For a Place by the Putrid Sea

This game is quite interesting. It takes place in Japan and introduces a little bit of the language and some objects. It is sometimes serious and at other times a comedy. The comp version I played in the beginning of IFComp 2020 had a few bugs. One of them was game-breaking, so I had to revert to an older save-file. But most of the bugs I could work around. Thus, my rating does not consider these bugs, as I guess the author will fix them in a post-comp version(?)

I liked most of this game a lot, both its story, puzzles and the humor. This game has several endings. However, it is clear whenever a better ending can be obtained, so the player will probably "undo" when reaching one of these less good endings. Unfortunately, the final ending was a bit confusing, and I couldn't help thinking that this game might have been a sequel to the author's other games. At least I noticed that the author has made another game set in Japan (Gotomomi). Thus "Putrid Sea" may be excellent if you have played that game first, I don't know. I have rated it without having played Gotomomi.

Perhaps if I had read all messages thoroughly several times, I could have analyzed the text to figure out what was going on with the final ending. Personally, I don't think that should be necessary and thus I rated it even though I didn't get the final ending. Still, I can recommend this game, as most of the game is easy to understand and well done (except the few bugs I hope the author will fix). You can just stop at one of the earlier endings, if you don't like the final ending.