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Review
I had a few different revelations while playing this game. First thoughts: interesting mix of hyperlinks and parser. Second: is this vorple? No, Dialog. Third: a joke about Peano arithmetic? This is someone who's really familiar with parser games and math, I have to know this person. But I didn't recognize the itch name until I went to their page and saw it was Draconis!
This game is very polished. I had no idea it was meant for Petite Morte, as it would fit in just fine in IFComp. I'd say I had a 10/10 experience in the beginning, 7/10 in the middle, and 8/10 in the end.
It's a limited-verb game where you, a kind of homonculus or familiar, gain new verbs by absorbing other homunculi or familiars. These can give powers ranging from eyesight to motion to strange alchemical powers.
The game is educational as well as fun, with references to chemistry, tuning, literature, math, etc.
I was proud of not needing hints until I got stuck on a certain puzzle. I eventually realized I wasn't closely reading the results of all my actions, but only after hints. "Nudge" was useful, but for a large chunk of the game my nudge was 'gong', so I kept assuming I had to do something *to* it. That lost period was my 7/10 section.
Two things that could have been clued a bit more were what can be 'cached' and the rules surrounding the security familiar in all its uses.
Overall, very good, exactly the kind of stuff I hope for when I play interactive fiction.
