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A polished, grungy time travelling adventure, July 2, 2023This is probably the best game I've played by this author.
It's a continuation of the older game Jesse Stavros' Compass, but I found that this game was mostly self-contained and explained the plot of the previous game fairly well.
The idea is that there is are several underground networks of talented individuals who are able to travel through space and/or time. Your friend, the young Jesse Stavros, has gone missing after visiting the Grateful Dead in concertin the 1970s.
The game hops between a variety of distinct and well-described locations, from a lonely motel to a squatter-infested theater to a refined steamboat.
The game has a lot of rooms and a lot of characters. This kind of complexity can lead to bugs or dull repetition if not done well, but this game is very polished for its size. Most people can respond to most topics; NPCs move independently. There were only a few minor errors for me here and there; a steamboat passenger's name wasn't printed in an ambient paragraph about him; a dead body was described as if it still had a gun I took. But in a game of this size and complexity, these are only minor errors.
Puzzles are well-clued. Two or three times I wasn't sure and peaked at the walkthrough, and it turned out I had had the right idea but in the wrong place or that I hadn't tried long enough. I had some trouble with one machine for a long time until I realized I hadn't examined it; once I did there were clear instructions.
Overall, I had fun. It reminds me of Cryptozoologist or other Robb Sherwinn games, although I'd say the overall level of polish is high. I was disappointed it (Spoiler - click to show)ended on a cliffhanger, but I'll definitely be interested in a future episode.
I also appreciated that, while the tone is mature and many of the characters are used to the seedy side of life, the game doesn't rely on any slurs or racist stereotypes or misogyny and instead uses dialogue and ambient objects to establish the atmosphere.