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Review
Adapted from a SpringThing25 Review
Played: 4/13/25
Playtime: 20m, 2 endings, 9/10 on quiz
For a change of pace, let me ignore my own angsts and instead plumb the angsts of a first time author! There is something heady about the raw, unfiltered creativity of engaging a new communication medium. The thrill of learning new skills, and putting them in service of a creative vision, it is a boiling, bubbling, embarrassment of riches, a swirling soup of enthusiasm that latches on to the prose, the construction, and carries to the reader. This was my overwhelming sense of this piece - an enthusiasm to pack if full of graphics, external educational links, meaningful choice points and classically-informed mini puzzles. Stir it all together into a wonderful, asymmetric stew of an experience.
I particularly liked how it simultaneously functioned as an education vehicle (on the myth of Atlantis and a primer on ecological responsibility), and an unsentimental view of human history. As we navigate the events via our time-lost bottle, two options loom large. To view the last days of Atlantis (whose parallels to modernity seem very deliberate), or to pen a missive of warning hoping to avert that end.
That latter effort received with a resolutely cold “Time is a great wall, and my message is only a stone thrown against it.” The work acknowledges the limits of communication when communication is rebuffed, but somehow nevertheless infuses a stubborn optimism IN THE VERY ACT OF IT. And makes LEARNING an act of defiance.
Yes, the work carried artifacts of an author engaging new tools but was considered and complete nevertheless. And its cautionary, defiant enthusiasm more than compensated any rookie missteps.
Horror Icon: Regan/Pazuzu
Vibe: Stealth Education
Polish: Textured
Gimme the Wheel! : I would not deign to seize the wheel of anyone’s first effort. The joy of completing a project, of capturing messages you feel compelled to share in a medium that continually offers new mechanisms for it.. everyone should experience that without me grabbing the wheel!
Polish scale: Gleaming, Smooth, Textured, Rough, Distressed
Gimme the Wheel: What I would do next, if it were my project.
