Heretic's Hope

Heretic's Hope
by G. C. Baccaris profile

Episode 2 of Sacred Tides series
Fantasy
2019

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Number of Reviews: 3
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

Idiosyncratical and stunning, November 19, 2019

by Pseudavid

The thing I appreciate the most about Heretic’s Hope is the same I appreciated about Devotionalia: it sets out to tell a story whose subject matter, structure, rhythm, style, etc. are very much at odds with most things at IFcomp, and even more at odds with most things in videogames, and even most things in popular culture.

“What is it to be holy?”, the game asks. What kind of question is that in a videogame? The game doesn’t compromise to make the subject more player-friendly. Hats off to anyone willing to do all this in such a coherent way.

The story is fine, the aesthetics stunning, the interactions well thought. I have problems with them sll, but minor. It’s memorably written and illustrated. Both the story and the design follow the same principle: horror vacui. It’s a very dangerous thing to try, and you need to have it under pretty good control. The game keeps piling characters, locations, plotlines, pictures, colored words, decorated frames, but amazingly, it mostly pulls it off. Perhaps it's the sheer imagination of it all, even when it's way too much.

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

A fantasy/horror game with deep worldbuilding and impressive UI, October 3, 2019

by MathBrush
Related reviews: about 1 hour

This author has become well known for Twine UI work. with many people interested in learning how to make games look the way, for instance, Devotionalia did.

This game has that same rich UI. Buttons instead of hyperlinks, character portraits, rich backdrops, multiple save files in a button in a collapsible menu.

Story-wise, this is heavy stuff, epic fantasy mixed with horror. You are a lone human burying their mother, living on an island filled with huge, sentient insects. You have been offered a controversial position on the island in the religious hierarchy, and life is complicated.

Most choices are about your attitude and response to others (agreeing, disagreeing, deflecting). Others have agency affecting the story. The real replayability factor is in the characters, not all of which you can talk to in one go through.

It's polished, descriptive, interactive, creepiness-inducing, and I would replay, so I'm giving it 5 stars!