Detritus

This review is based on the NORMAL Mode setting of the game.

It’s not every day you get reprinted.

But then again, you are Jean Wilson, Comms Officer of Theseus, a cargo ship that has experienced a catastrophic collision. A collision you did not survive. Thanks to printing technology, your mind and body have been reprinted so you can figure out what happened.

Also, this review spoils the heck out of it. Please play the game first.

Gameplay
This isn’t a mere explore-the-spaceship game. It’s also a resource management game with awesome mechanics. It involves finding items around the ship to recycle and then using the resources to fabricate useful items. You also have oxygen, water, and food levels to manage.

Current resources:
Biomass: 22 | Metals: 49 | Water: 15 | Minerals: 35 | Polymers: 12

Puzzles largely consist of bypassing locked doors and barriers, but there is enough variation to keep things interesting. The author also provides a generous walkthrough/hint system into the game.

Detritus is an example of a Twine game with free range of movement, meaning that the player can wander around a map and interact with people/objects in each “room,” much like a parser game. This, paired with the recycle/fabricate mechanics, may appeal to players who like the idea of resource management gameplay but are intimidated by the parser format. Similarly, if you prefer parser games or are not a huge fan of Twine, Detritus is dynamic enough to be engaging.

You can also play the game in Story mode. There is something for everyone!

Story
Main story
The story revolves around a corporation called Rainforest™ that employs the ship’s crew. Unsurprisingly, it puts profits first. But now, it’s taken things too far. (Spoiler - click to show) The crew finds out that the “luxury goods” in the cargo bay is just a cover for the truth: Rainforest™ is planning on using Earth as the galaxy’s new landfill. Plus, cost of upgrading the fabricator, which is practical for productivity, comes out of the crew’s wages. Unacceptable.

Anyway, (Spoiler - click to show)the crew had enough and planned to go on strike by taking control of the ship. Meanwhile, GAIL has been closely monitoring the crew and recording every interaction, and these recordings are automatically company property. So, when GAIL goes silent as the ship wrestles itself from the crew’s control and into the path of an asteroid, things are looking awfully dire.

So: Can we trust GAIL?

As in, GAIL the corporate A.I. who’s been quietly recording and ghosting the crew members right up until the accident? The answer is:

Thoughts on story
Detritus already has received high ratings which makes me feel like a wet blanket by giving it four stars. It has to do with the game’s delivery.

Themes
Detritus acknowledges issues faced in today’s world about corporate accountability, greenwashing, waste disposal, the replacement of human jobs with A.I., and socioeconomic inequalities. There’s even brief mention of microplastics in food.

Rainforest™ heavily relies on greenwashing to sell their narrative. Greenwashing is deceptive marketing where a corporation portrays itself as environmentally friendly to divert attention away from its environmentally unfriendly practices. Predictably, Rainforest™ loves this tactic and uses sound bites such as:

At Rainforest™, we hate waste™.

More like (Spoiler - click to show)“we hate waste so we’re going to dump it on Earth, so we don’t have to deal with it!" And the irony of the name, considering what’s happening to the Amazon rainforest.

I like how the gameplay had data pads scattered throughout the ship to provide backstory without dumping loads of information onto the player. Data pad (f) is especially interesting because it features a newspaper clipping that resembles our world today.

…with the invention of Recycler technology, has the galaxy's waste problem been solved? Not entirely! All planets have signed up to the 'zero-waste' agreement; they are legally responsible for their own waste disposal.

The use of language like “zero-waste agreement” is akin to the pledges countries make, and often neglect, at summits to reach shared sustainability goals. By (Spoiler - click to show) designating Earth as a landfill, Rainforest™ is seriously violating galaxy policy. Another real-life parallel is Nadir, an “ultra-wealthy” planet that sends its trash to Earth, just as wealthier countries export their trash overseas.

In theory, anything can be recycled, but as the quantities increase, so does the energy required. Recycling is not a solution to unchecked pollution.

The game also considers the effectiveness of recycling in being a blanket solution for environmental concerns. There is an ongoing debate about how “clean” the recycling process is since it, too, produces waste. And even if we perfected the science of recycling, we would still need to make other changes as a society to reach our sustainability objectives. While the game does not go into too much detail, it makes some powerful points.

Plus, a few other digs.

"Remember, smart companies don’t pay taxes!"

"We want to make the galaxy great again!"

I’ll leave it at that.

Characters
GAIL
I liked the depiction of A.I. in Detritus because it moves away from the plucky Good A.I. (I’m here and happy to serve the PC!) or Bad A.I. (I’m clearly against the PC’s best interests and I don’t like them either) binary that we often see in science fiction.

Detritus differs from Twine games, such as Lux and A Long Way to the Nearest Star, that center the gameplay on an A.I. NPC guiding the protagonist around a facility/ship. In both games the player communicates with the A.I. and even, for better or worse, forms a rapport with them. With GAIL, it’s different.

While the game’s description describes her as M.I.A., we find her in the “Admin” room. However, she is disconnected from the ship’s systems and has had her memory erased. You can visit her in the room for help but are otherwise left to roam the ship by yourself. And while, yes, (Spoiler - click to show)you can eventually reconnect her from the Helm, doing so offers little in further interaction with her, heightening the mystery.

As we investigate the ship, we receive mixed messages about GAIL’s intentions. As a result, the gameplay is infused with do-we-trust-the-A.I.? undertones that create suspense. This leads to a buildup when (Spoiler - click to show) we meet the “real” GAIL.

Our limited interaction with GAIL means we have less opportunity to get to know her as an individual. In (Spoiler - click to show)helping the protagonist is she merely clinging to the directive of Crew, Ship, Company, or is there a deeper emotional commitment there? By recording the crew, was she only trying to maximize the chances of them being recreated in an emergency or does she secretly want to relate to them more? Plus, Kashvi mentioned in a flashback that GAIL had been suffering from hallucinations, but we never learn what that was about.

Crew
After rambling on and on about GAIL, I don’t have much to say about the other characters since I found them to be less compelling than GAIL. That said, I did think the writing did a good job at conveying the close-knit nature of the crew. Their optimism was vividly conveyed in flashbacks, making it (Spoiler - click to show) especially sad when we find their dead bodies.

Visual design
I love the visual design of this game.

It's all glossy surfaces and sleek edges with text that is easy to read and stands out against the background. Text is a mix of yellow, grey, and white with blue links set against a dark grey backdrop. It also recreates a polished “computer screen” appearance when the player accesses a terminal.

Plus, there’s extra flairs to make things more interesting, including an in-game map of the Theseus. For atmospheric effect, the beginning and end of the game has animated starfield that makes you feel like you’re moving through space. Special animated effects for flashback sequences are also featured.

Conclusion
Detritus is an exciting sci-fi game with all the traits of a high-quality game. I can tell the author left no stone unturned. Personally, there are parts that felt one-dimensional to me. I really liked the (Spoiler - click to show) plot twist with GAIL’s true allegiance. The logistics of the (Spoiler - click to show) PC’s identity were fuzzier in comparison.

Part of me feels that my view of this game is influenced by my experience with The Den. I won’t spoil it, but the big twist (or, arguable, twists) made a chill go down my spine that made me think, woah, that’s brilliant. Not quite as much with Detritus.

Nonetheless, this is a game you don’t want to miss. It can be played at Easy, Normal, or Story mode, allowing you to set the gameplay at your comfort level. As for the ending… well, it just might surprise you.

Also: If you are curious about Twine games that involve your body being reprinted to cheat death, check out Trigaea.

Ben Jackson has had several smooth, polished twine games released in recent years, so I had high expectations for this game, and I feel it delivered. At one point I thought to myself, "I wonder if I would ever be able to make something like this."

It leans hard on classic sci-fi tropes, including the classic 'wake up from a pod on a destroyed spaceship while you have amnesia' and the evergreen 'work with a ship's AI that you can't be sure is working for or against you'. They're classics for a reason, because they can work great in an interactive fiction setting. And here, the author has expanded on them to give them a distinct and unique touch.

You play as a crew member on a ship that has been 'reprinted' as a backup after all crew have, presumably, died. Most of the ship is lacking oxygen, and you have to get out to explore.

The author has used escape-room puzzles in past games like codes and minigames, and this is no exception. We have a lot of doors to open and a few other code-style or 'which item will help here?' puzzles.

But the major change here is recycling and fabricating. Throughout the ship, we can find floating clouds of debris that include things like fabrication recipes and junk. Throwing the junk into the recycling bin, we can get materials in 5 or 6 different categories which are used to make new items.

I enjoyed the progression of the game, especially when I reached a point where I could build equipment that completely solved several long-term problems. It reminded me in a good way of Trigaea, one of my favorite twine games where you gather resources, come back to base, fabricate new stuff and get new recipes.

I hit a wall with two different puzzles. The first turned out to be optional and was hard on purpose, although I feel like completionists would have found it more easily due to trying out everything else in the game. The second was the final puzzle, where I thought I had locked myself out of victory (but turned out not to have).

I felt like both crafting and storytelling had 'real' decisions. My decision on how to handle the AI early on radically changed parts of the game, and the order in which you get upgrades can make a big difference in your play experience.

Like others, I enjoyed the final plot twists, which seemed well-hinted at but still surprising in the exact way it plays out.

Overall, a lot of fun.

[EDIT: Note that the author has been in touch with me regarding the technical issue described near the end of this review, and it is almost certainly something specific to my non-standard setup. You shouldn't expect to encounter it yourself.]

Detritus (2025), which is not to be confused with a title of the same name from 2013, is this year's IFComp entry by author Ben Jackson. His entry last year, The Den, came in 2nd overall and 1st for Miss Congeniality, and I anticipate similarly high rankings for this polished, high-quality work.

With its slick graphical interfaces, soundtrack, multimedia effects and compelling sci-fi story, playing Detritus feels like playing a commercial-quality offering from yesteryear. This is unabashedly a game, rooted in exploration of a mystery but also requiring juggling certain resource management demands. It offers both easy and normal modes; in my experience there was enough leeway on normal mode to make it worth choosing that, because the additional tension that it adds contributes much to the mood.

Though it takes some time to come into its own, the story does not disappoint. I found it to be far superior to the young adult tale told in The Den, though it does not explore the questions that it raises in any particular depth. (Spoiler - click to show)I admired the key twist, which integrated certain beats that I had taken as merely for style. I certainly didn't see it coming, but like any good twist it immediately reorganizes what came before into a new and coherent whole.

Jackson's prose does a marvelous job of painting the scene. Looking back from the vantage of a few days, I remember most of the action very much like a film. I think this could easily be adapted to a full-scale videogame -- it's its own pitch!

I encountered one technical issue that is relatively minor, and may be specific to my environment. (I'm only mentioning it because there doesn't, as of this writing, seem to have been an update posted to the IFComp website since the time that I downloaded the game.) Certain portions of the game present a nine-button, 3x3 keypad for manipulation. In my browser, for whatever reason, the last button in each row was being shown on its own row even though there was plenty of horizontal room. Since the spatial arrangement of the keys is significant to the puzzles involved, I found it easiest to copy their arrangement elsewhere for reference. In all likelihood, this issue will be fixed shortly -- perhaps even by the time that you read this review.

You won't want to miss this one.