Playing Games

Playing Games is a short fantasy game about an trial of initiation in a semi-secret club. Not much information about the setting is revealed, which is a shame since the writing is quite competent.

There are few puzzles (one of them a little harder - it got me stuck - though in hindsight it was rather obvious), mostly searching the areas carefully does the trick of progressing you further into the game. One puzzle is optional, though its content left me quite baffled. (Spoiler - click to show)(the holly wreath which makes you disappear for completely unknown reasons) In fact, some events that happen in the game are of magical nature, which is one point the description of the setting is unfortunately lacking. In a lesser game, I wouldn't mind, but here I was wishing for greater enlightenment. (Spoiler - click to show)An interesting point is that the initiation ritual was designed to be unsolvable by its in-game creators, but a mysterious NPC helps the player - this is something I really wanted to be explained more.

One thing that makes Playing Games special is the implementation of a "Meong"-like maze minigame (without the "dying" part), which is fortunately auto-solvable (I didn't have the patience to finish the final stage).

In conclusion, Playing Games is a quite playable effort, I would have wished for a bigger, less streamlined game and especially a more detailed setting.

4/10