What Heart Heard Of, Ghost Guessed

I had the privilege of playtesting What Heart Heard Of, Ghost Guessed, though I had no prior connection to the author.

This story is a unique take on gothic horror. For those unfamiliar with the genre, gothic horror is less concerned with horror, the frightening situations we want to run from, than it is with terror, the frightening situations that draw us towards them. By my count this work contains at most two scenes of horror. What it is much more inclined to deliver is an disquieting atmosphere and fragments of a tale so terror-inducing that the reader cannot help but try to learn more. There is nothing inherently good or bad about this genre, but as with any work, it helps to approach it on its own terms.

With respect to the game mechanic, what immediately distinguishes this work from other interactive fiction is that most of the set of verbs (“commands”) partakers of parser fiction take for granted are useless here. The player must instead learn a set of unique verbs. This is not as daunting as it might initially sound: The verbs are introduced gently, one by one. My play experience was defined by the joy of discovering a new verb and feeling the anticipation of the next verb well up within me.

Each verb corresponds with an emotion. This works well for a number of reasons, one being that the creator never loses sight of the fact that they are emotions and never just commands. Thus the timing with which the verbs are introduced or lost makes narrative sense.

The more time goes by, the more I realize how brilliant this story is. Consider, for example, (Spoiler - click to show) that in gothic horror a literal or figurative woman in the attic embodies dark secrets that the heirs of the estate hope no one ever learns. In this story “you” (the protagonist) are the woman in the attic. The full significance of this will become apparent while the reader progresses through the work.

If you want to get started with parser IF but have found the prospect of engaging with parser IF daunting, try this story. The verbs are simple, and my subjective sense is that the most difficult puzzles it contains are of moderate difficulty at most.

If playing parser IF has gotten stale for you, try this story. The satisfying narrative and the use of unique verbs make it a breath of fresh air.

If you fit into neither of the aforementioned categories, try this story. The creator has a deep knowledge of her craft, and if you are anything like me, this work will stick with you years after you first read it the way only a good story can.

The less you know about this game going into it, the better. However, I will say that the atmosphere created by the game surpassed my expectations. While I would take the warning in the author's note at the beginning of the game seriously, this is an incredible game with a unique and well executed command set and a compelling story line.

Another great one by Amanda Walker! Similar to Colourtura, it has really cool mechanics. Instead of interacting with objects, you get to emotion them. As with most Walker games, there’s a great hint system. Beautiful and lovely, heartbreaking and impactful.

This one was really hard to find a fault with. Like, at all. Amanda makes beautiful games, and this one has incredible mechanics, corresponding to emotions, which resonates with me a lot. Wracking my brain for anything I can fault here- oh. Not much extra content, I suppose.

But that’s just unfair to the entire game- it was a linear (ish) experience, a puzzle deduction game, and overall, amazing mechanics. I would definitely play again. I did cry.

By far my favorite part of What Heart Heard Of, Ghost Guessed was the mechanics, which struck me as exceedingly clever and well-fitted to the content. I found the system of discovering new verbs and then figuring out which puzzles to use those verbs with satisfying, especially so when you found a verb that you'd been hunting down for a while (for me, this was when (Spoiler - click to show)I found the "confuse" verb and immediately shot toward the attic, where the latch that needed to be turned had been waiting for me from the very start), although I do wish there had been some more difficult/less obvious puzzles (my favorite and the one that struck me as the most complex was (Spoiler - click to show)opening the box with the key). I thought the piecewise information drops were well-paced and I was curious enough after each to continue seeking more snippets of the narrator's backstory, but once I had it all I found the overarching story to be a little simple emotionally. Some of the NPCs ((Spoiler - click to show)Eva and Ian) struck me as lacking in nuance (especially (Spoiler - click to show)Eva, who was also abused by their grandfather and made responsible for her sister from a young age. I was put off by the characterization of Eva as wholly remorseless and the choice to portray her as fully the villain, without an ounce of regret in her, when the grandfather—who arguably instilled Eva with resentment toward Margaret by punishing Eva for Margaret's actions and causing Eva to blame Margaret for the abuse they both suffered—was redeemed on his deathbed), though I enjoyed the narrator's internal complexity.
Overall, I found the game and story to be clean and clever in its conception, albeit a little too clean in its emotional setup. I'm not certain I would play again (although this may just be that I rarely replay games in general), but I would certainly recommend it to all—even if I took issue with some moments of the story or the emotional payoff, I'm glad to have experienced it.