Sidetrack

by Andi C. Buchanan

2023

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
A charming and low-stakes journey through a dream land, April 16, 2023
by MathBrush
Related reviews: 15-30 minutes

This game has you enter a place you shouldn't, a portal, an actual liminal space between the real world and the world of dreams.

The main gameplay loop is looking at a subway map, picking a station to go to, and exploring, with items you pick up at one station coming in use at another.

Each station is a pure fantasy, mostly disconnected from the others. It's reminiscent of Miyazaki films like Spirited Away or My Neighbor Totoro (with their subway/catbus). The locations aren't intentionally scary, although some are pretty trippy.

I forgot which station I entered in and it was literally the last one I went back to. I ended up seeing everything, and it was a lot of fun!

To describe the vibes, one early station has a market run by people made of wood; another is a station almost identical to our world, but subtly not.

There were some spelling errors, mostly in the first few pages (like 'rennovating'). There was a pretty bad bug where trying to click on 'alight upon water' to transfer from the brown line to purple line going north gave a twine code error. You can get around it by going south instead and turning around. I think that one other station was like that as well.

Overall, a pleasant game with a few bugs.

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