Reviews by manonamora

Seeing the news, it sometimes feels like the world is a shitty place, and things keep getting worse. It’s not hard to drown in negative headlines and feel bombarded by tragic events left and right. And no matter what we do or say, things don’t seem to change.

And, even with positive things happening around us, negative thoughts will often linger, sticking for a while, until the sheer size of it all overwhelm us. This is what this entry manages to evoke with the visual of the bitsy engine, with the thought bubbles sticking around, piling onto one another, until it fills up the screen.

While I did somewhat expected it to happen, since the same thing happens to me, it was still distressing to have these feelings visualised before your eyes. The entry is devoid of any meaningless words and descriptions, only leaving the pure unaltered thoughts on the screen. The Good. The Bad. And the Ugly.

This short entries flips through a photo album, with the narrator commenting on the different pictures and how much has changed since the pictures were taken. Until you reach a turning point, looking at a picture from when you were still a sweet little girl - or so your mother like to remind you. What you do with this picture will determine the ending of the game.

The entry is full of nostalgia and melancholy. Sadness is present throughout the recollection of the past, even after your choice - though one is a bit more hopeful. Even with its short format, the story manages to give a snapshot of a distant relationship between a mother and their child, and the gender norms that may have cause that distance.

It is beautiful, in its pain.

TLN is a kinetic piece, a sort of small sequel to the Shadow Realm, another game from this author. The story follows NBQ, a side character from that other game, still in the Shadow Realm, going through the item that Anthony, the main character of that other game, has left behind. One of those items is a notebook, within which NBQ discovers a shocking piece of information.

There is not much more to this entry, which took the only one option to click on path of the SingleChoice rule. Elements of the story seem to require knowledge of the previous game to be fully understood, and the prose made things a bit confusing as well...

The illustrations were cute, though.

Do not get fooled by the pastel pink palette, and the child-like font. This game is much darker than it looks, and it is not afraid to show it. And it does it good.

If the title wasn’t enough of a hint, the game is a retelling of one of the darker versions of Cinderella, but with a twist. It is one of her step-sister who bagged the Prince, living the not-so-fairytale life. The step-mother’s trick, of sawing her daughter’s heels off was not discovered, and fooled the desperate romantic man. And through the step-daughter eyes, the story starts.

The game depicts this less than perfect life, with a woman who doesn’t feel like she belongs, in pain as a consequence of her mother’s action; and a husband who does not love her. Yet, she is forced to pull through, and perform the duties of her title, no matter the pain. The descriptions are gruesome and explicit, the feelings are raw and quite depressing. And it is done good.

I quite liked the author’s take on the single choice for the entry: with two cycling macros, giving 12 different options, each diving further into the Step-sister’s mind, her relationship and the titles that come with them, her regrets and shame, and her wishes. It is pretty grim all throughout.

I really, really appreciated the way the author coded the return to the choice, without having to read through the whole start of the game or remembering the last option seen. It made it so much easier to play all endings!

Waking up in a strange land can be perturbing. Realising your body does not look right, feels all kind of wrong. Finding yourself in the presence of a stranger by your bedside, terrifying. So what do you do? What can you do?

This short game gives you three choices, branching the story towards three different ends. Funnily, these choice kind of represent the Freeze, Fight, Flight behaviour we have when faced with a stressful situation.

The writing balanced quite well the more horrory/odd elements of the character, especially compared to the human they are facing. There was an interesting focus on how bodies should look like, the transformation of bodies, and how the character’s body felt wrong - adding to the uneasiness of the situation.

Visual wise, the game uses the basic UI of Ink, putting focus on the text. Still, it made some interesting styling choices, with the honeycomb link.

This entry is a retelling of a popular European folk story, where a card game is being played at a pub, when a stranger comes in and asks to join. Promising all your heart could desire if you beat him, but if you lose… he would take something from you too. Will you take on the challenge or fold?

The entry is very short, only a few passages before the eventual choice, and its visual is bare, putting the focus on the text. I really liked the depiction of the group of friend playing cards at the pub before the stranger’s entrance, giving a false sense of normalcy - a sticking opposition with the description of the stranger.

The choice itself feels both quite consequential and not very surprising, considering the heavy hints the game provides ahead of time. Both option will give quite different and expected endings. I think I preferred the “playing” option more than the other one - mainly because I’m still not sure what price will be paid…

It was a neat piece of folklore.

You play an (older?) gentleman doing some late night groceries after a long day. Most of it is pretty mundane and uninteresting, until you see some fresh gnocchi in the pasta aisle. Your mind can only think of the last time you had those, in Rome. Around you, the shelves block your view to the other aisles, and a brunette woman stands a few meters away, filling her trolley with pots of sauce.

And in this aisle you stop your trolley, waiting on what to do next.

Though I never found more than a few dozens by myself/with the French IF peeps, there are over 136 actions producing an ending in this game. 136! Whether you interact with yourself or your environment, there are a lot more you can explore with this very restrained environment.

Even if the experiment of one-action-the-end is truly amusing and insanely entertaining (who doesn't like a treasure hunt for all 136 endings), it is the writing that shines the most in this piece. The game is humourous, and dark, has bits of lightness, and becomes incredibly sordid, it is sad and genuinely touching... It can say so much with so very little. Truly incredible.

Through the endings, a backstory forms around the PC. Or maybe two or three. He had a wife, went to Rome with her, but something happened (death/illness/something else?), and he was left alone. It is not truly clear what happened to his wife, or the PC's involvement in said disappearance/death, but what is certain is the pain and the guilt the PC still feels after all this time (has it be years, by now?), making him unable to form new connections with people, leaving him truly and completely alone. What stays is his fond memory of that trip to Rome and those gnocchi he ate there...

Forenote: I am not a poetry person. I usually don't vibe with or understand them.

As the piece is quite short (due to the 4h limit from the competition), I have been reading and re-reading it, going back to the start, and round and round I went, letting my brain be spun inside a washing machine of verses, soaking the intricate (and very steamy) metaphors within the lines.

Though the interactiveness of the piece only comes in two forms (the links between the stanza groups and the word buttons revealing further details), the "story" is linear. There is no choice to make (save for exploring the details and continuing through the verses).

I am not well versed (sorry) in poetry, with my knowledge essentially limited to fables and romantic French poems. But it stroke me how easy my eyes flew through the page, even if my expectations of rhymes would not be satisfied. The content of the poem was enthralling and captivating.

The poem starts with almost a prayer to a divine body, aching to be touched, and continues on an exploration of bodies, where one handles the other like a relic, while the other searches for pain. There is hunger within the poem, a devouring desire that cannot be satiated. It descends into a recollection of travels and inquisitions, a search of a home, and a remembrance of who one is and how much one is loved.

Save for the last passages, the hidden details brings forward a more lustful piece, almost akin to BDSM, adding onto the worshipping of one's lover's body. As the poem continues, the details softens into a declaration of love and loss of one's self without the other (and a small revenge).

I don't think I am done with this piece... for after many readings, I would still discover a new metaphor or a different take on an imagery. I don't think I will ever be done.

Glimmer is about a person spiraling in helplessness, having a hard time to function around the bleakness of their situation. It is also about hope, and the importance of having caring people around.

The game is simplistic in both style and visual. A few lines of text, one choice, maybe some extra interactive links to add description. It is straight to the point. The world is bleak, so you turn your back to it. You face some hardship, so you avoid them. Little by little, you close yourself to everything around you. But, at your lowest point, a hand reaches out to you to pull you out of your funk (forcibly if you resist), reminding you that there are still good things out there to enjoy.

I thought the game started out strong, with tackling themes of drifting and avoidance turning into depression and isolation (though it felt at time a tad too surface-level in its representation), when faced with a bleak world and difficulties in your life. The whole losing your joie de vivre and vicious cycle of negativity.

However, I found the whole second act... dissonant almost? In your darkest moment, an unnamed friend* barges (back?) into your life, gives you a cup of tea and a biscuit, and like that, you snap out of it, awkwardly and timidly claiming you tried to get better all this time. When the first part of the game implied quite some time had passed between the first event of the spiral and current time, it feels like a whiplash to have a "recovery" happening so suddenly. This feeling was aggravated when choosing to resist the friend's pleas does little to change the outcome. As if by magic, you get better by the last page. After just a cup of tea.
*I really didn't like that you would not even acknowledge their personhood, I think that's also a reason why it felt weird.

I still haven't made my mind about the (lack of) choices and what it means for the player agency. I've come to appreciate more the kinetic approach of storytelling in IF, and considering how debilitating depression can be, making you think you do not have a choice, it is thematically in line with the story. However, the few available choices lack in consequence or are essentially disregarded by the story, which makes the little agency the player has essentially useless. It felt a bit frustrating and unsatisfying.

I did appreciate the message the game was trying to convey, but I don't think the game quite manage to get the point across.

Set in a psych ward, this very short dating-sim will let you explore the building, meet different Edits and Nikis. Some of them even invite you on a date after some extremely short small talk. There are four possible endings.

I appreciate shortness in games, the ones that go to the point and don't waste time with meandering or going around the bush. Being able to tell a complete story concisely is an impressive skill. But not every story can be or should be told concisely. Some need a bit more fluff to tie parts together. This is one of the issue with this game.

4E2N is actually a remake of The 4 Edith, a Twiny Jam entry of less than 300 words. This game ditched the pictures, changed the Edith into Edit (or was it a typo?), added Nikis, and fluffed up the small talk between the characters and the descriptions of the environment. Even adding an extra choice at the start.

Going into the psych yard, you are given a choice between entering the building or stay outside a bit longer. This can be repeated until a resident come bother you about a topic you don't seem to care about. Inside the building, you can visit multiple locations, each populated by one of the Edith or the Niki. Small talk ensue (or not), before you move on to another location. Once you feel it is time to go home, you are presented with four locations, each where you meet again an Edith, prompting the ending of the game.
Aside from getting extra locations, you are able to go back and forth in the history to see other endings without having to reload the game.

Still, the remake feels off. The pages have many typos and formatting issues (especially when it comes to naming the Ediths - Even the title of the game is unclear on whether it is Edit or Edith) and lack of consistence (the characters pronouns or POV). Meeting the different characters feel incredibly shallow (is that the point the game is trying to make? I mean who goes dating in a psych ward), and neither endings feel satisfying, or much fun. One major issue I have with the remake is the addition of the Nikis, only to be told in the final choice The Niki are not yet/no longer available…

In terms of the gameplay, aside from the game not even registering whether you've met the different Edit(h?)s or the Nikis, there is not much to it. Your choices feel quite inconsequential and hollow. It could have been nice to see you accept or refuse a date, bringing your date to a different place, or learn of what happened to the other dates if you didn't meet with them.

The game feels quite unfinished and incomplete, the story even in its shortness is both straightforward and confusing. After replaying I wasn't sure whether I was a resident of the psych ward or whether the Edits and Nikis were truly human.

Was there something in the game I just didn't get? Or was it submitted as a bad joke? I don't know...