KING OF XANADU

This is a short, surreal fantasy piece that I really enjoyed after playing through it twice. I won't go into too much detail on the actual content as it's much better to be surprised, but I was struck by the tense and haunting prose, which is crafted really well at the level of the sentence and contributes to an unforgettable atmosphere. Some of the imagery- the black stalks, the sunbeams, the clockwork- really stuck with me in a way that keeps me wondering about this story hours after I 'completed' the game. I would definitely play any other game by MACHINES UNDERNEATH (although I don't think they've published any others) and if I found out that they had written a novel, I would buy it on the spot!

I did notice a handful of spelling and capitalization errors, which was a shame because the rest of the game was so well polished. I always feel that in very short games where each individual word carries so much weight, it's important to craft each of those words carefully. Even so, I think MACHINES UNDERNEATH did a really great job on this game and I'm going to be thinking about it for a while!

This Twine game depicts the fall of a great empire. We play as the emperor, a being with complete control over the the people. Excess and corruption are rife.

But then, a famine strikes the land, and the old way of life begins to disappear.

The writing is descriptive and evocative, and the story is good in itself and can be applied to almost anything in life where a group has grown powerful and complacent.

It reminded me of something I saw in China earlier this year. At the Summer Palace, there were some older buildings that had been destroyed, and I heard the story about how it had been burned down by Europeans. Our tour guide said that her mother used to bring her there in her youth, tell her the story of the burning, and say, 'That's why you have to study for school, that's why you have to work hard, because if China isn't strong it will be burned down again."

Obviously this game is different as there is no invading force, just nature itself, but the two tied together in my mind.

Yes, the title of my review is a reference to the Dawn Machine from Sunless Sea, but to be fair, it was hard not to, with the references to clockwork and solar present in the game.

I quite enjoyed it overall. The writing was tight and tension immediate, even before the (Spoiler - click to show)famine began--- the need for control and perfection from an absolute monarch, one who already seemed high strung when all was well. Playing this was what I imagined Caligula was like, and my heart sympathized for the poor subjects of the king of Xanadu.