Ratings and Reviews by Rovarsson

(This review is based on the Spring Thing 2023 comp version.)

Such a warm and homely starting situation! Your witch is feeling a bit under the weather. How better to help her than to brew a cauldron of heartening medicinal soup?

Soon, though, it becomes apparent that something darker than a simple cold is amiss. Your mistress has been hexed, and she’s going to need something a bit more potent than hot soup.

Fran the crow is a lovely protagonist. Even though her ability to express herself verbally is limited to CAW, her kind-heartedness shines through in all her actions, and in her thoughts as they are relegated to the player through the author’s empathic penmanship.

As enthusiastic and full of life Fran is, even in these dire times, so is the author’s writing. Eager to share the wonders of this world, be they light or dark. From the cosy cabin to the oppressive vine-tangled forest, from the stately Opera House to the cute girl in the window, the joy of inviting the reader into this world sparkles on the screen.

You have been flying through the western forest as dawn begins to extend its frilly tendrils across the sky, and warm late-summer winds filter through your feathers. Streaks of green and yellow paint the landscape with fresh vibrancy.

Sometimes it’s a bit too enthousiastic, to the point of near-selfcombustion:

“The mammoth governmental building looms ahead, its single golden clocktower eye and teeth-like arches looking more bestial than ever.”

A simple but delicately drawn map with just enough twists and turns in the path to feel organic guides you through the forest to the city of Gennemont, where the nub of the adventure lies.

One particular puzzle-and-narrative sequence here is so heartwarming I’d have gladly played the game for the joy of it alone. ((Spoiler - click to show)The girl in the window's love-letter.)
Being aimed at beginners, the puzzles are quite simple. Most hinge on winning the trust of a human. The wing-and-beak gesturing CAW-ing conversations this entails are rich, the characters are people in their own right, and it gave a a real sense of connection to bond with them on a deeper level than just carrying out their associated fetch-quest.

During these conversations, and through the limited memories and understanding Fran has of the goings-on in the wider world, we learn of the broader circumstances in which the story plays. A war is going on between the powerful factions of the setting, and it reaches down to influence even the lives of Fran and the other characters.

The entire tale is enlightened but not overshadowed by moody grey-blue pixel graphics, emphasising the atmosphere of the text-descriptions.

At the end, the author hearkens back to an early meeting in an almost fairy-tale fashion, bringing the story around to a satisfying close.

I came across a few bugs and sent reports of them to the author. I’m confident those will be squashed in a following update. Nothing that should hinder the enjoyment, perhaps even providing an extra laugh or two.

A very warm and inviting game.

*HONK*HONK*HONK*

Nevermind that blaring alarm. Just a final dusting of the Director's door sign and she'll make her way outside to the Plaza in your own good time, thank you very much.

Oliva Mirram is a cleaning maid in the Lab. And now it appears she took a little too much time to respond to the evacuation alarm. Best to sneak out before anyone notices, especially the scientists responsible for the alarm...

There is a lot to like about Nothing Could be Further From the Truth. There's also a lot to complain about. Since I don't like doing the latter, and also since this review is based on the 2023 Spring Thing comp-version, I'll just briefly list the negatives here. I can still reference them as needed in the rest of the review.

-Inconsistent directions: I have absolutely nothing against an idiosyncratic directional system. Do make it consistent though.
-Synonyms, or the lack thereof. In a tense situation, I like many words to be recognised for the same object.
-Alternate commands, or the lack thereof: A bunch of solutions rely on precise input, where I would have liked the game to respond to more ways to phrase the same command.
-Unhelpful and actively misleading responses, or the abundance thereof: I skimmed accross the surface of a solution without grasping it on multiple occasions because of this.

Particularly the latter two can make progress difficult. There are hints available, but I found that persistence and patience work just as well.

So, a few naggles up front.

But man this is my jam!

A long and engaging parser puzzler set against a dystopian SF backdrop.

-->Writing:
Big, eloquent text dumps for introduction, cutscenes and outro. The author chooses to emphasise the "writing" part of a text game with verbose and detailed initial room descriptions. These make for very evocative first impressions of the various locations, although they could be trimmed down to more utilitarian length when the player types LOOK or enters the same room a second time.

The tone of the game is hard to place. It's a mixture of the commonplace cruelty, humiliation and snitch-encouraging culture of an authoritarian state, and scenes of relieving, even cathartic humour. I was particularly impressied by the juxtaposition of the horrible treatment(Spoiler - click to show) of citizens who broke the rigid rules in some low-level way in one corner of the Plaza, and the slapstick demolition of a vendor's stall in the opposite corner.

During the game, tension rises with the stakes of the puzzles increasing, both for the protagonist personally as for her fellow citizens.

The first acquaintance with the protagonist was very impressive. She made a well-rounded and realised impression, with references to her hopes and dreams and fears. She even comes accross as somewhat naive and innocent while at the same time being purposeful and strong-willed. The layering of these personality traits made her feel believable in the context of the setting.
As the game progresses however, I felt Oliva Mirram's character flattening out. The puzzles took center-stage and Oliva's personality was overshadowed. She became more and more a vessel for my commands instead of her own person where I could look over her shoulder.

-->Puzzles:
The majority of the puzzles are traditional adventure fare. Manipulating machinery, finding ways to unblock passages,... Many are of a larger scope than usual though, requiring the player to connect pieces of information found in different locations and in different times during the exploration of the map.
I found all of them very strong conceptually. A big part of my playtime was devoted to not-playing while letting the importance and connections of items simmer in the back of my brain.
The game also uses distractions and diversions very effectively to send the player looking in the wrong direction. On several occasions, I realised after taking a break that I had been trying to solve a puzzle with the wrong object or in the wrong order. The feeling of this realisation clicking into place in my head was great, the main reason why I love puzzle games.
Unfortunately, the inadequate implementation of alternate commands and helpful responses to failed commands introduces an extra layer of confusion that interferes with the intentional complexity. It makes it hard to differentiate between legitimate false leads or red herrings on the one hand, which I deem crucial to the compelling experience Nothing Could be Further From the Truth offers, and clumsy unintended responses or oversights that obscure the game proper with clutter.
The game is quite harsh and unforgiving when it comes to killing of the PC when using a wrong approach to solving a puzzle. Expect many premature endings with well-written humorous death-scenes, and a lot of try-die-repeat. I like this, but it's probably good to know beforehand to anyone wanting to tackle this game.

-->Map:
As an avid map-maker, I enjoyed drawing the Lab and its surroundings. I also saw deeper meaning in the map organisation. The setting of a Science Laboratory Complex in an authoritarian society was reflected in the organised and orderly layout of the facility, while the underground crawlspaces on the fringes of the map were associated with the more chaotic rebel elements.

The author assures me that there will be a post-comp version which will be more polished.

In the meanwhile, Nothing Could be Further From the Truth struck me as a diamond in the rough. Wholeheartedly recommended.

Hush... Be still... Be tender...

This is a story to be read with quiet care. Until vicarious anger kicks in. But also sympathetic understanding. And most of all deep empathy.

[since this is a heavily story-oriented game, spoilers will follow]

Ending a story about a love-relationship with a car-crash is about as subtle as an anvil-drop.
Beginning that story with the car-crash however, and then working backwards is a deeply captivating narrative technique.

After the Accident's detailed and thoroughly implemented opening scene serves as a gateway to an ever expanding exploration of memories. The more the main character observes what is left of the car, the deeper she delves into the debris of a broken relationship.

Memory by memory, scene by scene, the twisted dynamics between her and her lover become apparent. Apparent to the reader, that is.

The protagonist herself, she has flash-backs. Dropped in the middle of defining episodes of her life with her lover. While these episodes cause caution, perhaps alarm, in the reader, the protagonist is caught in an anger-but-love forgiveness cycle.

The author captures these ambiguous feelings in a series of small storylets. She uses everyday objects which convey a depth of information about the ambivalent nature of the protagonist's feelings. Particularly strong story-writing is the description of a present from the lover. It's an object imbued with contradicting symbolic meanings. (Spoiler - click to show)The sweater is soft and comforting in itself, she accepts it as a token of love, but the smell of the fight that came before still lingers.

I am very impressed at how deeply Amanda Walker can see both sides of these feelings from the protagonist's point of view, as well as translating them with deep-felt empathy to the reader.

This piece shows a deep feeling and understanding for the intricacies of love, even when that love is skewed.

The car-crash, symbolic and real, is a cathartic ending. I wouldn't have wished for the protagonist to endure more of the loving manipulating gifts.

Impressionistic prose bordering on poetry. Sensuous associations brought on by a gently touching finger. Images of kissing lips and dripping blood.

Footnotes. A second voice. Harsher, more direct. Longing too, silent confessions of love and yearning. Tenderness in the face of fate's inevitability.

The gun or the knife?

But beauty prevails. Beauty offset by pain and secrets. Still, beauty. Enhanced by the acceptance of the ugly things. The things unspoken yet known.

The silver lining of the shining blade-edge.

Zeppelin Adventure takes the player into the Zeerust-filled world of classic SF. The era where there were canals on the moon, intrepid adventurers found themselves hurtling through space in a hollow cannonball and there were little green men visiting us in various shapes of silvery shining teaware.

(Intermezzo:Zeerust--TV Tropes. Yes, I'll wait...)

In this particular work a humble tea-transporting zeppelin-farer (On Mars!) is swooped to the relics of the Robot Free State by way of a swirly-vortex-thingamajiggy. (Cue Robby the Robot in various slightly depressing incarnations.) The zeppelin crashes and the adventure turns into a hunt for scattered engine parts.

The mood of the game is deeply captivating. Nostalgic, endearing, funny, with unsettling undertones and references to disturbing episodes of Earth history. The visual qualities of the interface (and the cover art!) work to enhance this atmosphere.

The gameplay of Zeppelin Adventure encapsulates a parser puzzlefest in a keyword-click engine, Robin Johnson's own Versificator2. This means that all possible actions are, in theory, laid out for the player. In practice however, the amount of stuff in the inventory quickly becomes so large that mechanically checking all the possibilities would be a lot more work than just leaning back and thinking about the solutions.

At times, I missed the unboundedness of typing parser input. I yearned to interact with the world more freely to tease out more background, and here and there I thought I had an alternate tack for an obstacle that was simply off-limits in the click-approach.
However, the game feels very tight and focused, and the click interface plays no small part in this. It directs the player's attention to the salient bits of information in the descriptions while letting the rest of the text carry the atmosphere without being distracting.

The puzzles themselves have a similar focused and concentrated quality. Many are not easy, requiring multiple steps and a thought-out plan of execution to finally get the engine part dangling before our protagonist's nose. But they all have a definite and logical path to the solution, even if the player is temporarily baffled by the intricacies of the order of steps.

Depending on what the player chooses to do once the Zeppelin's engine is repaired, there are multiple endings. I happened upon one where I could help the robots as well as my character.

Great game!

Recidivism isn't a character flaw to you, it's a matter of pride. No sense in honing those burglar skill just to let them go to waste because some judge put you behind bars for a half year, right? Out of jail, back in the saddle, that's you. Or rather, back in the driver's seat of this car you just nicked on the way to Wychwood Manor. Your cellmate couldn't shut up about the stash of old loot that's still hidden there. It helped that he was talking in his sleep.

The elaborate introduction puts you squarely in the boots of this criminal protagonist and lends a welcome frame to this manor search. In the rest of the game, the descriptions are sparse but adequate. Many small details serve to strengthen the mood of the abandoned estate, and of course to distract the player and lure her into wasting time.
Yes, because time is of the essence! Although you arrived early in the morning, some nosy passerby or binocular-carrying neighbour is bound to call the coppers on you before long.

The map of the manor and the surrounding estate and farmer's fields is splendid. With sparse descriptions, the game still succeeds in evoking a wide countryside feel. A few hidden areas and locked rooms add the satisfaction of discovery to the exploration.
The final area especially, the fields behind the manor, is a joy to wander through and waste moves as you try to find out where to investigate next.

As is to be expected, one of the main obstacles of the game is getting your intentions across in two-word commands. EXAMINE (not X) works on a small but important fraction of the items in the descriptions, USE is necessary in some instances, and of course you can forget about UNDO.

Once you get a feel for what works, the puzzles are actually fun and challenging. Some neat seemingly straightforward problems that require one extra unexpected step. Including the oldest one in the book...

Good old-school fun in and around an abandoned country manor.