The Axolotl Project

This game has some positive aspects coupled with a couple of serious flaws. The drawbacks didn't completely render the game not enjoyable for me, but it could have been a lot better. There are three parts to play through, and each one took me about an hour.

This is a choice-based game written with Twine, which is presented in the style of a classic parser game. You simply click the hyperlinks to navigate the world instead of typing commands. This succeeds at evoking the atmosphere of a classic sci-fi themed text adventure, as least to begin with. Sadly, the sheen wears off due to the lack of player freedom and mechanisms to very meaningfully deliver and solve puzzles. There is simply no way the player can miss an opportunity to use an object as a direct hyperlink is always offered at the appropriate time. It would perhaps have been better if the player had to go into their inventory to decide when to try using an object.

I liked the story, which had some thought-provoking and creative ideas in it. I actually think the game is worth playing just for that. There are certain parts of the story that are very dark, including the opening segment, the end of part one, and the denouement, as well as the whole idea of exploiting the axolotls for monetary and human gain. The problem with the story is that it has quite an inconsistent tone. There's a lot of seriousness, dark themes, and, at times, large amounts of peril. However, your character, a downtrodden young intern, has quite a line in sassy and witty remarks, the tone of which just feels inappropriate when it is directed towards other characters. It's a shame, because there are a lot of witty observations in the text that did make me laugh, but somehow the themes of the story and the nature of the main character did not gel for me. I think the author was trying to leaven some of the heavier content with humour, but it just didn't work in the context of the whole piece.

The quality of the writing is generally quite high, and together with the creative story, decent characters, interesting setting, and apposite themes of corporate greed and ruthlessness makes the Axolotl Project worth playing despite its imperfections.