The Saltcast Adventure

I liked this one a lot! Normally I get a little antsy when an IF game starts with several long screens of non-interactive text in a row, as I start wondering when I’ll be able to participate in the story, but I was drawn into this one right away once I learned the identity of the protagonist: a starving mother taking a desperate, foolish risk for the sake of her family. Way more interesting than a confident, sword-bearing hero! When “what do you do”-type choices start appearing, while they don’t always necessarily matter plot-wise, I liked how much they focused on characterizing the PC, Madelaine. For instance, the first one comes after you’ve entered the monster-infested cave and the opening seals up after you. You can stoically continue on, or have a moment of panic and bang on the blockage with your fists. I chose the latter, which only resulted in bloodied hands, but I liked getting to roleplay Madelaine as getting freaked out in that moment. Games where the PC is a specific character that I get to inhabit are usually my favorite mode of choice-based IF (and the one I largely write), so that alone had me hooked.

As the story went on, the plot got me, too. This game has a familiar fantasy backdrop but puts its own spin on magic and magical creatures, and I enjoyed accompanying Madelaine as she finds out there’s much more to the world of the Saltcast than she ever knew, and gets pulled into their struggles while still sticking to her own goal. I chose to play her as compassionate, willing to give these creature the benefit of the doubt and choosing kindness as much as she could, and the fact that I could have taken contrasting, more ruthless and self-serving options made my choices feel more meaningful. And playing Madelaine this way meant that the mission she ends up on with the Saltcast became personal, rather than just a means to an end. Even as the stakes grew beyond just Madelaine and her family, the story always stayed very grounded in Madelaine’s role in the events and her concerns, which I appreciated.

(Spoiler - click to show)When, in an excellent twist, Madelaine becomes fully (literally) absorbed in the larger-scale goings-on, I loved the author’s choice to do a time-skip and a perspective shift. Part 3 has the player embodying Madelaine’s daughter, 10 years after the end of Part 2, as, in a parallel to the game’s opening, she enters the cave for her own family-motivated reasons—discovering her mother’s fate. This lets us see the effect Madelaine’s actions had on her family (and beyond), and allows for a resolution to her story that wouldn’t have been as satisfying if we’d stayed in her perspective.

I do have a few things to nitpick as far as presentation. I think a slightly more dressed-up UI would be nice, something with stronger fantasy vibes—a more distinctive font, a curated color for the links, styling of the sidebar, etc. And while I liked the artwork—I think the one of Grissol was my favorite, and the changing representation of the lantern in the sidebar was a nice touch—it could be integrated a bit more smoothly; it usually loaded slower than the text, and its placement in the middle of the page felt a bit awkward. (I also encountered a broken image toward the beginning, the one of a spellbeast.) So some adjustments to the UI and the handling of the images could make the whole appearance tie together better.

There are also some immersion-breaking moments, like when a link reads "Go back", referring to the player returning to the previous page after a digression--I don't want to be suddenly reminded that I'm essentially navigating a website (this is more fully explained in the Intfiction.org version of this review here). But I only mention these things because they’re fairly small changes that I think would make an already great game even better!

This is a long, worldbuilding-heavy, sincere fantasy Twine game about a world where dark magical creatures are born from mirrors. You play as a tired mother who is desperate and starving, looking for some kind of money for your family. You descend into the monster's caves to win wealth, learn about the monsters, or die.

The game is polished, and I didn't find any bugs. There are occasional illustrations and it makes use of different background colors.

I thought it was well-written. The creation myths were some of my favorite parts, as was interacting with the gods. Overall, this seems like a setting that would do well in fantasy book.

I had ups and downs with the plot. Up until the end of Act II, I felt like there was a definite progression, and could feel the tension rising. I reach what felt like the apex of the plot, but then...there was Act III, which felt like it let the wind out of the sails. (Spoiler - click to show)We get a new protagonist and repeat many of the same plot points. It's interesting too because with Act I and Act II I thought, 'This could be a great fantasy novel if it was expanded with more interactions with the characters, more door history, but the author probably didn't have enough time', and yet Act III itself is quite large. I would have preferred to have just Act I and Act II, fully fleshed out, and maybe Act III as a later sequel book.

But this is just quibbling and it's not like I can dictate that kind of thing. I liked the overall story and thought it was well done, I'm just recording the thoughts that passed through my head.

The choices were both good and bad. A large chunk of them fell into two categories:
1) Be nice vs Be mean
2) Injure yourself to discover something vs Be safe and learn nothing

I found little motivation to be mean early on, so usually just stuck with being nice. Later on, I found that there was more subtlety to some of those choices, but it would have been nice to have more options that weren't on the good/bad axis. The choices I liked most involved the gods, who had some great variety. The choices did provide the chance to feel like a hero, though, and were meaningful, often having significant-feeling effects. The game doesn't seem to branch too much but it does adjust itself based on your actions.

It was a long game. I played over two different evenings, and it took up a couple hours in each.

Overall, I can recommend it to players in generally, but most heartily to avid fantasy fans.