Superluminal Vagrant Twin

Loved the game, which had excellent writing and world-building, as well as a refreshingly different focus on which commands propel it forwards. Not examining objects and merely talking rather than talking about things with NPCs ensures a nice and breezy pace, though it should be said that the player doesn't have much control about how the plot of the game will unfold. But player autonomy isn't really the point of the fast-paced, low-difficulty research management sim that is Superluminal Vagrant Twin, anyway, and that's not a bad thing - rather, the focus is on exploration and discovery. The true strength of this game is its fresh and creative setting. I had a wonderful time navigating its strange, surprising galaxy, having been tossed in media res into the aftermath of a war that is never fully explained and whose factions don't even begin to map onto our current human modes of being. Marvelous!

"So I've made a reasonably large (broad but shallow is how I'd put it) parser game set in space."

This expectation-lowering premise introduction kicks off one of the best RPG-style works of Interactive Fiction I've ever read. The author uses the term "shallow", but I'd say minimalist; dozens of characters, locations, and alien races are described in terse, pared-back prose. These well-written and plotted scenes are engaging and evocative, pulling the reader into a richly imaginative world.

The UI/UX can sometimes be clunky if only because the reader expects more--more commands, more fiddly-bits, more fussing--but the work on the whole is much stronger for paring back the parser functions to the bare minimum. This would be an incredible introductory work to bring a mainstream gamer into Interactive Fiction.

I love the dialogue, the settings, the environment, and the atmosphere. I love the way the game sets the tone and personality of the protagonist by placing you squarely in such a difficult situation. The missions, quests, and interactions all reinforce this central narrative of a scrappy and plucky pilot about to turn their luck around.

Don't stress too much about perfect completion: the game lets you continue when you finish the main story, to accomplish the side quests and achievements. I highly recommend this genre-crossing experimental work to anyone, with no caveats or warnings. It's really excellent.

While there are obvious parallels to Space trading RPGs such as Sundog: Frozen Legacy and Elite, this game reminded me most of Captain Blood on the Atari ST. Which was a space adventure in which, like in this game, the focus is fly around the galaxy, talk to various aliens and that way discover new destinations while furthering the plot.

The trading part consists of speaking with characters and figuring out who will buy what. There is no time at which it is necessary to get an Excel sheet out to find where your cargo of pan-galactic pork bellies will sell for marginally more. I'm glad of that, as I don't have the patience for that anymore.

I enjoyed this game a lot, I was skeptical in the beginning but this works very well as an IF game: no need to eXamine everything - everything you need to know is in descriptions, or discovered by talking, no need to walk in compass directions - just tell your ship where to go. Though I normally enjoy longer descriptions, the short and business-like dialog fits with the atmosphere.

All in all this is a great game, I hope there will be a sequel.

Superluminal Vagrant Twin stands out for its unusual format for IF and for its understated, evocative writing that makes the world feel complex and immersive without facing the player with a wall of text. Its mechanics feel quite different from standard IF and work well with the feel. I feel it's main weakness is the lack of a satisfying climax: you gradually figure out more about the world and how to use the mechanics effectively, and then you do that and win without surprises or twists. While there are multiple options, it didn't feel like it mattered which one you picked, and I kept waiting for moral choices or other elaborations on the formula. That said, it was well worth playing and a lot of fun.

This is one of Pacian's best games, which is saying a lot. It is intricate but casual, and lasts 1-2 hours for the main storyline.

You play as a ship captain whose twin brother has been taken and frozen due to your unpaid loans. You must travel to a variety of worlds and systems to get enough cash to free your brother.

The world model is purposely simple. Each world and its orbit constitute a single location. Each location has 1-5 npcs and 0-2 other nouns. The only interaction available with most NPCs is TALK TO, although some can BUY and SELL, and a few other interactions pop up later.

You can't examine anything, and there's no searching or any such thing. You just travel from world to world, building up money until you're done. There's no climactic finale, but it's still rewarding.

This game is one of the best science fiction games I have played.