Rites of a Mailmare

This is a mid-length Twine game with large illustrations on each page.

You play as a pony sailing an ocean, delivering mail everywhere you go. You meet a variety of NPCS, encounter environmental effects, and so on.

The first time I played, I visited many different locations, none repeated, and relatively quickly found an imaginative and fun battle involving kinds of mail

My second playthrough, I encountered a lot of repeated locales and content, and it took a while to find the battle.

I would rate my first experience as a 4-star experience, and my second playthrough as a 3-star experience. Averaging and rounding up gives 4.

Not only does this game have illustrations, it also has sound design! And the illustrations are great. Very moody black-and-white images, surreal and calming. I was expecting it to be less polished than it was based on the two existing reviews, but it played well and looked great.

You play as a pony who sails around the Lucidious Sea, delivering letters. Light fantasy/magical realism setting, some cool worldbuilding details. Pretty sure it's My Little Pony inspired, based on the artstyle, but there are no references to the show as far as I could tell. The biggest similarity is that everyone just happens to be a pony.

Gameplay is mainly pick one of five directions to sail in, experience a random event, then repeat. Random events range from island sightings to full on battles with dream apparaitions. Yes, this game has a battle system in it. You fight using juju charms and mail, and as you deliver more letters, you can use them as extra tools in your arsenal. It's not very difficult, since you can heal whenever and I never came close to dying though enemies can attack you while you heal. But it's creative for sure -- fighting with oneiromancy and envelopes, sign me up.

My main criticism is that the random events get repetitive after a while. I think sailing in one direction for long enough takes you to an island where you can deliver a letter to a recipient. You have five letters to deliver, and each gives you a new mail weapon, and delivering them all wins the game. But getting to each recipient take a lot of sailing, and you end up seeing the same things over and over again. I wish the game was shorter, and had more battles and less repetitions of the same random events. They're fun the first time, but after a while you get tired and just start clicking through. The ending isn't worth it either, it's basically "Congrats you beat the game, play again?" with no sense of resolution.

Decent game still, worth playing. I wouldn't play to the end, though. Just stop when it starts repeating itself.

Playtime: around 35 min

An unusual example of a Twine game which has good points, Rites of a Mailmare is little more than an excuse to show off some pictures. They are well drawn.

Although it should be a 2/5 by normal standards, it a 5/5 by Twine standards, hence the rating.