Reviews by manonamora
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Malachi And The Quest for Attention is a short story in Twine following the titular character in his quest to get people’s attention. Yearning for onlooker’s gaze on him, Malachi performs every day to the best of his ability, whether it is singing, juggling or dancing - though few pay attention to his display of skills. No matter how hard he tries, he fails to entice passers-by to stop and truly look at him.
In his desperation, Malachi turns to his friend Agnes, a fortune teller, who - unlike him - sees many people coming to her. Agnes, who believes in the mystical, shares with Malachi a way for him to grab people’s attention, if he doesn’t mind messing with people’s dream…
With the entry based on the Single Choice Jam, this is where the player’s path branch out: Malachi can stay and listen to Agnes’s proposition, call it a night, or brood by himself for a while. The different paths have an interesting take on the wish for validation for one’s work and how to deal with the failure of fulfilling this wish - whether it is letting it go of the pressure to achieve a certain level of attention or making it consume your whole self.
Quite distressing in its relatability. I liked it quite a bit!
sojourn is a micro interactive story, with a very intriguing way of formatting its text. Rather than having a clear beginning or end, the game lets you interact with the different links to display further text, but never more than two blocks at a time. All the paragraphs are connected with one another through these links, and you must cycle through different block to be able to read everything.
As for the delectable prose, it is really “a love letter to many things” as the blurb informs us. At time melancholic, serious, mathematical, musical, or even cheesy, the different little paragraph describe the things that the author holds dear to their heart. It’s delightful, and I was gushing all the way through reading it!
Neapolitan is a collection of three linear story meant for previous jams but never released until now. It was made in Twine. The stories are named after the Neapolitan ice cream flavours: Vanilla (following the creation of an Ice Cream Clicker), Chocolate (a story about break ups and moving on), and Strawberry (a conversation between twins about their struggles). When you clear them all, you get to read an Author’s note about the game and themself.
Although they are pretty short, each story do convey realistically struggles of doing things with your life, navigating through relationships, and accepting one’s self. It was fun to see each flavour being referenced in their respective stories. Like the ice cream, it was sweet.
Tag, you're it!, April 2, 2024Faery: Swapped is a short parser games where the central puzzle revolves around swapping names of things/people in the correct order to reach the end. As the title suggests, you (a non-descript child) believe 100% that the new arrival in the family is not actually your sibling but a changeling (swapped by fairies), though no one seem to care about your convictions. Since no one wants to listen to you (because what else but a changeling cant this wrinkled thing be?), you set yourself to prove it to everyone! Problem is: the baby is kept out of your reach.
The mechanic is pretty unusual (and I would love to check out the code behind it!) and ends up making things quite confusing after a few swaps - you will need to keep track of what is what to get to the end. Or write single detail down and make a plan before getting into the game.
It took me a while to get the hang on the puzzle itself and the order of the swaps. I had to restart a few times because I kept losing track of what I had swapped xD
Luckily, if you get stuck, there are some handy hints (given bit by bit so you don't spoil yourself too fast) to help.
A very neat puzzle!
Pro-Tip: Do not play while eating, or just after having eaten..., April 1, 2024Preambule: this was a good game that borked my brain a bit and put my thoughts in disorder. There is sense somewhere in this review, I think.
1 4 the $ is a Twine story about despair, the want to belong and feel loved, and manipulation. With a gloomy setting, where you play as a probably mentally ill, unemployed recluse, the game explores dark and confronting subjects: consumption in all its form. Going through the ups and downs of life (but mainly the downs) at the bottom of the barrel, you follow the protagonist's "last" days as they stumble upon a new crypto get-rich-quick scheme all the while dealing with a run-down lodging taken over by (a probably) sentient mould.
I say "last days" because of where the different endings take you.
The depiction of consumption in 1 4 the $ is multifaceted and very intriguing. From the literal aspect of the player consuming to sustain (even if it means eating literal mould), the mould taking over the protagonist's body until it consumes it all, online communities taking advantages of its members for entertainment, crypto shills targetting exploiting the gullible and disadvantaged. Everything is linked in some kind of way, working against/with each other to form the story, helping us (the reader) understand how the protagonist got where they are and the choice they make.
And on a level, it does not seem "bad", as the protagonist yearns for community themself, to feel understood or maybe just recognised and love, to feel like they have some sort of purpose or goal beyond feeling sorry for themself. In one path, they seem content to lose themself just to be a part of a thing. Or because they just can't fight anymore. Which ever depiction of the protagonist you end up with is incredibly bleak.
I quite liked the atmospheric background, with the glowing light animation, whose colour will depict a different part of the house, or the formatting of the text replicating social media platforms like Reddit or Discord, as well as the uneasy screens when you "talk" to the mould/yourself. The simple design added quite a bit to the disturbing vibe of the game.
Just small accessibility thing: the blue links are often not contrasted enough against the background.
Tip-toeing between feel-good and anxious-mess, April 1, 2024If you've heard of D&D, get ready for its unfocused cousin: Dungeons & Distractions!
This game hits all the right spots: it's light-hearted with realistic characters and situations (even if everyone got mixed up with the witching hour), the writing is witty and simply delightful, you get thrown to the wolves without clear winning/losing actions, and it's just a fun time...
... unless you can't managed to keep the distractions down and find yourself failing your players by being a too unfocused DM. For you, an AD&D wolf-person proposed to set up a one-shot with a couple of friends, with the intention of making it a recurrent thing. But that will only happen if you manage to keep your player on track and end the session right on time. And your players are not the easiest ones to deal with, between your TTRPG-experienced girlfriend that tries to be "helpful", the easily bored witch with silver clunky bracelets (and you're a werewolf, remember?), the executive deficient player who can't make up her mind in how to act, ... Many wrenches are thrown in your path, and you will need to keep your head cool enough to get the session right back on track if you want to wrap up before the timer runs out.
I wasn't surprised that on my first run of the game I didn't fail terribly, but just enough not to get the good ending. I reached the bad guy lair, and introduced it before... timer ran out and the party broke apart. Pretty fitting for my I'd say xD
It was the perfect palate cleanser (for when I played it)!
The Film is a surreal Interactive Fiction piece following a group of friend dealing with the anniversary of the loss of Marko, the "glue" of their group. To commemorate his memory, they watch the hard-to-find Director's cut of the cult movie Narcissus. During the movie, each individual goes through a psychedelic experience and is forced to confront their truth and their relationship with the rest of the group.
The different endings can be reached depending on the choice each individual make. Some are bittersweet, some are bone-chilling. Although it does not seem like there is a lot you can do, the choices does branch out quite widely, especially by the time you reach the ending.
Considering the seeds chosen by the authors, this was not really where I thought the game would end up going, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. The confrontation of each individual about their personal relationship with Marko and the others, especially. It was so raw and unnerving.
Found Journal is an atmospheric kinetic entry, where you get to go through a page (or more?) of a journal left behind by some lost soul. Using as a base a weirdcore/distorted track, the short entry deals with feelings of loss (of self? relationship? someone?) and ambiguity. Illustrations have also been included within the pages, to accentuate the feelings of loneliness and helplessness.
It made me feel very uneasy (in a good way) by the time I reached the final page, but still hopeful the writer might have found a happy ending (though I very much doubt it). It was a vibe!
Hit on your friend, hit on your married friend, hit everyone!, March 31, 2024Sonnet is a relatively short game made in Twine, where you play as Will, a man invited to a single's Valentine's Day party, organised by a long-time and long-single rich friend of yours. As one could assume, where party are at, drama soon follows. The entry uses two seeds: "Palate" for the colour scheme of the interface, and "Reverse a Poem", taking the romantic and languishing "Sonnet 128" to a more salacious and less than chivalrous setting. Rather than long romantic bouts to express your love, why not a one night stand with your eccentric friend or your hot - but also still very married - other eccentric and musical friend?
The game is pretty cheeky in its interpretation of the main seed and the poem, and made me giggle quite a bit in the hidden references (especially Henry's description). It was also fun trying on the different paths and conversations, and reaching the multiple available endings. The game is sectioned into four parts (each named after a poetry term), formatted as strechtext when clicking on the different options. At the end of each part, you have the choice to restart it or continue to the next part. However, only the final part actually has consequences to the ending.
I did run into some conversation issues (bothering the Aline when first meeting her to the point of repeating the same text, or punctuation errors) and often ended up restarting the current part instead of continuing to the next one (switching the order of the links or maybe having one on top of the other would make more sense).
It was still quite entertaining for its size.
All The Games I Would Have Made For Seedcomp If I Had The Time (Which I Did Not) (Oh Well There's Always Next Year) is a short game going all on the meta, about the SeedComp! format and game reception. It emulates participating at the last possible minute in the competition, and finding what people think of that entry.
The game is essentially those two screens: picking the seeds from the SeedComp! you want to mix together into a game, and the IFDB page for said-game with its information and a handful of reviews. If I counted correctly (which I probably have not), there seems to be 5? possible games to check out.
While you don't get to play the games (all of them sounding like a riot - I hope you end up making them, KADW), there is just enough information to imagine what those games could have looked, how their atmosphere would have been, how fun the gameplay would have felt (or not). It's kind of bizarre (but fun bizarre) to play the game in your head rather than for real.
Now I wonder how it would look like with all 90 seeds of this edition XD
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