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Review
Originally written on the intfiction forums. Minor edits were made.
I was a bit peeved at myself for not playing Warden: a (bug)folk horror until after EctoComp 2025 had passed, because it wormed its way into my heart with its approachability and worldbuilding. Strings takes place in the same world but is much more light-hearted (though that’s not to say there’s absolutely no scary elements at all). You are Pik, a bard gathering a band for the performance of a lifetime - impressing your lover, the moon.
To get a musician to join, you need to do a task for them - some are as simple as figuring out how to get to the musician in the first place (and being astute enough to note a certain word is common across some interactable objects), while one is a semi-elaborate “figure out where you are in a maze, (Spoiler - click to show)search for a lost baby, and also try not to die” endeavor. Most of your puzzle-solving is done through custom commands related to playing an instrument, and the implementation is smooth. This structure didn’t feel repetitive at all thanks to the short length of the game and the varied situations you have to deal with to get to (or help) each character.
The game has achievements! Some are easy to guess from the name, some are a bit harder and I haven’t gotten all of them when I wrote this review, but I got the cutest achievement on the first playthrough so it doesn’t matter to this completionist (purely for story and not difficulty achievements) here. (Spoiler - click to show)Seriously, once Pik encounters the pupa, most of my internal thought was “AHHHHHHHH CUTE BABYYYYY” the whole time.
Strings, like Warden before it, is greater than the sum of its parts thanks to its writing capturing the imagination and giving a breath of life to this big world of little critters. Sign me up for more (bug)folk stories, or other works from Tabitha and baezil!
