Reviews by Rovarsson

Your human’s sick. Or rather, judging by the smell of her, cursed. (Which, in the world of this game, amounts to about the same thing.)
Normally, a cursed person would need the help of the village wise-woman to redirect the curse and stash it somewhere out of harm’s way. The problem is, your human is the village wise-woman!
Fortunately, you’re an experienced and well-trained helper to her medicinal ministrations. With your keen senses and magical affinity, you have a good chance of helping her.

The Wise-Woman’s Dog is a marvelous game. One of the very best I’ve played.
Partly, of course, this is because it ticks so many of my subjective preference boxes.

There’s the non-human protagonist. Playing as a dog naturally limits your abilities to manipulate the surroundings or carry stuff with you. (Somehow, whereas a human adventurer with a bottomless inventory merely gets a shrug and a chuckle out of me, I would not accept this for an animal PC.) These limits form an intuitive framework from which a lot of the puzzles flow naturally. Finding the clever workaround solution to these puzzles, realising that you’re engaged with the game in such a way that you’re thinking like a four-legged, one-mouthed, magically intelligent shaman’s pet is a real thrill.

The story is set in ancient history, 1280 BC in Hittite territory, during those short few decades when the Great King had his seat in Tarhuntassa, before it was moved back to Hatussa, to be exact. (Yes, I’ve been diligently reading the footnotes.)

First off, let me say that it’s definitely worth it to turn up the sound and listen to (an approximation of) the music of the Hittites while you play. It deepens the engagement with the setting a lot.

The locale where the story starts is a small bronze-age farming village. The details of living are portrayed vividly, the irrigation works and the large variety of crops, the hustle-and-bustle of bringing the taxes on board the barges, the houses with their differences in size and the differences in social stature connected to them. And of course the people. They’re all so lifelike, going about their daily lives, it’s only natural that you would want to help them with the small or large mishaps and problems they experience. It’s only once you find yourself juggling magic spells to help a slave fix the pipes that you might realise that you’re solving adventure-puzzles.
The city, where you must travel later on, stands in stark contrast to that cozy village. Large and imposing behind its iron-reinforced gates, bustling with commerce, the loud and busy market areas, the cramped alleys and hidden back-passages where surprises wait… (I love the mention of small-scale use of iron. It shows that we’re on a tipping point of history)
The historical setting is supported by copious footnotes, it feels at times as if the author has incorporated a beginner’s encyclopaedia about the Hittite era in the game. Despite a gentle nudge not to get lost in the notes after you’ve read three or four at a time, I must have spent around half an hour of the allotted two hours reading about pithoi, Tarhunt, and the Great King.

More generally, what makes this game perfect for me is that at its core it’s an unabashed oldschool puzzlefest, almost seamlessly enveloped in this lush and living world.

Outside of those personal preferences, The Wise-Woman’s Dog also boasts a lot of technical know-how and writing craft.

When I said “oldschool” earlier, I’m talking about the style of puzzles, the way of interacting with the surroundings (TAKE and PUT ON being the most important actions). The Wise-Woman’s Dog is decidedly modern in all the quality-of-life features and mouse-activated shortcuts it provides. Actually, it’s perfectly possible to play the entire game without using the keyboard, solely clicking on keywords in the descriptions or shortcut links in the status bar. After a while I settled on a half-and-half method of issuing commands. Engaging with the people and items around the village and city, I opted for the freedom of parser typing, while for slightly out-of-game commands like getting a list of spells or objects I just clicked on the relevant button.
In those lists of spells or objects, you find an incredibly helpful pair of shortcut commands that make your faithful dog protagonist cross the map in the blink of an eye and acquire or deposit the intended spell or object. The first, FETCH, is just wonderful. Say you’re standing before a locked gate and you remember the thing you need to open it. FETCH will go and pick up the thing wherever it is, and return you to the location of the locked gate where it’s needed. Its twin, STASH, does the same in reverse, dropping off something to free up room for other stuff in your limited inventory. In my opinion, STASH is too powerful as it is now. Just like FETCH, it returns you to your previous location. On many occasions, I would rather have had the action stop at the drop spot, ready to contemplate my next actions.

The map of the game world had me wondering for a while. I like large and twisty maps that give me the feeling that I’m truly exploring an unknown place. This is one of the only times I had that feeling in a game which uses only cardinal directions, and a few well-judged instances of up and down. Especially in the city, despite only ever going N, E, W, or S, I could imagine crooked alleys and looping back passages.
For the purposes of navigation too, the mouse-interface is very useful: just click on the location of your choosing and you will make a beeline there (barring any critical obstacles or events). And for the typing enthusiasts, GO TO is available too.

The writing in The Wise-Woman’s Dog is evocative enough to transport you to ancient Hittite civilization, while delegating the finer points to the footnotes for those hungry for more elaborate details. The location descriptions, aside from providing all the necessary practical information, always have some distinct feature or two to keep the mind grounded in the historical setting.
For me, the art and craft of writing stands out in the meticulously scripted and enthusiastically written events and NPC monologues. It was a true joy to just stand around typing Z while Iyali told the story of the God and the Dragon, to watch the boy on the market’s ball-and-cup game, to listen to the High Priest’s explanation of the concept of Purity inside or outside the temple…
(A special mention in this regard goes to the conversation between two farmers in the village, a quarrel between Zuwa and Mahori about a lost bronze sickle. Congatulations to Ada Stelzer for the hilariously over-eloquent words of Mahori in his attack on the bumbling and mumbling Zuwa.)

(Based on the IFComp 2025 version)

Well, perhaps the itty-bitty ground floor of a tiny mansion. No nooks and crannies here, no attics nor cellars, just a straight hallway with a few rooms branching off.
Within this simple map lies a simple text-adventure. One which could use a generous lathering of polish (spelling, synonyms, articles,…), and which would even then be no more than a means to while away an hour or so.

But it would be a fun hour, and even in the state it’s in now, Willy’s Manor shines with the effort and enthusiasm of its author. Keep up the good work!

-> "You are a rock. You say nothing."

And if repeated a few times, this makes for a perfectly respectable playthrough with a legitimate ending:

-> "You decide that this is not so bad."

I loved this.

Of course, you might be tempted to try and greet one of those random walkers-by. In which case you find out that a) apparently rocks do talk (or at least you are rock-hard proof that at least one rock does talk), and b) that there’s a whole intricate web of potential interpersonal relations between all these characters just waiting to be laid bare, and that you, this particular talking rock on this particular path are in the perfect position to be the go-between.

In a sense, A Rock’s Tale reminded me of last year’s The Apothecary’s Assistant. A number of apparently haphazard encounters, each a small and pleasant scene in its own right, builds and tangles until a larger whole of connections and relations comes into view.

Sweet, funny, sincere. I liked A Rock’s Tale a lot.

Is it unjust to stand up against a wrong when one has profited from it in the past? Does past complicity rule out present resistance? How hypocritical must one be to partake in the benefits of a horrible situation only to rebel once it intrudes too far into one’s own interests?

Grove of Bones does not zoom out in such a manner as to explicitly ask these questions. Instead, it creeps inwards, to the heart of a mother who doesn’t have the luxury to consider ethics. When confronted with this, she must act.

Of course, on the other end of the screen is a player who gets to choose at their leisure how precisely the distraught mother will direct her action. This created a strange sort of internal division within me, where one part strongly sympathised with the protagonist, and the other was disconnectedly assigning ethical values to the options. This feeling was strengthened when I saw that reaching an ending (any ending) was called an “achievement” in-game, and that I got points for them. But they all got the same amount of points…

I’m not certain how much of this ethical critique was intended by the author, but I for one found it thought-provoking.

(Review based on the IFComp 2025 version)

A misunderstood scientist sets out on a dangerous expedition through frozen wastelands to discover the source of the saltsnow apocalypse that happened some 250 years ago, riding a mechanical spider, accompanied only by a mystically gifted oracle and an experienced ice-and-snow-walking pathfinder.

I mean, everything about that setup is screaming “Yes!” to me. And it’s really well-accomplished too. The writing is exciting. A long, slow, and tense build-up to the confrontation with the anomaly. A nightmarish descent into otherworldly darkness. A frantic flight back to civilization, low on time and rations.

The gameplay is unbalanced though, to the point of introducing gaps in the story and wrecking my suspension of disbelief.
From the start, I had a hard time making out what, if any, difference my choices made. I didn’t mind this in the first half, choosing whether to camp by a lake or build a campfire were simply atmosphere-setting options as far as I knew or cared.
Once I got to the Lovecraftian city at the center of the frozen saltlands though, I started to feel that I had no input whatsoever at critical moments. When I found an entrance to a dark tunnel, the available options were [go down] or [don’t go down]. At least let me sit down with my team here and discuss the possibilities. One is a hardened pathfinder who has traveled these icefields on foot for ages, the other is a paranormally sighted psychic. You’d think they might have some input on the “go down or not”-question.
Another moment like this happened when we were fleeing back to safety (?). The party was low on food, it was mentioned in the text that we had rations for a week left. And just like that, the game proceeded to dictate that we were now on half-rations. Meaning that we were sluggish and cold all the time, having trouble thinking as well as moving. Given the consequences of cutting our intake of calories in half, I (the player) would have liked some say in that. Actually, given the choice, I would have probably kept eating full rations and made a heroic dash for it.

Thwarted agency is better than no agency. I wouldn’t have minded if my choices led to a quicker death, or were vetoed by the other team members, or prevented by some external influence. But at several important moments in the story, I was not given the opportunity to make a choice at all.

I have to say that there were plenty of instances where there was indeed a meaningful choice, like whether to wait out a storm (and lose time) or travel through it (and risk freezing). I ulimately died because I wanted to take a faster route and disregarded the danger. So, pretty impactful choice there…

It’s just that the few times where I was not given a choice that I would have expected felt to me, if this were a movie, like the times where I would have screamed at the protagonists for being dumb.

Despite the flaws I pointed out above, the invasive cold atmosphere, the rising tension in the first half, and the ever-looming threat during the second half pulled me into the game-world and had me shivering.

Imbalanced gameplay that undermines some of the impact this story could have had.

But still:
Great premise, wonderful worldbuilding, good writing, promising characters.

A wonderful little tranche-de-vie, a pleasant but otherwise unremarkable day in the combined households of Hercule Poirot and Captain Hastings. There is a minor playful mystery to solve, but the real focus of the game is Hastings’ and Poirot’s relationship, their shared history, and the warmth and subdued tenderness they feel for each other.

The Little Four truly excels in its use of scenery descriptions as a means to convey background and delve into the characters’ personalities. Many moving memories and small anecdotes are revealed in this manner. The contrast between the content and Hastings’ British matter-of-factly narrative tone, which stout-heartedly tries but fails to cover the deeply felt fondness for his children and his friend, and the heartbreaking sorrow over the untimely death of his dear “Cinderella”.

I was expecting a bit more interaction with Hastings’ son Thomas, since solving the mystery is set up as a shared challenge for the both of them. Nevertheless, I was pleased with all the minor NPCs’ characterisation in a few well-chosen sentences.
Poirot himself is clearly identified, his tics and idiosyncracies emphasised without becoming clownesque, always with the utmost respect for the maître of zee little grey cells.

A beautiful little exploration of two men’s loyal friendship.

A nice mixture of gothic horror and comedy and poetry.
Straightforward manor-exploration and classic puzzle-solving, nothing too challenging but enough difficulty for a few headscratchers.

I loved the comedy in the fact that you spend the entire game as a (Spoiler - click to show)disembodied hand, doing stuff that a (Spoiler - click to show)disembodied hand cannot possibly do, and it’s fine. But then for some verbs, being a (Spoiler - click to show)disembodied hand is suddenly a problem. (Being able to (Spoiler - click to show)SMELL and (Spoiler - click to show)LISTEN but not (Spoiler - click to show)TASYE is hilarious to me.)

As it is mentioned in the blurb, Frankenfingers claims to be a classic text-adventure, with the one claim to fame that it is probably the only one written in verse. And indeed, all the descriptions are long poems in themselves. As such, the entirety of the game’s tone and atmosphere hinges on the quality of the poetry. And it succeeds… For the most part…
There were times when I stumbled over jumbled rhythms and contorted rhymes, where the intended gothic gloom was not able to shine through the twisted lines. At its best, however, I could hear the poetic tale in my head as if narrated by a disembodied hollow voice. A bit like the horror-monologue in Michael Jackson’s Thriller.

My favourite part of Frankenfingers was probably the exploration of its large map, going back and forth to find all the nooks and crannies of the mansion, and eventually even spreading out of the manor estate altogether. On (Spoiler - click to show)a horse named Buttercup!

It felt weird to see Thalia operating on the right side of the law. She herself would probably respond to that statement with a derisive snort, pointing to the not-altogether-legal ways she goes about securing the knowledge needed to crack the case.

Nonetheless, it’s a change. Instead of the pure egocentrical thrillseeking of the art heist, our heroine now performs a service (paid, but still) to her fellow man or woman. She even works together (gasp) with Mel! And there lies the most interesting development of this installment in the Lady Thalia-series. Thalia and Mel worked perfectly as adversaries, cop and thief. I’m very pleased that their relationship dynamic still holds, even though they’re on the same side now.

Gameplay-wise, Lady Thalia 4 uses the same approach as the previous iterations. Conversational gambits, probing whether the NPC in question will respond best to a Friendly, a Direct, or a Leading tone. Time-sensitive preparation schemes to ready a building for later infiltration. Tense nightly break-ins, this time to gather evidence as opposed to stuffing antiquities down the front of your jacket.

While all these things were interesting, they’re also familiar and well-known by now. In previous installments, I would have held my breath as Thalia sneaks through the dark corridors. Now that I’ve grown used to this, and also now that I have a better grasp of the forgiveness-level of the Lady Thalia-games, I don’t get so worked up anymore about the tresspassing bits.

This time, my enjoyment was more focused on the conversations and the personalities. Great to see how Mel and Thalia are still developing, both in themselves and in their relationship. The NPCs’ characters are diverse, showing through in the interviews. And the scenes with Thalia’s husband-for-show and his amant provide comic relief and sniggers.

(There’s also a rather sad turn of events concerning another recurring NPC. Although I understand the develoment from a narrative viewpoint, I’m still sure I will miss that particular NPC’s stern and straightforward way of interacting with Thalia.)

Funny, moving, exciting.

"Miss Duckworthy’s School for Magic-Infested Young People"

Read that title.
Not “magically gifted” or the more neutral “with magic abilities”. Not “magic-afflicted” or “magic-infected”, which might be appropriate if the children were in some way endangered by their powers, as is often the case with the newly-magical.
No.
“Magic-infested”. Like pestilence-spreading vermin.

Indeed, in the world of Miss Duckworthy’s School for Magic-Infested Young People, those who show any signs of supernatural powers are to be eradicated, or in those more lenient countries who have subscribed to the MagiCore Accords, picked up at gunpoint and isolated in a special school.

This setting, introduced in a mere handful of screens during the prologue, is impressive and wide enough to accomodate a whole series of games and stories, and I hope the author delves deeper in its history and culture in future works.

This particular game plays out in the school from the title where magic children and young people are isolated, yes, but also allowed to develop their talents. That means magic lessons, yeah!

And yes, there’s a bit of that, partly depending on the choices of the player. At the heart of the game, however, are dangerous intrigue and a high-stakes power-struggle.

I really liked the personal development of the protagonist. In the character-creation screens, I coblled together my main girl Jacky, a purple-haired Canadian car thief who is “gay as a bucket of rainbow glitter”. That made me laugh really loud. She quickly made a few friends, and the conversations and banter between them flowed very naturally. There was one low-key opportunity for romance, which I bypassed it at the time thinking it was a bit too soon. It never came up again, but I was just as happy being just friends.

There is ample room for the player to steer the direction of the narrative and, with the choices taken, the sort of person their protagonist is. The further the story progressed, the more I felt the weight of the responsibilty and danger in my choices. Not only was I genuinely concerned about Jacky, I also felt I had to protect her friends. This made me weigh my options carefully, trying to judge if the “heroic” choice that I was sure Jacky could handle, would inadvertently harm her friends. Very engaging.

The introduction felt a bit rushed to me, like I was plunged in without having a chance to dip my pinky toe in to test the waters. One second I’m joyriding with my buddy, the next I’m jumping off a bridge and I’m a troll. Just like that. No glowing aura of transformation, nor a bonecrunching metamorphosis. No vague premonition or sense of apprehension that Jacky might be on the verge of changing, and that this stressful action might push her over the edge.
It could of course be that in my specific sequence of choices, I missed a bit of exposition.

The writing’s very good. Good and clear descriptions of the school and its wildly differing levels. Intuitive and natural conversations. Shocking and/or exciting action scenes (which is hard when the player is allowed choices while the action plays out.)
And most importantly: an beautifully sketched main character, an organic blend of the outlines provided by the author and the colour added by my choices. I felt intimately connected to Jacky, like I could grasp her anxiety or joy or anger all through the game.

I enjoyed this very much, and I’ll probably replay with a different protagonist ((Spoiler - click to show)I hear there's a cat companion in there somewhere...)
If Jacky will let me, that is…

Another entry for my ever-growing list of Mansion-games! (I promise, I’ll get round to putting an actual list on IFDB one of these days. I swear…) The fact that I even seriously entertain the idea for such a list shows that dropping your protagonist in a mansion without much of a preamble or explanation and basically saying: “Now off you go! Just poke around and figure out what goes on here,” is a premise that a) is done a lot, and b) has proven its worth.

It’s a set-up, a frame for the author to let loose their imagination within known boundaries, and to play with the expectations that pop up in the player’s brain as soon as they notice it’s a Mansion-game.

In other words, it’s all about the filling.

And hoooo-boy does Mandy Benavav deliver on the filling!

From the get-go, the description the Mansion sets the tone:

—“The house is a small two story Victorian, remarkably well kept, with dark siding and darker trim. It stretches toward the sky unevenly, like a cat arching its shoulders - cordial, but cautious.”

An unsettling scene, leaning towards the dark and the Gothic, with an unusual and evocative image, a simile both vivid and slightly droll.

The writing continues in this vein, delicately walking the tightrope between earnest gloom and frivolous spark.

Not too far along in the game, the source of this consistent tone makes itself known: the narrator peeks from behind the curtain and directs some remarks straight at you, the player. One would expect this breaking of the fourth wall to also shatter the carefully woven moody atmosphere, but it doesn’t.

—“The foyer stands ready, awaiting your eye. Let’s not pretend we’re above snooping - after all, who doesn’t love a good snoop? You’re among friends - I won’t tell if you care to poke about the room. A narrator’s job is not to judge; merely recount.”

Instead, by revealing himself, the narrator re-affirms the unity of tone. The deep tone of his (I imagined an Ian McKellen reciting the story in a grave note, unable to keep himself from interjecting his own comments on the state of affairs every once in a while) voice suffuses the Mansion and lends character to it, and reassures the player that they’re in good hands.

Indeed, instead of concealing the directional and inventory options under functional clicks so bland as to be almost unnoticeable, here the narrator generously sets forth our options in elaborate and (jokingly?) empathic propositions:

Has the scent of pulp overpowered your senses? The ticking of the clock quickening your pulse? Then perhaps you should return to the foyer.
Or perhaps you wish to take stock of your possessions.

----looks over his shoulder at the wall of text rising above him----

Ahem! Well. I really like the narrator. That’s probably clear by now.

But…

Of course this disembodied narrative voice, regardless of setting-infusing gravitas or witty side-remarks, must perform the job set before him: recount the text the author has written.

And it’s good text.

I’ve already mentioned the descriptions, moody Gothic with a twist.

—“The webs occupy only a tasteful amount of ceiling space; not so much as to give the impression of homely neglect, but just enough to give the spiders their due.
You think you see your echo wiggle slightly in one of the webs. You wonder how many others are trapped up there.”

(The detail about the trapped echo made me shiver with delight and trepidation…)

What is most impressive however is the variety of unique characters that inhabit the Mansion. Each with their own little mannerisms and idiosyncratic speech, they come across as singular individuals. Grotesque, perhaps, somewhat caricatural. On the edge of becoming a menagerie of quirks and oddities, a display of curiosities, even.
But here again, the tightness and consistency of the narrative tone (----Yes, Sir Ian, take a bow, so everyone can see you…----) provides a unifying frame where all these eccentrics may perform their personal peculiarities freely and naturally to their hearts’ content.

—“In a shower of soapy water, the Octopus again raises all eight appendages, this time holding an assortment of dirty dishes, brushes, rags, and sponges. For each dish, a cleaning implement.
It begins industriously scrubbing, three dishes at a time, with one arm on drying duty. With its final arm, it holds a can of tuna, which it periodically slaps with its dish towel at rhythmic intervals.
As it scrubs, you discern a certain pattern in the noise…”

***

“You strain your ears. It could be your imagination but you could swear that the rhythm of the brushing is set to the drinking song from La Traviata, with the occasional soap bubble popping to emphasize the high notes.

Well fancy that.”

The puzzles in An Account of Your Visit to the Enchanted House & What You Found There are a combination of fetch-quest chains and social interaction with the quirky inhabitants who all seem to want something that involves getting it from someone else.

Which means you need to know where everything and everyone is. Exploration time!

The Mansion is not that big, but it sure is very full and alive. The social fetch-quests force you to repeatedly visit the same rooms, but with the prospect of a new conversation topic or even the conclusion to a puzzle and the accompanying reward, this never gets dull.
Each floor of the house is gated off, ensuring that the player has seen and adequately searched the rooms on that floor, and has been introduced to the characters residing there.

While on the topic of exploration, I have to specifically mention the bookcase in the library. That thing is a goldmine for fantasy and horror references. There had to be something of importance in there, so I started clicking a few of the books (nicely rendered in a minimalist graphic) at random, thinking I’d have to dig my way through a bunch of increasingly far-fetched made-up titles. I got a real jolt of nerdy joy when I stumbled upon (Spoiler - click to show)Gormenghast! And there were more: Wooster&Jeeves, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Tigana, Terry Pratchett,…! I jotted down a bunch of titles and authors I don’t know to look them up in the local library, although I doubt if they will have a copy of A True and Accurate Account of the Invention of Penguins by Lord Pendleton Stickwidth, Royal Explorer…
It’s a bit of a cheap trick, namedropping to remind the reader of a shared membership of the coolest club on earth, but it works. With each title I recognised, I glowed a bit more.

In a very parser-like fashion, the individual objects of importance are often buried under a few layers of clicks, going from the general description of the room to a list of items to examine closer.

And it’s here, in this hybrid parser/click gameplay, that I at last find some small naggles to complain about. Some minor annoyances to give this review at least a semblance of critical assessment and attempted objectivity.

On the parser-choice scale, the hybrid that is An Account of Your Visit to the Enchanted House & What You Found There sometimes has trouble choosing and holding its spot. While you’re meticulously searching rooms, manipulating the environment, and running around carrying objects (in a perfectly handled inventory) from one room to the next to offer them to NPCs or use them to solve puzzles, which are quintessential parser-things to do, there are also a number of times when the game carries out an action for you or automatically solves a part of the puzzle. At these moments, I felt robbed of the agency that the heavy parser-feel of the game had promised me.
Two examples, one of slight disappointed surprise, one where my parser-expectations made a solution invisible:
-(Spoiler - click to show)I would have loved to be able to TAKE the teddybear, instead of having automatically added to my inventory. Just that small moment of picking it up as a separate action, with an accompanying description of touching the soft fur, or sneezing because of the dust…
-(Spoiler - click to show)The fact that the eggs were just waiting on the kitchen counter until I had the other ingredients, that I wasn’t able to manipulate them as a separate object during my first search through the kitchen, blurred my memory of them as useful objects. I tottered up and down the stairs half a dozen times, looking in the rooms for links unclicked. When I finally turned to the walkthrough and saw “Don’t worry about them - they’re next to the stove, you’ll just grab them when you go to cook.”, I felt misled. Perhaps by my own misplaced parser-expectations (which the game had nourished all the way through), but misled nonetheless…

In short, I think An Account of Your Vist to the Enchanted House & What You Found There would benefit from a firmer stance somewhat more to the finer-grained parser side of the spectrum.

In conclusion, I loved it. Such flair and mood, such wonderful characters and conversations, such beautiful atmospheric writing!