Stooping to Diplomacy

Mashing story and puzzles together is hard, even when the puzzles aren’t cryptic crossword clues. But this game proves it can really work!

Stooping to Diplomacy is about cryptic crossword clues in kind of the same sense that Typing of the Dead is about typing. It’s not quite as preposterous, though, because there’s a reasonable explanation for the central mechanic: to help Lephrea the vampire form alliances with the animals of the Kansas City Zoo, you need to decipher cryptic hints from her sass-talking Ouija board. So, ok, maybe it is a little preposterous.

Lephrea and the Ouija board may be at odds, but the Ouija board has no animosity towards the player, so you don’t have to be a genius at cryptic crosswords: the game will walk you through them if you need help. (After all, this game was written based on the EnigMarch prompt “hint,” so hinting is a pretty central mechanism.) So this is a great way to learn how to parse and solve cryptic clues if you want to, and maybe even a way to train yourself to be less rigid about taking hints. Also, it’s really two games snaking around each other, with the cryptic clues providing help for the in-world trading sequence and vice versa, which just feels really unique and cool.

Puzzles aside, I’ve enjoyed all the glimpses of Lephrea as a side character in the Little Match Girl series (and the related The Board of Regents, written for the previous year’s EnigMarch). Her personality is so strong, and an unlikely vessel for character humor. But we can’t identify too much with her as an antihero here, because she reminds us that she is not a cool Jessica Jones type with a good heart, but a soulless vampire who will (with our help!) do things that repulse us. In particular, the scene where (Spoiler - click to show)she causes the probable demise of a cute baby animal was a blatant wake-up call for me. If I didn’t trust the author, I might have closed the browser window and walked away at this point. But the space between the player and the player character kept opening up and closing back in, making it too tempting to go along with her scheme. And this is the moment when I realized the game itself has vampiric qualities.

Also, the finale is so satisfying/chilling. This is a really good game.

An ominous little game about giving a bunch of zoo animals what they want. To learn their desires, you have to solve a series of cryptic crossword-style clues, though the game also walks you through how to go about solving these. This wasn't so short that it felt insubstantial, but it also didn't overstay its welcome. I got stuck for a bit, but I asked the author for help, and he gave me a new clue or two which let me figure out what I'd been missing. That was a lot of fun, too.

I have to ask myself: "If I had so much fun, why didn't I give the game five stars?" This is all a bit subjective, but I've given shorter games higher scores before, so I do feel like it's a question that deserves an answer.

This is oversimplifying, but: our viewpoint character is a villain. She is a predator in a world of predation. However satisfying it may be to know that she eventually gets her comeuppance, for the duration of this game, our control of her enables her to make deals which will not be to the benefit of every party involved. It is implied that some parties (through no fault of their own) will end up getting the very, very short end of the stick. That's nature; that's life. (Or unlife, in this case.) But it still bums me out.

This is not a review, and had no rating associated. This is merely an informative note to clarify for whoever might be interested in playing that "Stooping to Diplomacy" is set in the general universe of the author's "The Little Match Girl" and is a sequel to "The Board of Regents". The latter makes no reference to that universe, so it's very likely these can be enjoyed perfectly stand-alone, but for any who would prefer to enjoy settings from the same universe in the same context, this note is here to clarify that.