Mermaids of Ganymede

Seth Paxton first entered IFComp last year as part of the writing team behind "Big Trouble in Little Dino Park", a fun dinosaur game that unfortunately suffered from bugs and a gauntlet-style structure that frustrated players, ending up in 82nd place.

This game is a significant improvement, incorporating numerous fixes requested in last year's game. It has far fewer bugs, excellent visuals and sounds, and a more free-form structure that encourages exploration and multiple playthroughs.

I think there is still room for improvement, but that's the best way to improve IFComp reception: try something out, tinker with it, see what people think, and adjust accordingly.

In this game, you play as a team of scientific researchers who crash on Ganymede and discover a mysterious underwater world.

It takes place in 5 different chapters, each with several variables saved that significantly changes later chapters. I can only describe my playthrough, though.

Each chapter has a different mechanic, from conversation to fetch quests to what felt a bit like a game of 'battleship'.

(commentary on chapters 2 and 4):(Spoiler - click to show)I felt like the Chapter 2 quest was hard to get started. I got started at the university but had trouble after that because no one else was interested in talking. I would have liked maybe one or 2 smaller successes along the way to keep me going until I got the big series of quests working. I felt like I saw variations of 'you can't go here yet' over and over. And in Chapter 4, it was similarly a bit hard to understand the mechanics without death, especially since I was told to find and return shark DNA, but every encounter with them ended in instant death! And that quest never came up again.

Overall:
+Polish: There were a few rough edges (like one uncapitalized sentence in the 4th chapter that stuck out), but overall I loved the smooth design and music and images.
+Descriptiveness: Lots of nice little details.
-Interactivity: I was frustrated on occasion, although this was definitely an improvement over last time. I considered making this a +.
-Emotional impact: Again, I went back and forth on this one. I liked the big reveal at the end, I enjoyed the dramatic dangers in chapter 4, but all of them felt like they could use a little more breathing room, a little time to contemplate and unpack what was going on.
+Would I play again? It'd be interesting to see other paths.

I think I'd give this a 3.5, but I'll round it up to 4 for IFDB.