Stage Fright

A theatrical game that manages to make script memorization and workplace safety hazards surprisingly fun! This Ectocomp entry was lighthearted in tone, and rich with Phantom of the Opera-inspired atmosphere. I’d recommend this for fans of theater or anyone looking for a puzzly-but-friendly limited-parser IF.

The highlight of the game design was in how the theatrical theme drove the mechanics by determining the player character’s capabilities and constraints. I won’t spoil all that by going into detail here, but it was a really nice complement of form and content. The smart writing also created a richly layered narrative environment, especially considering its co-authors spent just one week crafting this game (which, if I remember correctly, may have started life as a Petite Mort that became not-so-petite?). Lots of details in the writing deserving of a close reading or a second playthrough.

Admittedly I found myself liberally spamming the “think” option, and consulting the walkthrough for one or two steps. Even without hints, though, the game felt very solvable; aided significantly by the handy highlighted rooms and symbols in the mini map.

The game’s description tells us that player character’s “one guiding tenet” is that “the show must go on.” I did find myself wishing it was a little clearer to me how that goal was meant to motivate or propel the player character’s actions forward at any given moment (hence my impulse to spam “think” for guidance), aside from the overarching goal of gaining access to rooms so that I (the player, not the PC) could progress through the game. It’s possible my reading comprehension may be at fault, here; maybe the text was trying to tell me something and I just missed it. But I tend to think that the satisfaction of solving a puzzle (the difficulty of which, I think, includes the subtlety of its text) comes from the challenge of finding a solution to a clear problem. In “Stage Fright,” I ended up reverse-engineering a number of problems by finding their solution first (i.e., I have a hammer and I found a nail, so I guess I’ll try using it. But why does this object need nailing down, again?).

Eventually I found that my way forward was to just mess around with stuff. Mild spoilers for game mechanics: (Spoiler - click to show)“Stake” anything and (everyone)! “Burn” things that seem flammable! Generally cause havoc with the hazards in the environment. Once I embraced this, I had fun with it; and the reveal at the conclusion of the story put it all into perspective.

This game by the Stelzers follows in the footsteps of A Familiar Problem last year (maybe it’s in the same universe?). You play as a homonculus with a strictly limited set of available actions (just 1!). That 1 action, though, has the effect of gaining more actions, including navigation and interfering with others.

Story-wise, is kind of a pastiche of mainly Phantom of the Opera along with Shakespeare, other plays, and fantasy elements.

Gameplay-wise, it feels like a growing power-fantasy. You start out with so many limitations that it feels like the world will just always be mostly inaccessible, but it ends up growing until you can do quite a few amazing feats.

I had a great time with this fun game. My only regret is that one part near the end is written in iambic meter, but some lines have 8 syllables and some have 10 and I couldn’t see any pattern or reason why. Even still, that part was fun, it was just something minor that stuck out to me.

I think most people will like this, and the intro flows well; I think it was the best intro for my tastes out of all Stelzer-made games.