Reviews by manonamora

Trail Stash is a short-ish puzzle, where you must go through trash to find treasures. Along the way, you pick up items you can use to unlock new locations. As the story is rather not deep and quite nonsensical, the focus of the entry is meant to be on the gameplay. I could not solve the puzzle without the external map.

Trail Stash is the latest entry of Andrew’s experiments in SugarCube, which I got into with his Neo Twiny entries last June, where the focus is less on the story itself but what the code can do or what gameplay could be added to a Twine game. In this entry, it is all about a puzzle map, where you can pick up items, use those items, unlock rooms, and collect all map pieces to get to the ending.

Though it is humorous and you should take the story at the first degree, the puzzle itself is a struggle. There is no indication on what you are supposed to do, or even hints. When you finally manage to understand what’s going on after clicking on everything, solving the puzzle itself comes down to a trial and error, and error, and maybe a win, but mostly error, and an error again. If there was a certain logic in where to use which item, I did not find it…
Even while using the map, I’ve made many errors because I could not differentiate the colours.

Honestly, this felt a bit like one of those old school parser puzzle transplanted into a choice-based engine. Which is neat in and of itself, but didn’t really work… I found quite a bit of friction, with how the pages were formatted: with the locations being in a line, whole pages refreshing instead of a single line, or the inventory hidden*. That made, to me, the entry feel more like a proptotype.
*I think it could have worked better tagged at the end of the passage, with a popup on whether the combo worked or not…

Still, I’ve always found something interesting with these experiments, as it’s made me think of new ways to approach SugarCube or gameplay in general. There’s always something intriguing, making me wonder how things work under the hood. And this one is no different.

The Enigma of Solaris is a short interactive game set on the Solaris station, where you must find the reason for the power loss threatening the lives of its inhabitant, fighting any hurdles along the way. It can be played as a choice-based or (limited) parser. There seemed to only be one ending.

The story was reminiscent of those old pulp sci-fi stories, with the strive for advancement at the cost of human life, and the hubris of it all. The game is not afraid to go at full speed into those tropes, which makes it a bit comical (in a good way). The visual characterisation of the NPC add a bit of creepyness to the situation, with it’s uncanny valley-esque vibe.

Though I quite enjoy bite-sized games, this one felt somewhat incomplete - as if a whole part of the story or a different angle to it was missing. Starting strong with multiple options to explore the station, interact with different elements, and diagnosing the issue, the player sees its agency disappear by the second half of the game - railroaded towards the ending, with not even the illusion of being able to make a choice.

I think it could have made the ending a bit more satisfying if you had a final choice between fulfilling the mission to save lives or being persuaded to take a path of higher purpose just before the end. Maybe even a bit more choice in conversation with the second NPC.

There was also a bit of friction with the engine used, with the image messing a bit with the placement of the text (if they were more to the side, it would be nicer), or the longer portions of the text forcing you to scroll up and down to read the new bits.

DICK MCBUTTS GETS KICKED IN THE NUTS is what you could consider a joke entry. It is a nonsensical and completely unserious game, where the point is to make you chuckle, one way or another. The game is not just dipped but fully immersed in absurdism… if you got the correct start when opening the game. I reached multiple Dead Ends, and one True Ending out of Three.

I was pretty lucky, getting the good path from the moment I clicked Play, avoiding the flashing image and on-purpose terrible spelling*. I got to enjoy the adventure of Dick, our protagonist, trying his darn best to protect his family jewels from getting the kick. If this sounds juvenile, it is on purpose. The game is meant to be a joke through out (if that was not yet obvious from the title and the author’s name), and can be enjoyed by playing along with the joke (making the situations even more absurd than they are), or making fun of the game for how stupid the sequence of events is going (how unlucky Dick is to have to choose to flee towards two different shoe factories…).
*Whether the author did it on purpose or not, just for having that path, it will be a Banana of Discord contender for sure.

While it is very humorous, it is also a very specific kind of humour, which will not be of everyone’s taste. It is a one-type-of-joke kind of game, which can become tiring pretty quickly, if you are not in the right mindset. It’s crude, it’s rude, it’s balls-y*.
*yes, not very smart

Though, the author should be commended for how long they managed to keep that joke going, never once faltering, always doubling down. It is pretty impressive how creative the game stays even with just one scenario, and the sheer amount of branching available in the game (every passage or two, you have a choice). It is a commitment to the bit I’ve only really seen with major shitposting and memes*. Just for that, kuddos Hubert!
*hrem…Goncharov

This was a riot of a game!

Last note, importing the game on Twine give the dumbest but most topical overview of the passage placements. Extra points for effort.

The Sculptor is a pretty short interactive story about the artistic dilemma of creating for the sake of creating and essentially selling out, through the lens of an older man yearning to create his Magnum Opus before it is too late. Through a fairly poetic prose, the man reflect on his gifts, the process to get to the finished state, and that dilemma.

With a focus on touch-related imagery, the entry does a fairly good job at describing the tedious, and often painful, but fulfilling process of creating art. Its poetic prose engages to see creative endeavour as more than the final product, but all the acts, the efforts, the sweat, the tears that made it happen. I was particularly touched by the yearning of the old man to accomplish one last piece, fulfilling his dream, before meeting the inevitable.

Though it is a major point of the story, I did not find the dilemma quite satisfying. The question itself of creating for the sake of creating or to be able to survive has been debated almost ad nauseam, without much of a new or fresh angle to it. It also felt like the Sculptor’s position was clear: not preserving the art from being sullied through transaction would tear his soul.

Another thing that felt strange was placing the time period of the piece. The cover art and starting prose suggest a Baroque or maybe Romantic period, while the dialogue from other characters would place it in a more modern time. It would not be too surprising to learn that the sculptor’s sensibilities were tuned to older periods, being maybe even detached from reality due to his age or current state. An angle like this could have helped bridge the gap, I think.

Escape your Psychosis is an illustrated CYOA booklet about escaping the cycle of psychosis by recognising and avoiding the unhealthy choices. The format allows you to click on the option to process through the story. The text is accompanied by whimsical illustrations, relevant to the state of the story. The entry is meant to be educational.

This very short entry is the product of the author’s experience with psychosis in their surroundings, wanting to spread awareness and demystify what it means to fall into a psychosis. Through short snippets of situations, the entry takes a light-hearted, often humourous, approach to the theme. Still, it recognises that this is not a situation-fits-all type of content.

For what it tries to do, I think the game manages to do quite well. It provides enough variety and choices to make it feel believable, but brushes over the more darker elements of going through a psychosis to not make it a bummer (the illustrations* are a big help in this way). However, this can also be seen as what doesn’t work about the entry, with how over-simplistic the game tackles the subject matter, or how it overlooks completely the darker realities, or how too cheerful the entry looks for what it tries to portray. It can feel a bit superficial.
*they reminded me a bit of the Little Inferno game style…

I’d love to see more CYOA entries in a similar format in future comps!

Edenia is a dry sci-fi game, set on some strange planet, where you play some sort of humanoid character afflicted with strange reoccurring dreams. Aside from your tumultuous sleep, your life is pretty mundane and calm... unless your path takes you somewhere else...

Built in a Gauntlet-style, Edenia offers multiple paths to reach the many different proposed endings. Set to undergo a routine scan, with an eerie timing around your dreams, you get multiple opportunities along the way to cure your ailments and go back to your life, or dig deeper into those strange occurrences - maybe even uncovering secrets.

Though it is easy to "call yourself to order", especially at the start of the story, the game makes it obvious the path to take, the "winning" state, is the one where you question your ailments and look into the mystery of those dreams. Something is wrong with you, but why? (Spoiler - click to show)Some medical staff urges you into procedures without much explanations, but for what reason? Other brush off your concerns or try to move you out of the way, but why? It becomes quite transparent you are not supposed to have those dreams, and your changing condition will make it hard for the authority to control.

Still, it was not an easy game to get into, as you are thrown into this world with alien concepts and names without much explanation. The writing itself was quite dry. It was frankly at time disorienting - I wasn't sure if I misread something at the start or whether I was supposed to have played another game before this one. While it does add to the distress you are supposed to feel as this character with out-of-the-ordinary dreams and build on the suspense, it also felt at times tedious to go through.

It was nice the game allowed you to return to a previous choice block if you arrived at an end rather than having the play the whole thing back. It made checking the other options much easier.

Filled with cat-puns and light humour, Capitaine Chavire ships you on an adventure of a lifetime (potentially literally). After setting up a small crew you sail the Milk Sea in search of treasures, food, and companions. Along the way, you may encounter other ships you can fight against or negotiate with, deserted islands where you can pick up lone crew members or find extra food, and mystical creatures to face.

If you manage to keep enough crew and food, navigating the tempestuous sea for long enough, the game will abruptly call the final trial*. Depending on the crew aboard your ship, you may manage to pass it and fulfilling your dream. I have yet to beat the requirements, always missing something by the end.
*I think you need to have clicked on a specific cardinal direction a certain number of times?

While the resource management gameplay is fun, I found the humourous writing to be the highlight of the game. Everything in the game is cat-related. You barter in kibbles, recruit crew whose name will start with Cha/Chat, sail the literal Milk Sea... (Spoiler - click to show)all to fight a mystical fish. Even replaying was entertaining, as locations and names were randomised at every turn.
(Spoiler - click to show)Speaking of the fish, it reminded me of the Rainbow Fish children's book, with... well... it's rainbow scales. Cute throwback!

Either I'm bad at resource management, or I didn't explore enough, or I just have bad luck, but not reaching a positive end has made me wonder if there is a winnable state with the game or if it is possible to reach it at all. The title of the game, and of your name, Chavire, implies something to capsize. While this could refer to the consequences of the trial if you fail, or the treacherous seas, it could also imply your ship will always capsize no matter what you do.

On day, I'll try to get on this milky sea and try my luck again...

A powerful storm is coming, and you might not have forgotten to fully prepare for it. You expect some damage, but can you avoid it?

You know there is a storm coming, and, while your abode has withstood harsher weather, you hope to find little damage the day after. Unfortunately for you, the preparation you made were not enough, as disturbing sounds alert you of broken things around the house. Saddened by the realisation of how much must be replaced when surveying the day after and the little care you put in preparing for the storm, you think hard about what you could have done instead and...

(Spoiler - click to show)...you are sent right back to the beginning of the game. Thanks to some sort of time-travelling powers, you are able to correct your mistakes, and securing better your property. The storm comes and goes, before you will have to inspect the potential damages again.

(Spoiler - click to show)This looping gameplay will repeat, introducing different element around the house that the storm will target, forcing you to check its condition and prepare for the oncoming storm in the following loop. A few screens will have a timer, choosing the first listed option if the timer runs out. As far as I could tell, there was no failure ending, as the game will continue to restart until all elements are taken care of. It is very merciful game on the player, allowing them ample space for mistake and correcting them.

The UI is made of three different screens: before, during and after the storm, each with its respective colour palettes to align with the background. The background looked strangely pixelated or had a low resolution. The nicest to the eye was the after the storm screens.

Following a mundane incident, revolts have spurred around the land. Previous action on your part having failed, they are now marching towards the castle to demand retribution. As Lord of the land, you must ensure the safety of your subjects as well as bringing peace back. Seeking council from your advisors, the Intendant and the Chef des Guardes, you may find things aren't quite as they seem...

Behind the literary prose, the game is more layered than it lets on at first. It is not just the safety of your subject that should matter to you, but your standing with them, and how far they could go to regain some sort of peace. You will need to play through the story a few times to get the whole picture - two playthroughs at least.
If not just to find all endings, the intrigue itself left me wanting to know what was going on. After all, time is pressing, and you have little to interrogates those around you for information (assuming you don't already know).

Though the game is fairly linear, with certain events being unavoidable, the game offers enough choices to avoid feeling being dragged along by the story. One of the major choice branches the story in two separate, yet fairly similar paths. There is some interesting investigative interactivity in each path, uncovering quite the secrets, albeit short depending on the sequence of action.

The game has a simple UI, with a single colour background, a few lines of descriptions or dialogue, and a list of choice or arrow to continue. To differentiate between orators and internal thoughts, the game will change the colour of the background, adding sometimes inconsistently a portrait of the relevant orator above their title.

While the main story was quite rounded, I found the final section confusing. Doubling down in the fantastical, the game introduced a new character to set the ending. I thought this was a detriment to the rest of the game, as few to no hints were included ahead. It is still unclear whether the end could be a cliffhanger to a future project or if I just missed something crucial in previous passages. I think the game could have worked just fine without.
Still, Ending A felt more thematically on point than Ending B, the latter being the more confusing out of the two.

70NW is essentially a one page game emulating the (in)famous fanfiction website Archive of Our Own, listing Goncharov fanfics - texts unavailable to you aside from their tags and blurb. You can click on different elements to filter the 70 fics into smaller groups.

While you can’t technically read each of those fanfics - ironic, considering you can’t really watch the movie either - the elements of each fic may give enough to infer what they could be about. From the title, to the blurb, or the tags including different characters, themes, content warnings, or story structure. Many will refer to specific scenes or motif of the “movie”, or a specific ship. Some fill the gaps the movie didn’t cover, some deep dive into non-canon territory. Some take the alternate universe approach, others have crossovers (Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Turnabout Clocktower)

The “game” both makes fun of the meme itself with the deranged theories that sparked during the craze and of fanfic websites like AO3 with its as deranged tags and fanfics (honestly). Even though I never really frequented these fanfic sites, the game does a pretty good job at takes their likeness (a more yellow-ish coffee stain background might have been too on the nose…), as well as the representing the deluge of fanfics submitted to those websites soon after the meme took over Tumblr (there are over 300 of them right now on AO3).

Out of all 70 non-fic, The fruit vendor didn’t deserve this?? was my favourite. When is the crossover with the Cabbage man of ATLA planned?