External Links


Play Online
Play this game in your Web browser.

Have you played this game?

You can rate this game, record that you've played it, or put it on your wish list after you log in.

Playlists and Wishlists

RSS Feeds

New member reviews
Updates to external links
All updates to this page

Hexteria Skaxis Qiameth

by Gabriel Floriano

2017

(based on 13 ratings)
4 reviews

About the Story

A dinner with your friend. Strange words. Stranger books.


Game Details


Awards

45th Place - 23rd Annual Interactive Fiction Competition (2017)

Tags

- View the most common tags (What's a tag?)

(Log in to add your own tags)
Tags you added are shown below with checkmarks. To remove one of your tags, simply un-check it.

Enter new tags here (use commas to separate tags):

Member Reviews

5 star:
(0)
4 star:
(0)
3 star:
(9)
2 star:
(4)
1 star:
(0)
Average Rating:
Number of Reviews: 4
Write a review


2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Some ideas about language untethered to story, September 9, 2018
by verityvirtue (London)
Related reviews: phlegmatic

This is a game about forming words and the nature of language. You can flick through clusters of syllables to form nigh unpronounceable words which later form the names of languages and places.

It calls to mind, for me, Emily Short’s procedurally generated almanac, The Annals of the Parrigues, as well as the style of 500 Apocalypses. The style is slightly formal, as one might find in a Borges short story. Polysyllabic words dot the prose like raisins in a bagel. HSQ includes the phrase “it's [sic] decipherment like a feverish hallucination”; the same applies to reading this game sometimes.

HSQ will probably make more sense if you’re familiar with linguistics concepts. Languages can be formed with different “basic units of thought”, and so on. And all this would be fascinating if there was a chance to use this knowledge practically.

Dear reader, there was not.

HSQ presents some rather interesting and original ideas, but without a narrative arc to bind everything together, remains an idea - an interesting one, but not quite a story.

Was this review helpful to you?   Yes   No   Remove vote  
More Options

 | Add a comment 

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
A game about language and its intrinsic meaning, November 16, 2017
by MathBrush
Related reviews: less than 15 minutes

This game is centered around a language or collection of languages that the protagonist is trying to study.

The central mechanic is that you are presented with 3-syllable words that you can alter.

The discussion centers on the idea that language influences our thoughts and actions, and vice-versa.

I liked this game, but it didn't draw me in emotionally.

Was this review helpful to you?   Yes   No   Remove vote  
More Options

 | Add a comment 

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Nothing to see here, November 14, 2017

Presents the concept that people's thoughts can be shaped by their language. Yes, its the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis as seen in the 2016 film "Arrival". So, what cool narrative does this game wrap around the central idea? Well, none. It simply presents a variation of that idea, gives you some clickable links to play with, and sits back. Job done? Not for me. It needed more than just some nice mock-19th century writing to engage me. A beginning, middle and end would help.

Was this review helpful to you?   Yes   No   Remove vote  
More Options

 | Add a comment 

Short and sweet game about fictional linguistics, November 5, 2017

Having encountered a linguistic mystery in a fictional language that intrigues them, the protagonist dives down a rabbit-hole of more mystery. What they discover is up to the reader to interpret.

The piece reminds me of If on a Winter’s Night A Traveller (it feels descended from Borges, also, but I am more solid in my Calvino reading). The player is given the ability to manipulate the languages and words to create cryptic sentences, which unfurl further to illuminate (or not) the sentences in question.

As an exploration of fantastical language, it’s curious and interesting, but I found myself wanting more. I’d have been excited to see more about the fictional cultures, their histories and societies, to give the piece more richness. As it is, I found it a clever piece relevant to my interest, but one that didn’t leave much of a mark. I’d love More Of This In My IF, Please, with extra depth and bite.

I think I also need to reread If On A Winter’s Night, because I’m having a serious hankering for it.

Was this review helpful to you?   Yes   No   Remove vote  
More Options

 | Add a comment 




This is version 3 of this page, edited by DashT on 4 February 2018 at 7:28pm. - View Update History - Edit This Page - Add a News Item - Delete This Page