Reviews by manonamora
singlechoice
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Orbiting around the largest moon of our solar system, your ship is in a dire situation, and you are no better. Waking up with missing memory, and no way to get it back, you must find what happened to your ship… and how to get out of it before it is too late!
With choice options formatted like parsers, with the trusty > before the text, or even behaving like one, when looking at the actions (examine, move to a different room, interact with…), the game still restrict you in what you can actually do, giving you humourous reasons to why you can’t do a certain action (YOU REALLY DON’T WANT TO KNOW). Until the final show down…
This final part is actually quite interesting in terms of gameplay, giving you the option to a limited NewGame+ after your choice. I highly recommend to play through it all, as it will provide even more context to how you arrived to this situation, why you got there, and maybe even find a way to save yourself.
Some locked actions on that screen only become available if you perform another one before the reboot, giving you multiple multiple opportunities to reach a satisfying end. It was fun to piece the whole backstory together from the little bits and pieces each option provided.
I’ve quite enjoyed my time on the ship but I’ll let the fighting the cultist mecha dragon to another player now…
In a retro black and white UI, Tauvigjuaq send up into a post-nuclear winter future, following a small community of nomads trying to survive the winter, away from the rest of civilisation. Though your life is harsh, it is about to get even harder when the news of the matriarch’s passing reaches the camp. Assured it was foul play, you are tasked to investigate.
The game is fairly short and linear, with the choice being expectedly accusing the potential murderer. But before this penultimate task, you will come across suspicious individuals, wonky alibis, nonsensical accusations, worrying news, and forbidden objects. It is your job to piece the events together correctly.
I’d love to say my suspicions were right, but I just failed completely…
I found the choice options quite interesting. Not because you could accuse yourself, but also because the game delve into the consequences of the accusation for yourself, and most importantly the tribe. Different endings are included in the game, some pretty negatives, some more positive, and some… well…
It was nice to have a button to go back to the final choice without having to go through the whole story again. Especially to check out the other endings. The illustrations and patterned background helped enhance the vibe of the game as well.
Another Round is by far the chunkiest entry of the Single Choice Jam, clocking over 25k words. Set in a fantastical world where demons and humans coexist, you are Maddie, a probably depressed, definitely broken-hearted, lesbian drowning her sorrow at the Haven bar, trying failing to ignore her ex. But, you are also clearly not over her…
The game has an interesting gameplay: stuck with only one choice, it smartly uses a restart mechanism to both let you every aspect of the story and advance it (restarting felt a bit loopy/groundhog-y, I digged it!). Each start felt a bit eerie, as things both stayed the same and were just different enough to realise something was not… quite right. Every round culminates to THE choice. And it hits every. single. time.
I thought the story discussed a particularly interesting topic throughout the game: relationships, the labels of those relationships, and the expectations around them. Can we really think of relationships are purely transactional when removing all the mushy feelings that come with it? Should we try to change ourselves to fit the mold set by the other, even if it hurts us? Should we have expectations from the other and how to communicate them? How much of yourself do you lose in a relationship? How much of yourself should your refuse to give up?
There is honestly a nice and believable progression during the game, of the character realising how wrong things actually were, how mistaken her actions were and how hurtful they made her then-other half. It is not just communicated through dialogue between the player and her ex or her friend, but also through her snarky thoughts, disassociating daydreaming. Bits and pieces are dripped on the page, slowly painting a truthful picture of reality.
I particularly enjoyed the earnestness of Maddie, in wanting to ensure the safety of her ex. Though her action are more than flawed, disregarding almost the agency of the other woman, you can’t help but root for her. Maybe not to rekindle the relationship, but save her friend. The different path of actions taken between rounds and their sequences were particularly satisfying.
This was a pretty well rounded game all and all!
While one the short side, this parser is still much longer than its title promises. Set somewhat like an escape room, you must find three words to complete the simulation and escape a doorless room. Easy, right? Well… no. You can only do one action before the simulation ends and you need to reboot it.
Forced to replay the game until you find all elements to complete the puzzle, the game forces you to think about your previous action, as it does not track it on screen. You can look at different objects around the room, as well as manipulating them to discover the room’s secrets. But remember, the room resets when the simulation ends!
The Sysiphian gameplay is quite interesting and pretty smart. It really makes you think about the information you have on the screen before you have to reload the game. Examining every single element in the room will give you and idea of what you can interact with… and most importantly how. The hints parsed throughout the rooms are quite cleverly done (though it took me a while to find some of them - thank you Help for putting me out of my misery). The first word is probably the easiest to find, and as soon as you understand the logic in it, the other needed words will follow quite easily (or go check the help section, like I did :P )
It is a very neat small parser experience, and I would recommend to anyone with 30min to spare.
The trolley problem is as old as… well the invention of the trolley. And has plagued everyone with its ethical conundrum: do you act and change its trajectory, or will your inaction act for you? There have been hundreds and maybe thousands of iteration of this problem, with different amount of people on the tracks, the kinds of person on the tracks, animation instead of humans, close family members specifically… The possibility is essentially endless.
However, this might be the first time I’ve seen someone looking at what happens after the lever is pulled. What does your conscience say about this act/inaction? Are there consequences? Is pulling the lever actually the path of least destruction? Should we actually all pull the lever?
TTPP tries to answer these questions in a humourous manner, linking unlikely accidents to an already unlikely event. (I mean who has to handle trolley courses like this…). The consequences are so dire, you may have had triggered WWIII… Think about what you’ve done!
Though, one could argue the game is simply mocking this moral disagreement (why are we forced to choose between a utilitarian answer to save the many or refusing to participate in an already morally wrong situation? who are we to decide how worthy a human life is?).
Having played this author’s Neo Twiny entry, I was really looking forward to reviewing this one. And it was as expected: humourous, kind of campy, and a bit of a fun time.
One downside for me: after the choice, the text appeared a bit too fast, and the colour changed quite abruptly between screens, not a comfortable experience.
In this cinematic VN, you are Player, a drunkard jazz piano player stuck in Limbo, drinking your days away. Paired with three other stuck souls, Buddy, Big, and Chip, you must put on a show to earn your deliverance. One small problem… If you mess up, you will spend eternity in an endless pit… and Buddy is at best a mediocre saxophone player.
At the eleventh hour, you are face with a choice: save yourself but at a cost, or reject change and stay in Limbo forever.
The story kind of reminded me of Grim Fandango, with the stuck souls trying to reach a peaceful state, and you in the middle, trying to find your way. But unlike out favourite skeleton, our job is to play jazz, not sell packages to paradise. And you are riddled with guilt over what happened around your death.
The consequences of the choice might feel quite expected by the time you get to it. But it still holds its emotional weight - I don’t really want to spoil the twists. Though, without its impressive UI and formatting, it might not have.
I think I will end this review on what is probably the most impressive aspect of this game: how polish it is. From the choice of sound, to the sprites, from the formatting of the text to the sequence of screens, the game screams I have been worked on for days and every single bit of code has been checked and tested so many times my devs can’t take it anymore. Essentially the whole vibe is on point!
An excellent collaborative entry.
We all know the myth of Eurydice and Orpheus: man goes to rescue woman, king of the underworld agrees under conditions, rules are broken, everyone is devastated. But, what happens after? And what would have happened if Orpheus hadn’t turned back?
This author has an answer: it is so very wrong. No matter your choice, no matter whether you follow the original story or take your own path, it will not be what you expect. Either way is the stuff of nightmares. It is really gross.
And it makes the myth even more tragic than it already is. Those epics transcribed long ago don’t really take into account all the nitty and gritty of everyday life, or what would happen if you couldn’t die (or if you did).
The use of click-to-reveal the next block increases the anticipation of what is to come. And even as you enter the most disturbing part, you can’t really look away. You have to click until you reach the end. You have to know the end.
Ever met a drink or a food that could talk to you while you were ingesting it? Me either… but I feel like if I were at a low point in my life, I too would want a friendly ear (or well, voice) keeping me company and maybe even helping me through things. Because sometimes it’s just easier to talk to an inanimate object than unload your feeling onto another being.
But this soda is even more special: it is not only sentient, it can also remember thoughts and memories of people who drank soda before. Like your brother at his seventh birthday party, or you mother throughout her life (even though she claimed to hate them). Able to retell those memories to you (old or new), Soda tries to bring you comfort through what seems to be a hard time. Remind you you are not completely alone.
Like soda, the entry is quite the saccharine coating over relatively darker themes, enhancing the contrasts between elements. Soda is cheery while you are a bit morose. It reminds you of better time when currently… it’s really not great. It engages with you in ways you may not have been in a while (was there a hint of Covid in there?). The whole thing is very sweet.
As his second entry in the Single Choice Jam, Andrew proposes a maths/logical puzzle with switches. The Earth is set for destruction, but the Galaxy granted the poor human solace if they managed to disarm some bombs. One wrong flick and…
Back to the setting, the premise kind of reminded me of those sci-fi story like HHGG, where Earth is just inconsequential in the eye of the Galaxy, a backward planet in the way of advancement… It’s always a riot when those stories are used, mirroring the aliens’ view on Humans as we might be doing towards other species on Earth. Often makes me giggle a bit (and this entry was no exception!).
But the most important aspect of this game is its gameplay: the switch puzzle. With a certain mathematical pattern (shudders), you must disarm three bombs: one with two switches, one with three, and a last one with… four. Your character technically disarms a load more, but as a player you don’t! (hurray!)
The puzzle itself is intriguing, as it is not one you’d expect (like the Wolf/Goat/Food river cross, or get 1L of water from three containers), and solving it can be fun. But the novelty also runs off pretty quickly, due to the repetitiveness of the task and the length of the pattern. It feels pretty grindy by the last bomb.
The author indicated that the work was not complete, missing some levels and some QoL features. I hope they consider adding some more writing to pad around the puzzles a little.
This French entry (one of two for the Single Choice Jam) digitalised and gamified Le Dodéchédron de Fortune, a 13th century book of fortune in verses, categorised by themes, and answering all the existential questions you may have. This neat parlour trick (the 8-ball of its time) required only a d12 and flipping to the right page to know whether your child would find love or be blessed with a broken heart, whether they would have a long or healthy life or spend the little days they had left in pain… and so on, and so forth.
Honestly, it is fun to go through the different categories of questions (click the cute arrows by the header) and create pretend scenario in my head where I would need certain kind of fortune. There were 72 questions to choose from… so many RP possibilities there. Then be shocked when the fortune would derail my fake plans or dramatically “faint” when the gods blessed me with happiness. And you can’t go back and reroll the dice, once cast it will not change the fortune (even if you click on return until you get to the title page).
I really enjoy silly games with no real consequences or point. Just some pure silly fun. And well… the UI is absolutely gorgeous*!
The author indicated that they were planning to add onto the entry, by including the missing 40+ questions from the current entries, add a cheat mode to change the dice result, or a current-day French translation for some of the fortune. I think I would add to that list a way to return to the question list without having to reload the game and click the category name until the right one is found (is that the cheat mode they were planning maybe?).
It’s neat that old pieces are being used in IF and transformed in fun ways to bring past to the present. Anyway… I’m going to re-roll the dice again, I need that good fortune!
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