Lime Ergot

In this game you never move. You see and remember and hallucinate.

You are standing on a sunbaked wharf and your commanding officer, a wizened general in a wheelchair, orders you to prepare her a cocktail: a green skull. It requires limes. You have no limes. This is the game's premise, and acquiring the limes is its only puzzle.

Because you cannot leave the general's side, all that you may do is "examine" your surroundings, and as your examinations deepen, you peel back diaphanous layer after diaphanous layer until the atmosphere is swimming with lost memories. The scenario is hazy and beautiful, but also wrong, diseased.

Castle of the Red Prince uses this same mechanic, but whereas that game allows the player to move lightning-fast across the landscape by simply "examining" different objects or locations, Lime Ergot internalizes the action by rooting you to a single spot. The sensations that you uncover gather around you like a fog, and experiencing this mood is the game's purpose.

I discovered two endings. Both are easy to find, and both are worth reading. More might be possible.

The game is short, the writing crisp, with subtle eccentricity throughout. On the surface it is as light and refreshing as a breeze, but there is a creeping plague wind underneath. Try it if that sounds promising; move on if you prefer more varied gameplay or puzzle-solving.

Lime Ergot is a short game, but makes the most of its premise. You are one of only two surviving officers of a colonial military force; the other being the black-hearted and possibly insane general, who orders you to make her a drink. The game's central task is to find the ingredients for this drink. But rather than traversing a physical space through movement, we traverse a partially sensory and at least partially hallucinated space through use of the examine command. Examining things not only leads us from one object to others that were not initially described; rather, by making things present to our mind, it gives them reality and allows us to physically manipulate them. A fascinating mechanic that is combined with beautiful, evocative prose and a great atmosphere. A little gem.

You and the general are the last ones left on the island of St Stellio, and she wants adrink. You’re the lower-ranking officer, so it’s up to you to get the drink done.

The game consists of find-the-object puzzles through descriptions which act like nested dolls (‘telescopic’ descriptions?). Examining one object reveals another, which reveals another, which reveals another… While the puzzle itself wasn't much, the joy of playing Lime Ergot was in the devices and scenery. The mechanic was ingenious, keeping the game’s scope small without feeling contrived. The writing is lush and evocative, and suited the mildly hallucinatory state of the PC. Lime Ergot is a well-thought-out, tidy piece for one written in three hours.

Similar to Castle of the Red Prince.

Approx playing time: 30 mins