Ratings and Reviews by manonamora

Before you is a seemingly neverending tower, a mark of a different time, rising up the the heavens. Few can claim they’ve reached its top and stood on its final platform. And by golly, you will be one of them!
That is… if you climb up the right path… and don’t fall…

Through randomly displayed storylets, the game will take you on this impossible climb - a Daedalus climb… or maybe Icarus one if chance is not by your side. Those tit bits are quite varied, from finding nests of birds, empty offices, and many failed climbing attempts, along the way - sometimes you even get a treat (item)!. And since they will randomly appear, not one climb will ever be the same.

Halfway through the climb, I wondered if I would ever reach the top (spoiler: you eventually do), as well as the futility of the climb. What will you achieve when you do? Is there truly something that will change your life? Or will you realise that all you needed was on the ground? Why climb this Babelian tower, riddled with remnants of past and forgotten times?

The game kind of reminded me of TTRPG sessions, with the Herculean quest, the journey meeting others and finding items, and the visual descriptions found in the writing, or the randomness aspect from those darn dice rolls.
While a neat experience, it sometimes felt a bit grindy when having to climb the tower again (but I’ve also felt this way with those RPG games too).

I think what caught my eye the most was the very sleek UI of the game, with the text cards of previous passages stacking on top of one another (hover over them, btw!) or the inventory pouch displaying your items (some angles were a tad difficult to read though). Having both the settings and restart button being so custom was a nice touch too! I especially liked the background changing as you go up the tower… the stack, on the other hand, made me a bit height sick…

Your relationship with your husband is at best rocky, and at worst… Tonight won’t be as different, and yet, nothing will ever be the same. To please your husband, you’ve tweaked your chimichurri dressing to his taste… well, for your sake. Will you obediently serve him his dinner? Or give him a piece of your mind?

The writing does not shy away from violence, far from it. It will list the nitty gritty details of the offences, from the little ticks to plain and simple assaults. Your husband is not a good man, not just breaking his marriage vows, but breaking you as well. Really, this game is not for the faint of hearts!

And don’t think this will be a painful run-of-the-meal story. You did tweak the recipe. You’ve been pushed past your limits. And, when you think you got all figured it out… did you really?
Part of me really want to spoil it… I saw coming maybe one of the twist for one of the choice, but definitely not the others.

I think for me, one little downside that broke my immersion, was the way-too-youthful visual of the husband. Though built like a brick, and having a bit of the chav haircut, the man looked barely 20 in my eyes. Not that young people can’t do what’s being described in this game, I think if he had been aged a biiiit more, it wouldn’t have been as distracting.
But this is mainly my only complaint on the visual. The choice of animating certain text, or changing its colour, or even changing the focus of the different element on the screen, gave the game a more cinematic vibe.

Quite well rounded short game. I will definitely not play it again. Too gruesome.

Invited to a fancy party, you are given the opportunity to take part in a strange game. One you would refuse, but which could award you the greatest of prizes… if you are hungry enough for it. A one-of-a-kind watch that can grant you the unimaginable. A watch that, according to your host, chooses its winner.

If I am being coy about what it does, it is because it is essentially the twist of the game. The text hints at the reason for the presence of each guest (leaving yours up in the air), a reason for why they would want the prize. It raises an interesting question about free will and its consequences, the guilt and regret from actions.

Still, something did feel a bit lacking. If you do play the game, and go through the instructions left for you… most of it is just vague. You, the player, could fill in the blanks, but I felt it did somewhat break the immersion. I think it might have worked best if during the phone call, the player could fill in those blanks in a textbox, even if the information is not saved in a variable. It would probably make the ending all the more sweeter… or fulfilling.

This small game is a kinetic visual novel, where, unable to find sleep, you confess your deepest secret to your resting (unconscious) lover. One that would probably freak out a lot of people if they were told - think speculative fiction trope meets romance.

Aside from the promised weather metaphors and alliterations, the game is essentially a monologue, recalling how the MC got to this point. One thing feels pretty murky: the MC might be a very selfish person for prioritising their feelings above the well being of her lover (as she knows what is to come) or this is a tragic groundhogs day tale where no one wins/breaks the cycle at the end.

At the end of it, neither the prose nor the visual* really grabbed me. It is still quite a feat for a first game to write this many words, and put up the visual and code it all though.
*I don’t know if it was intentional, but the sprites were all pixelly during the page loadup.

… that is the ultimate question. A slice of toast in hand, you are faced with this conundrum at the start of the game: will you cast the yeast to the fire or let it be?
A simple decision, right? Who doesn’t want to have a nice golden slice of toast? What’s the worst that could happen?

Either path taken, the game will dive into absurdism - one path kind of reminded me of a Monty Python sketch. It is silly, and it knows it. It is silly and it wants you to have a silly time as well.

Great for a short silly break!

If You Had One Shot is my favourite kind of parser out there: simple, short, and you will always reach the end. So short even, you can be done with it in a few minutes, 10-max for all endings. Simple enough it only has four commands: N/W/S/E. And very much like Aisle, you will reach the end at the end of the action, no matter what.

But IYHOS goes further with that mechanic and its ‘One Shot’ premise: you can truly only choose one thing - the game locking any possibility of restarting the game, even when prompted*. It does hammer on the consequences of your action. Like life, you cannot go back, undo, restart… you can only move forward, with your regrets, your guilt…
* Well, you can, but not while the game is open…

As for the story, it is written by four different authors, each focusing on a different choice and its consequences. Honestly, unless you are familiar with their works, I found that their style blended so well that I couldn’t tell had written what. I think it speaks to the strength of each author, as well as Mathbrush’s choice of having those authors on board.

Kind of like Aisle, each branch will give the player a bit of information about the MC, the characters around them, and their relationship. Though, unlike Aisle, aside from the direct consequences of your action, the provided information is connected with one another. I thought the twist from them was quite funny, but also kind of sad. You kind of feel for the oblivious MC…

A cosplaying fan of a yandere anime strikes up a conversation with you at a con, remarking your resemblance to a major character of that anime - the “girlfriend” of the one she is cosplaying. It doesn’t take long to realise she is a certain kind of crazy… the obsessive kind.

Hoping to get away to find your own girlfriend, you are left with two choices: agree to take a picture with her to calm her down, or try to run away. Only one is the safest thing to do.

Though it is short, and not really my thing (I am not an yandere fan at all), the entry does manage to hit all the trope of the yandere character, making you wish you never have to deal with someone like that in real life. It is somewhat a good reminder not to let yourself be consumed by what you consume…

This short VN starts with a bang… or more accurately, poison. Realising what your lover may have done, you go onto confront him, and maybe get the antidote to avoid your demise.

You have multiple options to confront the man, some with violence, some pleading with his heart, and one asking Why. The truth lies in the lies, and life sometimes lies in death. Your survival is never really into question, but your feelings are another deal…

I wasn’t left completely satisfied with this entry. With the limited amount of words, it is hard to have a concise story pulling punches. In my case, it didn’t. Maybe because the outcome change little, or maybe because most is left unexplained. But maybe you’re not supposed to feel satisfied. Life usually isn’t…

The visuals however were lovely, and so was the addition of sound.

You were kidnapped by a stranger, for a reason unknown to you. And you are currently strapped to a chair, while the stranger essentially tortures you. You are given a choice, to hopefully gain some information about who that stranger is or why you’ve been brought here.

This visual novel is quite short, and lets you skip the part you’ve already read during replay, so it is quite easy to wrap it up in about 10min or so. And while there are hints to how you got there, I don’t believe there are enough pieces to solve the puzzle altogether. The writing focuses more on visceral description of the violence, making it quite gratuitous at the end.

I was honestly left quite repulsed (so the writing did what it aimed to do!)

Setting the stage at the Highchester estate, where a widow, the Lady of the house, trains her only daughter, Chelle, to take on the helms, a change of plans disrupts the life of three women. The arrival of Ara, requested by the Lady, enacts change in the relationship between mother and daughter, as well as subordinate and estate owner. The game lets you explore the perspective of those three women after this change. I recommend you leave The Lady for last.

With very little words, the entry depicts a sad tableau, painting pained faces and hurt feelings, the urge of having affairs in order forced by hidden secrets, and the expectations from one’s stations surpassing love and affections. But it also shares emergent feelings and an hopeful look on the future, as well as hinted breaks of class rules. It is impressive to depict much in such a tight package, and depict in a very touching way.

I was honestly wondering if Chelle and Ara would pull an Eugénie Danglars before the end…