Mirror

This is a set of 4 game books by students in a creative writing event in Slovakia. In this quick review I’m treating each one separately, as well as giving overall thoughts at the end.

Lilian Lalonder

This starts compellingly with a strange mirror, and then takes you into another place, and some really bizarre and creatively written outcomes. It’s good. And the English is strong. I played all the endings, and was glad I could see them all. This was probably my favourite of all the pieces.

Mihi

This doesn’t use the theme “mirror” so immediately, and it comes later, and is used in a very clever way. It’s rather a neat tale of how you handle unexpected news. However it resists the player following certain paths through, which left me feeling a bit cheated. I wanted to see the outcomes of those decisions, even the ones I doubted were wise. I replayed several times to try to explore different routes. The core idea is really strong, well done to the author, but let us play through things. Don’t steamroller.

James

This is a multi part story, and feels more like a Twine version of a parser game than the others, which are more traditional Twine interactive stories. You start in a room with various objects you can examine, quite minimally described. And then see where you can get to. It’s quite a short piece, multiple branching narratives, but a quick fun explore, and an intriguing world. It also left me pondering at the end, which is good! And I was keen to replay, and explore different choices. Original use of mirror. Thanks!

Dr John

This one starts in all capitals, which was a bit of a shock to me. A mix of lower and upper case is generally friendlier for readers to read. It seems to be set in a strange world of reflections and observers, and stuff that is hidden. However I struggled to get a good outcome. At one point the game suggests you click randomly on every bit of blue text. I was exploring lots of options for ages, then suddenly had an idea of something to try. And got to a good outcome! So phew. It was very hard though. The scifi like setting was a nice contrast with the other three works.

This was an interesting set of micro short Twine stories. Each was unique in its approach, and together they showed a variety of ways the system can be used. Two of the games included input boxes asking you to type text in, and this was nicely used, especially in one of the games. And I liked the different approaches and genres e.g. fantasy, real world, slice of life, horror, sci-fi and also branching narrative versus geographical world model versus philosophical puzzle. So thank you all! I hope that there might be more from Senica Thing in the 2024 Spring Thing. New voices in IF are always welcome!