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A horrifying tale of a strange being and a family's secret, November 16, 2023This is an Ink game entered into several competitions; I saw it in the Grand Guignol ectocomp competition.
This game is fairly long and has some nice, rich structure. There are parts where you can walk around a house, examining different things.
The plot is mysterious and frightening. You follow a friend to a town, hearing vague rumors about his past, until you enter his family home and discover his awful secrets.
The setting and concept were, I thought good, and much of the writing is good. However, I felt for the first third of the game like I was constantly grasping for threads of plot or action. So much was vague, it was difficult to see what direction things were going in.
That's a recurring theme with the writing, that it becomes so descriptive it almost becomes undescriptive. For instance, in a library, it says 'You wonder if the hallway's actual walls are the most-likely peeling drywall or columns of thick tomes covering them.' I get what it's going for here, with rich figurative language, but I think that hedging the metaphor with 'I wonder' and 'most likely' lessens its impact.
However, there are also very strong moments; I especially liked the arrival of the Brother, which was a tense scene and written very dramatically and descriptively. So this isn’t badly written, it just has highs and lows.
Overall, I like this story and would like to see what happens next.
Edit: I didn't realize this was intentionally dreamlike, so I'm increasing my score from 3 to 4.