Ratings and Reviews by Rovarsson

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

In this tense and fast-moving thriller, Marie must escape her mysterious captors before the bright lights kill her.

This was a very fast-paced but smooth ride.

Marie Waits is a time-constrained turn-optimisation game.

Fortunately, it’s also a game that emphasises letting the player get on with it, quickly scanning the scene and picking out the important items (along with unimportant ones and currently inaccessible ones, of course.) No futzing with intricate machinery or 8-move back-and-forth puzzles, but obstacles that must and can be dealt with fast.

The writing is inobtrusive, it mostly keeps to the background and focuses on conveying the necessary practical information. Precisely this makes it so effective. It reads fast and pulls you along. Even though I started the game thinking I would take it easy, letting my PC die and learn for the next restore, I wound up captivated and tense, feeling the urgency of getting the hell out of there.

Here and there, the author does take the tempo down a notch to show some shreds of backstory through found notes. Very intruiging, and a good reason to play the other Marie-games. (One already out, one upcoming, I believe?)

Of course my testing instincts kicked in at a certain point. I tried to sneakily cut some corners and squeeze some commands in before my PC ought to be able to perform those actions. I was impressed that the author caught almost all these instances. I managed to smuggle one minor shortcut past the radar, shaving two moves (I think) off my total.

In the end, I was out of there by quarter past ten. Time to spare for Marie to take a shower and meet her friends for brunch.
Escaping mysterious kidnappers and avoiding a mid-day burning blast? All part of the morning chores.

Lots of fun!

>"Weightlessness, wonder, a rare smile as the planet descended below you, a brilliant viridian marble swirled with soft white clouds."

Despite the protagonist of Protocol having left her lover to go live among the stars, high above/below the planet, this quote is on of the few instances where the space outside is witnessed directly from her point of view.
Protocol is an inwardly oriented game, both in its surface quest and in its more abstract layers.

The protagonist wakes up alone on an abandoned Space Observatory Station, a mighty telescope pointed at the tiniest pinpricks of light from the farthest, earliest moments of space, suspended in its ring of service modules and living quarters for the necessary living staff. The station is damaged. An urgency more felt than understood presses her to do all that is necessary for the repair of the station.

During the exploration of the station, wounded and confused, weakened and alone, a relation of mutual dependency/support/survival develops. The station needs/coerces/forces the woman for healing its wounds, for saving what is not yet irreparably lost of its memories while she struggles to remember herself. The woman uses/grasps/wills the station for a purpose, a reason. The only purpose left, empty and meaningless as it may be.

The desperate crawling journey of the woman through the station to its core systems, to the exposed and damaged vital technologies mirrors a descent deeper and deeper into the body and mind, into psyche and soma, to the wounded bleeding sarx itself, the flesh and bones that need repair.

However intimately connected, mind and body undergo an unnerving disorienting dissociation/distancing during the journey. The station becomes a distorted mirror for the woman. It reflects her broken dreams and yearnings and regrets back to her, reminiscent of the Nietzschean abyss. This is often expressed in physical, external circumstances and actions.

The painful state of the woman's mind is made apparent in her personal monologue/narration too:
>"Delusions of grandeur lost in the summer winds of her laugh, the comfort of a fire in winter in her embrace. Who could blame you, for turning your gaze away from the sky? You were enchanted by the stars, enamored with them. Who could blame you for leaving her, when the stars in her eyes shone no longer?"

While the premise of Protocol is well-known, and could be tiresome in a lesser game, it succeeds in using that premise as a means to search deep into the human condition. The sense of loss, the inevitability of choices, the impossibility of what could have been.

An important factor in making this work is the impressive writing. The author employs stylistic techniques to press the gravity of the situation on the reader. For the most part, this works very well. A bit more prudence might be in order as to the frequency with which one or another technique is used, as they do lose efficacy along the way.

Mesmerising, haunting repetitions, both of phrases and entire paragraphs (with small but telling differences) draw the player deep into the bowels of the story.

The juxtaposition of two major themes resonates throughout the story and appeals to different aesthetical and ethical value systems, perhaps loosely associated with the Appolonic and the Dionysic:

There is the beauty cold and austere of inevitable, ordered, lawful physics, geometry, even biology, juxtaposed with the messy hot-glowing spell of yearning, purpose, will of life and love and consciousness.

Both sides are reflected in the careful delicate writing. In the same passage of text scientific precision and sense of detail conjoins with poetic style, rythmic prose, flowing structure.
>"This is how it always ends; falling the mechanism of your demise, her demise, both the guilty Daedalus and foolish Icarus, too close to the sea, too close to the sun and always doomed by gravity."

At other times, the rhyme and rythm take center stage, as in this challenging and delightful lingual language game of leapfrog:
>"Where she walked the shores of a shallow salt sea, followed the tree-lined lanes dappled in light through the thin apertures of leaves to a home with knotted hardwood floors and open windows through which the wind whispered."

Protocol has few choices. The ones it does have are posed with appropriate gravitas. Each choice is a commitment, the player's role and responsability in seeing this narrative to its inevitable end. Whatever end that may be. It is still inevitable.

Very, very impressive.

(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.