Ratings and Reviews by Rachel Helps
View this member's profileThis game deserves every bit of the "Best Use of Multimedia" award. I didn't know Twine games could look this... modern and cool. Animated gifs in the background, a secondary quest from your phone, sound effects, etc. That said, I don't think the story is as ground-breaking as the design. There were some hilarious moments, including being able to compose my own tragic backstory, which I really enjoyed. But the ending reveal was something I found frustratingly self-referential.
I engaged with this game maybe overly earnestly, only to have (Spoiler - click to show)this computer take advantage of my trust by taking over the internet? I think I was expecting that the computer therapy would actually help my character. Instead, it was a vehicle for telling a story about a cyberpunk dystopia. And it was a very intriguing dystopia with tantalizing details about poisonous spores! The introductory "5 things you can see" was an amazing way to introduce the world. I enjoyed the game's textual design elements, although sometimes it was hard to read.
I played this game because it has birds in it. There was not as much about birds as I was hoping there would be. The references to Bell's earlier detective work seemed oddly indulgent, and the portrayal of summer camp in general was surprisingly negative. The ending felt like it dragged on for too long. I was happily surprised to find the elements of the queer YA romance. The way the dream sequences interacted with "real" life was interesting, but I'm not sure if my choices actually mattered that much.
A new way of interacting with fiction: editing, May 11, 2023Very interesting method of showing character development through the way they edit their writing. I was a bit disappointed that your edits don't affect the ending (at least, according to Emily Short's write-up). But now I am questioning if this kind of causality is really necessary to create a meaningful interactive experience.
You play as a cloudlike entity who gradually forms into a creature and gains powers as it shows mastery of the world it is creating. You are opposed by the world itself, because it doesn't want you to leave. "Evil" enters the world. There are some puzzles that take advantage of your ability to move up and down, but they are not the focus of the game. The mood is impressionistic. You are a god-nautilus, and you are exploring your capabilities and making sacrifices and enjoying being in the world.
I don't normally play parser-based games, but I wanted to play all the interactive fiction I could find by Mormons. Mathbrush suggested this game as one that he wrote that deals with themes of resurrection, which are related to theological themes. Despite the serious topic, the tone is silly and light-hearted.
Since I'm not familiar with parser-based puzzles, I think I had more difficulty than the average player. I used the hint command a LOT. But I could tell that mathbrush added a lot of flexibility to the parser, which I appreciated. The part where the "answer" to the puzzle is to (Spoiler - click to show)maximize the power wattage to get someone else in the spaceship to turn it off was funny and unexpected.
Most of the puzzles dealt directly with the limitations of not having a body. The POV of being limited to what a computer can "see" from cameras and "do" from speakers and other electronics was an interesting limitation/advantage. The three "ideas" for resurrection were interesting too: (Spoiler - click to show)transferring consciousness, cloning it, or making a younger copy. The ending decision doesn't make that much of a difference to your success.
Simple choices, interesting perspectives on sacred text, April 27, 2023I am LDS and I've spent a lot of time with the Book of Mormon. I'm also a writer of interactive fiction and a researcher of Mormon literature. As an LDS person, I liked being able to see Book of Mormon events from another perspective, even a simple one meant for teaching children. I liked that "The New Star" pitted honoring one's parents against following Jesus. I liked that you could complain about eating raw meat in "Nephi's Journey." And I liked that you could be a Zoramite or a Nephite in "Moroni's Warriors."
As an IF writer, I didn't find the narrative design or my choices all that interesting. I did like that the styling of the pages reminded me of church manuals. All three games are branch-and-bottleneck with slight changes to the ending text based on your previous choices. As a more experienced player, I wanted more nuance in how the choices affected the narrative. But as an introduction to interactive fiction for children, I understand how it's helpful for all choices to end up in a basically okay ending.
As a Mormon literature scholar, these are a fascinating reprise of the "home literature" era in the early 1900s, where most stories were meant to show the positive consequences of following the commandments (or the inverse).
Texture engine drives a roadtrip apocalypse story, November 6, 2022A woman is driving away from her wedding and the end of the world. I played through twice and got two very different endings. They were so different, in fact, that I am not sure what the author was trying to get me to think about with this game.
The main thing that stood out to me was the Texture game engine, which I had never seen before. It requires the player to click and drag a command to highlighted text, executing the command when the player releases the text. When the command is hovering over the highlighted text, it shows another small text box that explains what will happen (for example, asking about a certain topic will give you a small text of what the player character will actually say). I played on my tablet, and sometimes it was difficult to see that little extra text box, but it still worked pretty well. At first, I didn't realize that "examine" would bring me back to the game without passing time, and I missed examining the objects in my car in my first playthrough. I liked the Texture format. It gave the game more of an adventure game feel.
Back to the game's narrative. You're driving a car and will run out of gas unless you find more. (Spoiler - click to show)I made friends with a cute redhead and ran from the end of the world a little longer with her. I also did a playthrough where I stayed in my car and let the end of the world come to me! I didn't get very emotionally involved in the game, but it was very short.
Surreal narrative about a woman reflecting on three major figures in her life, November 6, 2022You play as a woman running not only from her wedding, but also her own identity and upbringing. I played through it three times, and I had the experience of seeing a symbol in my second playthrough that I understood because of the ending I saw in my first playthrough (as someone interested in literary studies, that kind of typology fascinates me). I enjoyed the writing, which focused on the little details that give us a good mental image of a scene and gradually introduce the character's personality.
There is a frequent theme of the player character's surroundings reminding her of her past and triggering flashbacks, which help you to create a fuller picture of her mental state. The game is fairly short, but worth replaying. I think I got (all?) three endings. Each ending focused on a different key person from her past: (Spoiler - click to show)her lover, her fiancé, and her mother. I highly recommend playing all three endings!
Emerging tech; not enough game to show us its full capabilities, November 6, 2022Determining if a word is positive or negative from a blank input is a much more difficult task, computing-wise, than having the player select one of two options. However, as a player, I didn't feel that blank input was any more fun than choosing between two options (especially since the result, to my knowledge, is positive or negative). I think the technology behind the game is interesting, but it needs a better-designed game to show its possibilities. Maybe the engine's mastermind could collaborate with a writer... ?
Giving self to a selfless woman, November 5, 2022I love the concept of this game--that a woman has lost her own identity in selfless service. The idea that we should erase our personalities and be a "window to God's love" is one that I strongly disagree with. I'm a Mormon woman and I identified with Miriam's struggle to maintain an identity (although, for me, this is a struggle I feel in the opposite direction, maybe being too much of an individual because I fear losing my identity). This is exactly the kind of concept that I wish more videogames would address! So thank you.
The mood/aesthetic in this game is amazing. The illustrative location art was derived from photos put through filters--and they look great. The music gives a great spooky mood too. I was amazed that this was all done in Twine. I've written some Twine games and clearly still have a lot to learn about the possibilities of this engine.
To get through the first part, I ended up spamming all the options in every room until I found the right things. I could figure out what to give Miriam pretty well, but I wish I had saved my game before trying some things out. I didn't remember anyone's name. I rarely do, even when I'm reading a novel. Sorry Miriam! HOWEVER I really liked the idea of bringing her back to life by caring about the details of her life and noticing what she really liked and how she related to other people in her life. A+ concept, but execution fell a little short for me, an impatient player.
In this short game, you play as a mouse, with another mouse friend, who tries to communicate their brunch order to a human. There are a few minor choices that make a difference to the narrative, but eventually they all end in a similar way. I didn't rate the game because I think that I am not the intended audience. I liked the quality of the images, and that they conveyed information that was helpful to understanding the narrative. I didn't like that my choices didn't matter that much. However, I can imagine my daughter really enjoying this game.
Survive as an archivist in a hostile future world, October 1, 2022I loved the concept of this game, where you decode archival information from bacteria and decide whether or not to keep the information. It has a simulation element where you need to find food, medicine, and rent money. I wanted the game to focus more on ethical archiving practices, but it seemed more practical from a simulation standpoint to ask my friends for help. The game did address (Spoiler - click to show)the negative mental health effects of persecution on trans people very effectively. There were some similarities to pandemic stresses as well.
I liked that the game gave me many choices in interacting with my friends--I could ignore them, I could interact with them, and I could choose to have romantic interactions with them. At the same time, I felt a disconnect between the player character's (PC's) interactions and my own feelings. My interactions with were reduced to this bare-bones of asking them for money or helping them out, without me really growing to like the characters like the PC had at some point. In a short game like this, there isn't a lot of time for relationship-building, so maybe the caregiving tasks the PC can do can stand in for that.
A two-player Twine game that includes a "conversation" between players, May 8, 2022This game has an interesting concept: two people play as grown siblings. Some of the text displayed for the first person depends on the choices of the second person, and vice versa. As a writer of Twine games, this design intrigues me, but it also seems extremely complicated. There is a second, more action-heavy part of the game where both people are making decisions simultaneously! I am not sure how much the decisions of each person interact with each other, but the effect is having a feeling of cooperation.
As a demonstration of this experimental form, the game was a success. Story-wise, I wanted more development to have the ending be more meaningful.
Amazing mood, okay plot, December 7, 2021The AI-constructed images and strange music really transported me to an alien, AI-populated (?) world. It made the story feel uncanny. The story itself was fairly thin, about an AI who disconnects their matrix-style universe from the network of other universes (for some reason?). My favorite part was going to the museum of plaques and looking at the products of our time through the eyes of a far-future consciousness.
Beautiful game about workplace problems, November 11, 2021This game is gorgeous, with slightly-animated illustrations for various sections of the story. I chuckled when I scrolled down to read about going down in an elevator and the elevator illustration scrolled up into the side of the screen. The UI is really nice too.
I have a daughter with a disabling genetic defect, so I teared up a little when I heard about how the protagonist of this story wanted to help their niece who has a genetic defect. I would have liked to explore more about the niece's disability and the medical researcher's aloofness to it (this was hinted at).
There are 15 endings based on your decisions. The decisions you make are things like who you decided to talk to and whether or not you ate alone most of the time at work. Finding the "best" ending (if one exists) was not intuitive at all. I chose all the "best" worker attributes and got one ending and chose a mixture and got a different one. I understand the idea, but I couldn't figure it out intuitively. I ended up reading the endings from the game's HTML files. I liked how nuanced they were, but I didn't have the patience to work out how to get them all in the individual game.
Interesting window into another world, November 9, 2021This game gave me an interesting a different perspective on what it would be like to be grieving a romantic partner with someone who was also that person's romantic partner. Additionally, the player character and her friends are part of the furry community. This is ignorance on my part, but I didn't realize that fur suits could bring a level of psychological comfort to the people who wear them. I guess I thought it was more like role-playing. I liked learning about polyamorous furries through this game.
The writing dragged a little in describing endless cooking and going out for meals. I would have liked some choices about what to make or how I felt when partner slept in so long that my pumpkin pancakes went cold. There were some choices about whether or not to have sex and how to have it, and those choices did affect the narration, but I'm not sure if they affected the ending.
A view of grief through a dead person's messages, November 9, 2021In this game, you are a moderator of a social media site who looks through messages to a social media account for a user who is suspected to be dead. You get to look through messages to the person to see if you think they're actually dead or not. This isn't a mystery game--it's very clear that the person in question has died. This setup allowed you to see the way grief affected people over time, without awkward time jumps. I thought that was a clever way to explore the theme of grief.
In the second half of the game, there's a (Spoiler - click to show)group chat with timers on each person's messages. I felt a little impatient with the timers, but at the same time, I thought it was a cool way to simulate a group chat. I think an animated ellipsis could have helped me to wait without worrying that something was going wrong.
Your choices don't impact much of the narrative. However, the hypertextuality of choosing what message to read really immersed me in the role of reading the messages as an outsider. This game has the same characters as Weird Grief. I preferred this game to Weird Grief. Also, if these games were inspired by real-life loss, I hope the author is doing okay.
Fourth-wall-breaking humor, November 9, 2021This game has a self-consciousness of game tropes and fourth-wall-breaking that I probably would have found very deep fifteen years ago. Now, I feel like the game was too short to explore the existential problems of collecting things and killing things in platformer-type games. I also had the game-ending bug with the cyan type.
I did like the various effects the writer used with the type, like making it different colors and shaking or blurring it. It made me want to try something like that in my own games.
Funny game about email, November 5, 2021This game had a very strong start with lots of funny spam e-mails. Some of them are even relevant to the story later on. You play as a spam plugin and there is drama between you and the other plugins. The drama seemed overblown and it dragged on quite a while. I wonder if deciding to zap or approve any emails affected the story (I suspect that they don't affect it a ton). This game could have been improved by removing Zap's commentary and letting the player do the role-playing and making connections between e-mails. (Spoiler - click to show)I think reducing the other plugins to just two other characters would have been good too, as well as deleting the far-future memories, the partial construction of Laura. The ideas were interesting, but not fully developed. The idea of copying one's self while being conscious of the other selves' suffering and distributing onesself as a virus was strong enough to give the plot a strong feeling of resolution.
A friendly Roman romp, November 5, 2021I enjoyed this short game where you steal from Nero's palace. You can choose from three companions and they change the narrative considerably. Parts of the game are randomized with each playthrough. There was one puzzle which I couldn't solve on my own, but an in-game helper made it so I didn't stop playing because of it. The background music is very cool.
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