Lime Ergot

I have been really interested in getting into parser-IF games, but no matter which ones I tried, I would become overwhelmed rather easily. Probably because I clicked titles at random. Then I tried looking at polls and discovered I actually had a big pull of community suggestions at my feet — the poll that helped me immensely is titled 'Games for Beginners - an IFDB Poll'. Lime Ergot only had two votes there, but I liked the game description enough to try it out as a complete newbie. It is also the first parser game I finished.

Gameplay-wise I appreciated its lenghth (it took me about 30 minutes to play through) and not having to play guess-the-verb. The endings also were easily discoverable and interesting to compare.

I'm also really fond of experimental stuff of all furs. This game uses looking at objects as the main way to discover the inner story of the world the player sees, gradually unpeeling as the main character looks from one object to another, which I think is a great decision to communicate how the reality is coming apart at the seams and hallucination mingles with real world.

The mechanic itself reminded me of the Illiad's "Shield of Achilles".

Being able to operate on small-scale projects asks for grace and is a separate skill for writers and developers alike, and I think it's very-well executed here.