Eidolon

You can't sleep. It's like the insomnia your mother told you about: it's like a seed, and every night you can't sleep, it takes root and germinates... what then?

Eidolon is at first a kind of interactive dream sequence, but it quickly becomes something much weirder. The beginning sequences felt a lot like S Woodson's Beautiful Dreamer. The imagery and NPCs have the surreality of Alice in Wonderland, coloured by faerie folklore. Jansen's writing style favours the weird turn of phrase and evocative metaphors, which suited a story which may or may not exist in your own head.

The story is largely linear, but, unusually for a Twine game, involves some puzzles. These had consistent mechanisms and were meticulously done, with lots of moving parts. Because the story world relies on a bit of symbolism and not taking things too literally, I admit I had some difficulty but... this should not be a problem for most. (Disclaimer: I resorted to the walkthrough here.)

Eidolon is well-written, and much deeper than it first appears. If you like dreamlike stories set in a faerie world, of sorts, or subversions of fantasy quests, then you might like this.

(Originally posted on http://verityvirtue.wordpress.com)