|
Have you played this game?You can rate this game, record that you've played it, or put it on your wish list after you log in. |
Playlists and Wishlists |
RSS Feeds New member reviews
Updates to downloadable files
All updates to this page
|
|
About the StoryI am a sigil reader. I work in a city where sigils are a matter of public health, for a maliciously inscribed sigil could mean the ruin of a business - or a soul. Game Details |
Awards
39th Place - 22nd Annual Interactive Fiction Competition (2016)
Editorial Reviews
The Breakfast Review
It feels like there's a lot of detail in this setup that's just a little bit beyond the frame. We're not really told, for instance, what the functions our colleagues served on the team: we know that we're the sigil expert, and it's only mentioned later, in passing, that scrying might be another thing the team handles. At the same time, the touches of personality scattered throughout the station, in addition to the "remember" command", conjure up broad, sketchy images of these colleagues. Not enough to create a detailed character profile, but hitting just the right notes to make them feel real.
See the full review
Tags
Member Reviews
| Average Rating:  Number of Reviews: 2 Write a review |
Dreamlike exploration of perception and memory, November 7, 2017When I woke, it was high noon, and the air was dead.
Sigil Reader (Field) is a fantasy exploration parser game made in Quixe. The PC is a woman called Priyanka Ramasamy who deals with sigils of protection, speed, silence, and more; she works in an institution whose role is to capture and log specimens and monsters. What exactly this involves is hidden at first.
Thrown into the events of the game, Priyanka has tattered memories of the catastrophe that has occurred, and the Station is deserted. It quickly becomes clear that while the Station is not working as it should, neither is Priyanka's mind.
Something made me look down, and there was my ID card clipped to my belt. Had it always been there?
Although the descriptions of the station offices fall on the spartan side, it's in the small details where the writing shines. Snippets about Priyanka's colleagues and brief but intense sensory interactions are some of my favourite segments, revealing low-key but characterful information about Priyanka's colleagues' lives, and what Priyanka herself remembers and values.
The game moves forward steadily, with minor puzzles that serve to enhance the atmosphere rather than challenging the player for any great length of time. As it progresses, it becomes clearer that Priyanka is in an altered state of being, but Sigil Reader (Field) is not about enforcing the player's will on the world: it's more about savouring the story, the world, and Priyanka's experience.
The snippets of information we get whet the appetite for more. As Christopher Huang notes in his Breakfast Review: "It feels like there’s a lot of detail in this setup that’s just a little bit beyond the frame."
Though Sigil Reader (Field) is successful as is, I wonder where it would have gone with a longer deadline. More than that, though, I'd love to see more in this setting ... and more non-Euro/US settings generally, more Malay SFF in the IF world, and more Singlish. The dreamy atmosphere and lightly-creeping dread of this game means I'm looking forward to playing more of verityvirtue's work in Ectocomp 2017.
A short surreal work set in an alternate universe, May 10, 2017I beta tested this game.
This game is a short surreal story where you wander about an office place that is somewhat fantastical, and is both familiar and not.
It's hard to know what actions will have what effects, but that too is part of the story.
The best part of this game is the unusual culture of it, different from the male-powered white American setting assumed for so many games.
If you enjoyed Sigil Reader (Field)...
Related Games
People who like Sigil Reader (Field) also gave high ratings to these games:| The Libonotus Cup, by Nils Fagerburg Average member rating: (14 ratings)“You? Win the Libonotus Cup?” Sammy scoffs. “I'd be impressed if your ship even makes it to the starting line tomorrow morning, let alone Portobello.” “Aye,” you say, “me ship may have taken a beating in that last raid, but I'll bet ye... |
| Sand-dancer, by Aaron Reed and Alexei Othenin-Girard Average member rating: (23 ratings)It figures that your pickup would die on a night like this and leave you stranded in the dark New Mexico desert. But nothing else figures about this night, man. Nothing at all. An example game for Aaron Reed's book Creating Interactive... |
Fingertips: Come On and Wreck My Car, by Paul Laroquod
Average member rating: (10 ratings)
This is version 7 of this page, edited by Zape on 11 April 2021 at 12:01pm. - View Update History - Edit This Page - Add a News Item