The Maze

This game is a longish twine game with lush but sometimes confusing writing.

In it, you play as a woman who is to be married off to settle her father's debts, but is late to the wedding. You stumble, chased by wolves, into a cathedral that is abandoned and stripped of religious symbology. You then dive deeper into the earth, discovering a series of trees that give sin-related dreams.

This felt pretty long. The writing has me going back and forth. On the one hand, it shows skill in word use and sentence formation. On the other hand, I had great difficulty keeping track of what's going on. Sudden shifts in perspective and topic aren't just common, they're essentially the majority of the game. Here are a few excerpts I had trouble parsing:

(Spoiler - click to show)There’s something happening at the police headquarters. It is an invitation, something thrilling but also dangerous. You had invited him over, for beer, for weed, the usual dissolutions, to assay your desire. This change of scenery could represent an escape procedure; the police headquarters, the inkcloud from a squid’s mouth. Yeah? Shall we drive over?

Clogged up, I imagine. I came by bike. He did not even intend to down his vodka club. You invent an obstacle. Bum tire on mine. Haven’t had a chance. An embarrassing fabrication: your life is nothing but chances. Hop on mine. He finishes the drink in the end, two thrilling gulps, pulls you from the bear trap of a lounge chair, positions you at the rear, to the private torments of discretion. Keep hold."

Another one:

"You keep turning over the question of death as if it were a weekend trip to the zoo. You’d heard about the albino crocodile, of course, the caged mandrills, the rhino whose tusk is slowly curling back into his skull. I’d like to go into town this evening, for an hour or two. Do you feel up to being alone? It’s a matter of practicalities, really, that’s what everything comes down to. Do we have a gun? She is sniffing at an orchid even though it’s plastic. Of course we don’t have a gun. The coffee is undrinkable. She must give you back the machine at least. Not even in your purse? It’s a rough-and-tumble neighborhood.

The storyline is interesting, and every part involving the marriage story was great. I just got bogged down in the middle and very intro and am not sure what was going on or what the themes were.