Reviews by manonamora

This game might be short and concise, but it is quite well-written, impactful and heartbreaking. From the start, there is something not quite right with your son's interruption of your sleep, even if it is a yearly occurrence. Things just don't quite fit all to well, especially when your daughter appears or when the mother is mentioned (in hindsight... 🥴). But is is not clear until the end what is truly going on here. What seems at first like a slice-of-life with some spooky halloween aspect, turns downright terrifying. The reveal is not only depressing to internalise, but the implications are frankly hitting much harder than what you'd expect from the blurb and warnings. The final choice is, again, heartbreaking, whichever way you choose...

Through the framing of a told tale about a cowboy, his/her choices, and their consequences, the game mixes a western setting with some fantastical elements, bringing an interesting take on 'the Devil's Deal. Because of this framing, the game utilises different interfaces to demarcate the present and the told story (as you are both listening and playing through the tale).

As usual with this author, the imagery is quite vivid through the extensive prose, especially the descriptions surrounding nature and the start of the second part of the story. Though the choices are limited and the story fairly linear, the interactivity in this game (or lack thereof) is nonetheless pretty interesting, especially through the first part.

I particularly enjoyed the endings, revealing much more than the fate of John Cassidy King. Surprisingly, that extra reveal stayed longer in my mind, especially the one of the earliest ending.

I'm still not sure what to make of this, as the game weaves multiple strands of story (POVs, but also past/future) together. Even through my confusion, I think I managed to piece some things at the end: a couple of peeps are trying to save someone (whose relationship is unclear), each with a different view on how to do so; they end up being hunted by religious zealots for some reason; and one of them meet the/a Devil? I think I took out of this a short take of heartbreak, betrayals, and a trip to Hell?

A certain positive: the portraits were pretty neat, I liked the coloured ones the most.

Forenote: I played this entry in English.

Even though the game is fairly short, I only had the stomach to reach two different endings. The writing is quite gruesome, with violent imagery, which considering the events happening around the release of the game made it very hard to read (personally) - even if they are probably not related.

The interactivity and choices available, as well as the responses from those choices, are pretty confusing, which makes total sense since this is supposed to be some sort of nightmare. The branching also seemed quite complex, with paths seemingly looping back.

Pretty impressive for something made (originally in Spanish) in 4h!

A short but effective horror tale, leaving the unsaid shape up the story. Framing the story through a questionnaire seemed strange at first, but works surprisingly well (since the protagonist is still in school), and even adds to the eerie/uneasy setting. It was a very interesting use of interactivity.

The writing was on the wall from the start, but I still was distracted by what was not and missed the hints. The end shocked me more than I thought it would.

And, as with any test, I scored poorly: only a crescent.

You lose or your lose... the question remains, how bad can you lose?
Well, pretty badly depending on your choices. But that's fine... end up fine, right?

You are given a pile of scenarios, randomly ordered, for which you must choose a course of action. Each action has a different level of success (which is 'lowest loss') for different faction of society (Culture, Military, Religion, Social Classes, Colonial power...). The further you go into the game, the worse your success will be, the deeper you fall. [I picked the worst options on purpose :P]

The writing in this game is humorous, taking jabs at different historical events, groups and countries (the French, the poor, the communists, women wanting to get votes...). Though, it is very much a British kind of humour: dry and prickly. And that's what makes the whole thing funny.

Still, there were some confusing aspects to the game (which I ended up figuring out after replaying). Such as what the percentages next to the choices were: where they success rolls? difficulty rolls? Even with different percentages in one list, since the links are all the same colour, it wasn't clear whether an option was "good"/passable or not.

Another one regarded the statistics. When choosing an option, the changed state blinks* at the bottom of the screen indicating the amount of loss. However, it was hard to make any informed decision, or targetting a specific element, without knowing the starting states of each groups. Some stats bar would have been welcomed here**.
*this happens way too fast. If your eyes are not staring at the bottom of the screen you will miss it.
**and also at the end of the game, to see how bad we messed up with which group.

Still, always fun to destroy the British Empire.

This was one twisted story. Starting already strange becomes bleaker with each passage, as you get deeper inside the man's values, morals, and outlook on life/society.

Though well written, this was far from easy to read, due to the implicit and explicit violence depicted in the text. While the main body gives some indication of what is happening outside of the man's thoughts and spoken words, it is brought even further through the list of choices. It is subtle enough to give you pause, as well as showing how insane all of it is...

I know there are multiple endings to this game, some of them "better" than others, but I didn't have the stomach to hunt them all down...

This was a collaboration project between two authors of different styles, where a cosy slice-of-life and horror mash up was attempted.

There are indeed some horror elements to this game, especially at the start and towards the end of the story, but I found them being muddled through the rest of the text, its gripping effect drowned in lengthy passages and passive interaction, diluting the tension and fast pace. By the end, the horror aspect resembled more a list of references weaved through the quirky slice-of-life concept.

Granted, mixing up genres, especially when they are so different, is pretty difficult. But I can't help but wonder how it would have looked like if the writing focused more on the slice-of-life or more on the horror rather than make both genre work on the same level. The concept of a single mom with two kids trying to survive Halloween is already a neat concept, adding the cookie haunted house they live in adds to the charm, but I fail to see how the murder clown would fit in there. On the other hand, if the horror aspect was taken further, the single mom having to deal with a haunted house on Halloween was already a solid plot!

I think more interactivity and player agency would have greatly helped the game in general. There are many instances in the game where you go through multiple lengthy passages, with only a click-to-continue link, pulling the reader through the story, rather than making it an active participant*. It is a bit of a shame, especially as the blurb sets expectations of choices with decorating the house, or going trick-or-treating, or pulling a prank... While you have some small choices, the bigger aspects happen without requiring the player. I would have loved to be able to** place particular decorations in specific places (which could affect the prank later on), or choosing a different costume to go trick-or-treating (rather than that one or nothing), or responding to passers-by/candy-givers during the trick-or-treat phase. The added agency for the player would have helped with the pace of the story (and potentially added to the horror aspect - oh, but what if I had chosen another path...)
*even if the PC is supposed to have a set personality, many of the choices made for you could have been interactive.
**most of those don't require more than an extra line or two of variation in the text.

One final gripe with the accessibility of the game itself: when the passage has an image for the background, the text is often very hard to read, even when a dark-ish overlay has been added. Either the dark overlay needs to be darker/less opaque, or the image should be less bright (a combination of both would be best).

One thing that I noticed however, was how the prose and style stayed consistent throughout the writing, even with the switch in tone and genre. This is pretty impressive considering the writers have quite different styles. This speaks volume about the synergy during the creating process.

The game is fairly shot, showcasing a neat puzzle about numerology through different interactive elements. Some attention needs to be paid to the text from different locations, and some translation of numbers is necessary to unlock the puzzle. Then parts fall naturally where they should, and it's fairly simple to reach the end.

The moral of this game is: don't mess with time.

Games with word-plays are in my experience notoriously hard*, as they either require a specific type of knowledge of the language or are based on a certain accent. But add a little bit of zazz here, some funny writing there, and a whimsical setting, and you can get away with it. Or at least, most of Andrew's wordplay/rhyme games tend to manage that.
*ESL reader ;-;

This game falls definitely in this category of fun word-play game. The prose is absolutely absurd, the rooms are nonsensical, and the gameplay whimsical. But it's also hard. When you don't get it, the game is frustrating, and makes you feel a bit dumb. But when you do, it's honestly fun, and you feel so darn smart about it!

Still, I didn't manage to finish on my own, even with the walkthrough and map next to me (got too frustrated - 23/50-53). But, starting a new file and following the walkthrough to the letter worked!