Ratings and Reviews by manonamora

Coins of Gold is a tiny puzzle made in Whimsy (a bitsy clone), in which you find yourself in a dark tomb with no exit, but an empty altar in the middle. Oh, and there's a gold coin. What will happen if you bring the coin to the alter...

Well, you're in a dark tomb. One measly altar puzzle isn't enough. So, you also get a maze. And you know what? Let's throw you another one that will make you pull your hair out for good measure (hint: a screenshot will save your sanity).

An interesting proof of concept.

Prepper Van is a tiny adventure game, where your goal is to survive as many disasters as you can in this apocalypse future, AND find a job. With you van, and some dozen dollars in your name, you can pick up hitch-hikers or dead amarillo, buy or sell supplies, and hope you can go through the day unscathed.

There is something quite dystopian about this entry, although I am not sure it is intended. For all intents and purposes, it seems the Earth is going through the End of Times (tm). Yet, your parents nag you to leave the house to find a job, because you're freeloading off of them. And you struggle to get exorbitantly expensive basic supplies to survive the night (and whatever shenanigans of the hitch-hiker du jour).

I don't know... I'd expected small groups of people banding together and have enough humanity to share things (until the inevitable raid from the rowdy group a field over...). You know, more together we can survive anything. Less whoops we're destroying the Earth but capitalism is a demanding master still.

Lazarrien is a fantasy story that follows the eponymous knight journeying through cursed land, as he attempts to recover his memory, particularly why he roaming these lands, and what he has to do with the curse. During his travels, he meets a child, a priestess, a musician and a king – the order differing per playthrough – each, he finds, having a link to him and each other. And a demon, trailing behind him, never approaching until the ultimate hour.

For most of the story, I struggled to see what made it a love story. None of the characters on Lazarrien’s path display romantic feelings towards him, some being far from friendly, and one even hunting him. So how does it even relate to love? Is our knight going to love himself and change his fate? Will we find one of the aforementioned characters at the end, because it turns out they fell in love with the knight? Or will he turn back, return to one of them, and damn the curse and the quest? Is Lazarrien going to find a happy ending?

I think I should have known from the start it was going to be more tragic – my first playthrough started with the priestess, who warned me of sins that unravelled the world. And what better sin than forbidden love, the one that cannot be, the one you fight against and for regardless, the one that never ends well.
Lazarrien’s reticence to accept his feelings in that fateful meeting changed everything, about who he was, what he was trying to do, the meaning of the others’ words, and ultimately, what I thought I would choose when faced with the curse. I’m a sucker for love, even if I can see its end a mile away. His change within gave me hope – how he describes his body, how his true words escape his mouth without realising, tout semblant comme une évidence – you want to hope for him, that things will work out, that he could get his cake and eat it too.

So, when faced with that single choice, I did not hesitate once. I didn’t consider the other option to be an option either. I think Lazarrien would not suppress his feeling – the morning after’s regret told me so. I hung to that hope, even with the nagging feeling in the back of my mind that this was a love story, not a happy ending story. There was no surprise when it happened, for tragedy always makes its entrance when you want it the least: so close to your goal you can taste it.

But there was still a glimmer of hope, even when we were past the eleventh hour, even as I was grieving what I wished would be, when all the pieces finally fit and the picture was complete… There was a way, she said. Things might be different if we’d go back to the start. If we’d tried again. Lazarrien had done so many times before, but maybe this time will be the right one. I could go back to the start and lift the curse. I just need to remember the—

Habeas Corpus is a short interactive surreal exploration through an abandoned wandering fortress. You awaken in its centre, only sure that you were meant to be in this space - even if you are not quite sure where you are, or even who you are anymore. In this unfamiliar and perpetually moving construction, you are prompted to look around the 5 different available rooms and its contents. Rummaging through those, you may find objects which can unlock further interactions. Depending on your actions, you may end up with one of two endings.

The highlight of this game is its atmosphere: a mystery shrouded in its incomplete description and minimal exposition, continued through an exploration that reveals little still. You won’t solve the mystery, but might manage to fit some of its pieces together - though you’ll still be left with more questions than answers. I kept wondering what we had done to end up here.

Relating back to the title, Habeas Corpus, I imagined the building your find yourself within to be some sort of dystopian machinery imprisoning its residents. You seem certain of your place in this environment, but who says whether you came here with your own volition or you were brought here against your will. If only you remembered things clearly…

I think the styling of the interface influenced this sci-fi dystopian read on the story, with its pixelated font, the shaky cycling text, and the old school 3D buttons. It made me think of computer interfaced you’d find in sci-fi movies like Aliens or The Matrix.

Overall, this was an interesting game to play, if just for the exploration and the atmosphere.

Eight Steps is a tiny slice-of-life piece about ageing and the art of kyudo (the Japanese martial art of archery). Following the hassetesu ritual (or eight stages of shooting), the narrator describes their movements to achieve each stance - and how their aged body reacts. The recent pains, the old ones that were never shaken off, the creaking and the soreness that only comes with time. And most importantly, coming to term with this version of themself that fights them at every step.

This was pretty calming, going through the repeating steps of the ritual. And a bit existential-dread-y? Being reminded of your own limited existence through physical signs, knowing it's unlikely they will go away, that things can't go back to the way they used to...

A Crumpled Piece of Paper is an interactive epistolary game, where you find a balled up piece of paper on the pavement. Curious about its content, you open it. It's a letter written to an ex. Reminiscing on the past. Talking about the present. But it's also a lot more.

The game calls itself flash fiction, using cycling interactive elements to display different sides of the story. It starts off pretty normal and mundane, exploring the messy feelings of break ups. Soon, though, as you interact with the sentences, so does the tone. It's a bit bizarre, quite sad, then turns to chilling, to down right horror-y!

You'd think the shift of tone would be bizarre, but it's incredibly well done here. Fed drip by drip, you don't realise until it's too late what has happened here. There's a bit of a back and forth with a few sections at the end, almost re-writing what was there before.

But I think the most interesting thing about the interactivity here, is the tiny "combination puzzles". At a couple key points, you have multiple active cycling elements, blocking the rest of the story until you match the correct words. In the context of when the letter was written in-game, it really puts emphasis on how the choice of words are important, how they all have different meanings and weights, how appropriate they are in specific situations.

This was really really good!

Regarding Absurd Attempts to Rid Oneself of Waterfowl is an absurd humoristic tiny adventure? fight? celebration? Sisyphean IF game in which your goal is to get rid of a duck. A duck which you had gotten rid of yesterday already. But it's here again. Taunting you. How will you take care of this problem today?

Well, you have multiple ways, and multiple sub-ways. Some works, some doesn't. All are hilarious. Among some options: marry the duck (why not?), fight the duck atop a volcano?, fight the duck on the roof of a moving train, put all your faith in God, try to eat the duck... Not once the consequences of your choices misses a beat.

It's pretty impressive how large and varied the game feels with just 500 words. It gave me a really good long laugh for the good 10min I spent looping through all the paths!

Distance is a tiny epistolary piece in which you play as Syrena, a woman writing a letter to her beloved, Davey, currently at sea, longing for his return. You share with him news about life back on the coast, how you spend your day, and wish for his safe return.

It's a very simple but effective use of the epistolary format. It feels so real and dream-like. Just a snippet into people's live through very few words. Maybe the pink interface influenced this, but it's charming to boot. I really enjoyed the variation in your choice of hobby, how distinct they are, giving a different window into Syrena's life.

A really cute, with a hint of sad, entry!

Familiar Problems is a fantasy puzzle parser in which you wake up as some experimental familiar in a magical school, realising your creator is nowhere to be found. What to do then? Escape and plot your revenge, of course! Is it doable? As a blob of green slime, it’s going to be challenging but not impossible. Along the way, you encounter other familiars, each with different abilities, which you can consume and acquire to move around the map and solve the different puzzles. The game also includes a map and hints/nudges to progress.

It’s a well polished game, with a satisfying gameplay, and just charmingly fun! You start with limited actions, with a set of commands that builds up as you gather more power (i.e. consume things and others). The progression makes sense, as each power is there to solve a subsequent puzzle/block (sometimes even working in combination!), and the puzzles have the right amount of difficulty that it feels really good when solved (the nudges and map help a ton when stuck, but good old trial-n-error did most of the work for me). As well, the game does take advantage of the Dialog program, enabling players to choose whether to input commands or clicking on the actions (or both, in my case, especially for the map and fast travelling the places).

I really enjoyed helping the lil’ blob getting its bearing and figuring out how to get out of the building. There are a tons of fun stuff to discover in the game (the announcement messages got me to chuckle every time), that really adds to the funky atmosphere here. Honestly, one of the strongest parser I’ve played recently!

An Admirer is a horror conversational parser, in which a immaterial presence really really wants to talk to you, whether you want it or not. The conversation is mainly non-linear: you enter actions or keywords to get different bits of text (and open more topics). It is not always clear how much you can actually progress in the game, and how to reach anything but the mandated ending when inputting QUIT.

This might be one of the creepiest game I’ve played in a while. You can’t get away from the creepy voice that insists upon itself (no movement) nor can you really fight it (it’s not physically there) - only endure what it wants to tell you, all that it knows about you from watching you (on point with the stalker vibes), all the feelings it has for you, the made-up scenarios about you. It really felt that creepy, from the way the voice talks about you, how it is so sure it knows you, inside and out. Creepier still is what it wishes from you, what it plans for you. Escalating bit by bit, every time it slips up (feels on purpose) until you can’t take it any more and input QUIT to stop the madness.

This was wholeheartedly unpleasant, but in a good way. Skin crawling experience with a surprisingly responsive chat-bot.