A1RL0CK

This game (no, I am not retyping the full title out again) is proof that there’s really nothing wrong with the hoariest old storytelling tropes. It trots out one of the oldest premises in parser IF – you wake up alone in a space station, with amnesia – adds the smallest imaginable twist – actually the station is underwater, not outer space – and brings it to life with tense, evocative writing. There are a couple of overly-obscure puzzles that I doubt I would have solved but for David Welbourn’s helpful walkthrough, but this remains a gripping bit of horror-tinged sci-fi.

I don’t want to say too much about the plot; while it hits pretty much all the story beats you’re expecting from the get-go, seeing them play out is a big part of the draw, and the revelations are well spaced out over the course of the game’s hourish running time, creating solid pacing (assuming you can get through the puzzles – we’ll come back to that). But suffice to say that it’s clear from the get-go that there’s something wrong with the facility, and wrong with you, too – for one thing, what’s a small child doing in such an isolated place? The intro does a very good job establishing the stakes and pointing towards where the narrative is headed:

“WE ARE APPROXIMATELY TWO KILOMETERS BELOW THE SURFACE. IF THAT DOOR OPENS—WHICH IS CURRENTLY PREVENTED BY OUR SECURITY FAILSAFES—MILLIONS OF TONS OF SEAWATER WOULD RUSH INTO THE FACILITY AND DESTROY EVERYTHING. YOU YOURSELF WOULD BE CRUSHED BY THE PRESSURE IN MOMENTS.

"You squint to compensate for the darkness and the headache returns. Instinctively, you run a hand over yourself to make sure that no pieces of glass remain on the overalls since the cocoon broke. You are clean."

The prose is a real highlight throughout; it’s typically sharp and declarative, but occasionally reaches for a striking image or presents a more confusing, impressionistic jumble when the protagonist gets knocked off-kilter. And there’s one development in the plot that yes, is telegraphed and a bit cliché, but still landed quite heavily on me (Spoiler - click to show)(the death of Nelly). If you’re looking for a boundary-pushing think-piece, well, that’s not what’s on offer here, but as a piece of genre writing it’s quite successful.

As a work of IF, though… well, this is the kind of piece where being able to wander around at your own pace and soak up the ambiance and environmental storytelling is a natural fit for the plot. And some of the puzzles work well to get you to engage with the setting and gate out the various bits of backstory you can piece together. But too many of them are firmly in read-the-author’s-mind territory. (Spoiler - click to show)I’m not sure how you’re supposed to intuit that the tin you find in the kitchen is poison, for example, much less what cooking cream is and that it’s explosive. And I still can’t at all picture what’s wrong with the dumbwaiter such that setting off an explosion in it sets everything to rights. The magnetic disc, meanwhile, at least feels like something you could solve via trail and error, but similarly feels more like an abstract video-game puzzle than anything organic to the environment. The good news is that most of these rough patches come in the middle of the game; the opening segment and the climax are relatively smooth sailing, so the clueing misfires don’t detract as much as they otherwise would.

All told the positive parts of the game are definitely enough to make this one I’d recommend; there’s something uniquely likeable about a familiar story that’s well-told, especially one that’s spooky and has a good eye for a compelling image. Playing it entirely straight, without hints or a walkthrough, is likely to be an exercise in frustration, though – there are no heroes in this story, so there’s no upside in gritting your teeth and trying to tough it out.