill the thread for real, or see another way of doubling down (and maybe some stronger moderation action).

There is something slightly triggering about the first four words on the screen: Thread Unlocked. Slowmode Off. As some sort of slithering anxiety finding its way through your throat and tightening it more and more, as the worry, of people barging in back in and restart the argument that required the thread to be locked in the first place, just… bursts (these threads are emotionally draining).

I don’t think I’ll be able to look at another locked thread and not be reminded of this piece. Also a good reminder to pick your words… or just avoid posting? Yeah… sometimes it’s the best way of action.

maybe if i can find the right words. is a short emotional Twine piece about friendship drifting apart, and the induced anxiety of experiencing your friends ghosting you. You flip through snapshots, describing different moments of the feeling friendship, as you wonder what went wrong, and what you could do to fix things. But it’s pretty hard to fix things if the other person doesn’t interact with you.
One small thing, the interface kept flickering in the colour of the page when I clicked, which made reading a bit annoying.