Solarium

Indie Statik
It’s a fascinating alternate fiction with bleak, existential themes.
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Rock Paper Shotgun
"Solarium...is one of the creepiest pieces of speculative fiction I’ve read, because within its framework of fantasy, alchemy, and interference from immortal spirits, it contains an element that is horrific-but-true: the story of Cold War hysteria and of how close we came to blowing ourselves up in the mid-20th century" -Emily Short
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5 star: (20) 4 star: (15) 3 star: (11) 2 star: (2) 1 star: (3)

Average Rating: Number of Reviews: 5 Write a review

Most Helpful Member Reviews

Solarium is one of my favorite pieces of interactive fiction, or any fiction really. It's another of those stories that I find myself returning to over and over. Every time I read it, I feel like I discover something new, another layer to the story or a reference I didn't understand. If anyone hasn't yet, you might want to play it for yourself without reading this review; my description won't do it justice.

Insofar that Solarium is primarily about any one thing, it's about the horrors of the Cold War. In their quest for supremacy over the Soviet Union, Americans turned to esotericism, with a magical archaeological discovery that promises to protect them from nuclear retaliation, thus breaking the game theory of Mutually Assured Destruction and allowing a first strike. Of course it doesn't work that way; actually they awakened an ancient evil that wanted to destroy the world. And it did. But that's just the surface; there's a lot more to the story.

Solarium is a hypertext story told nonlinearly and nonchronologically. It is a mystery story where the mystery is from the perspective of the reader, to find out what happened and why. There is a root node taking place "after mutually assured destruction" and many flashback segments (can I call them storylets?), each associated with a substance, unlocked by going through other flashbacks (which are treated as alchemical rituals). Through these flashbacks, the player discovers the history of the protagonist and their relation with the events that lead up to the nuclear apocalypse.

There are two endings decided by a final choice at the end. It makes sense; everything that comes before is flashback to prepare the player for this final decision. Spoiler description of the plot and ending: (Spoiler - click to show)The plot takes the cold war and moves it to cosmic dimensions. The protagonist is the reincarnation of an ancient godlike figure, and both his lover(?) Annalise and the Archon (the spirit contained inside the magical amulet) are also reincarnations, playing out an ancient cosmic drama between good and evil. Their bodies are no matter; the Archon takes over the president's body, and the protagonist is reincarnated as men and women, including a priest and a soldier. All of them are endlessly lonely through reincarnation, and the Archon tries to attract the attention of the Creator by acting up, by causing so much mayhem and evil that God is forced to notice him. Meanwhile Annalise is as pure good as possible; it's implied that she is the reincarnation of Jesus. The ending is with Annalise dying permanently, and the protagonist can either join her in death or keep on living. In the latter ending, eventually the protagonist finds the Archon's amulet again, because they're so lonely and need a companion.

The game is littered with a complex array of references, from literature to religion to real-life Cold War history complete with actual documents. Maybe it's only impressive to a relatively uncultured person like myself, but I thought it was incredible, and made me look up a lot of things on Wikipedia, like the real life Project Solarium, the use of LSD by the CIA, Gnostic religions, and the history of alchemy.

More generally, the writing is incredible (in my opinion). Every sentence just feels perfect. I don't know how to talk about it without gushing. The nonlinearity and gating are usually well thought out, and work to pace the story and control how and when the player accesses certain content. Most of it is pretty easy to navigate, but there were a few moments where I wasn't sure how to proceed. But it turns out that some storylets can or have to be repeated multiple times after getting new substances.

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Solarium gives Twine a good name. This well-crafted game is adult ficion, not as in sexuality, but as in dealing with thoughtful and meaningful concepts. It involves alchemy and an alternative ending to the cold war, decades ago.

The narrative has a branching structure, with each branch requiring a key in the form of an alchemical substance. By obtaining more substances, you unlock more areas.

The game includes several striking images, including scans of real government documents.

I strongly recommend this game.

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This is well-written and engrossing. A clickable twine text game, Solarium has an interesting alchemical system which is quickly grasped through exploration of the narrative. As you progress through different memories, you obtain new story paths, and part of the fun is in speculating which will lead you to which.

There was only one moment where I worried that the game may have a dead end, early on, when I had gone through what I thought were all my options in remembering the story through alchemical reagents. I quickly realized that I simply was missing one of the options, and hadn't realized it was clickable.

Well-written, engrossing, and with an interesting ambience, this game is a mystical take on the idea of a nuclear apocalypse. The action mostly takes place in one room, as your character relieves past experiences that contribute to your understanding of what led to the apocalypse, and the limited role you played. The denouement is satisfying, and leaves you with a real choice, shaped by your perception of the text you'd just read, instead of by your collection of macguffins and plot points.

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