Number of Reviews: 8
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Metatextual, experimental, narrative stretching and moving parser game, May 16, 2023Wow. I’m not quite sure what to say about this. It’s a parser piece, which can be played to an extent as a traditional parser game, episodic in this case. But it’s also metatextual, highly experimental, and in places for me was profoundly affecting.
The metatextual side is perhaps the least spoilery I can go into. It adds a guide you can interact with, that expands, and provides hints. You can also read in game footnotes. This is reminiscent of some discussion on this forum a while back about how old games could be effectively bundled up in a wider package, providing extra contextualisation etc. It’s really neatly done here.
The traditional parser/puzzle side is arguably the least interesting element. But it’s well done. And uses a neat mechanism throughout, that I won’t spoil.
There is also something very interesting about the narrative structure that the game does. But again I don’t want to spoil it!
But it was how the game affected me that I found most impactful. This relates to something that happened in my own life almost a year ago (spoiler: (Spoiler - click to show)my dad died). And I feel quite shocked after playing the game to be honest. But in a good way.
Kudos to the author for a powerful and innovative piece.
P.S. As I said to Drew elsewhere I could have written so much more about this in my review. I sort of wish I had. But I feel very strongly that this is a game best discovered by each player afresh. And I absolutely didn’t want to spoil things. If anything my review underplays how good it was. There are many more things I could have acknowledged. But that way lies spoilers. And I wanted to avoid them! Try it out anyway folks!