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Review
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!
