A Day for Fresh Sushi

In A Day for Fresh Sushi, instead of trying to cobble together a whole game under the time limit, Short has written one perfectly constructed little scene. It's a few steps away from a one-move game; if you get even slightly lucky you'll win right away, but want to come back to see what happens when you try other things. As other reviews have said, the fish's commentary is hilarious and is really what makes the game. Most of this game is silly with touches of playful romance, but there are deeper elements suggesting a more complex backstory. (Hint: (Spoiler - click to show)look at the painting.)

I don't like formalised rating systems. How many stars do you give a fun SpeedIF game? Do you compare it to other SpeedIF, or do you compare it to all other interactive fiction? Neither seems a very desirable choice, and that leaves me in an unsolvable dilemma.

Anyway, that's why I don't give rating without writing a corresponding review. Forget about the number of stars: A Day for Fresh Sushi is a very short and ridiculously easy game, but it has a nice atmosphere, more polish and backstory than you may expect from SpeedIF, and an NPC that I would love to see in a longer and more sustained game.

This is one of the stranger ideas I've ever seen for a game, but it's a lot of fun. A nice twist here is that most of the pleasure of this game comes from *not* completing it. Winning is dead easy, but it's more interesting to have a look around first. The NPC is enjoyably unpleasant and both the PC and the absent artist are given a lot of character - or at least, a lot is hinted at.

A couple of striking points about this game, which I'll hide not because they're really spoilers but because working these things out is part of the enjoyment: (Spoiler - click to show)The game appears to be set in the distant future, at least given that Britney seems to have been visiting the moon and the PC is apparently purple. I thought this interesting given that there is nothing overtly SF about the setting at all - apart from the talking fish, of course, which I initially assumed was a sort of whimsical fantasy element rather than a SF one. Perhaps it is and the SF elements have got absolutely nothing to do with it. (Spoiler - click to show)I think this is the first game I've played where the PC is gay and this makes no difference to the plot. That's also very refreshing.