Turandot

There’s more than one game inside Turandot. Two at the very minimum. Putting two very different things together is risky: the contrast may illuminate both parts and create a satisfactory emotional evolution; or both elements can fight each other and turn out too frustrating.

Turandot starts like a wild comedy, oscillating between wacky videogame humour (with reflective choices of different insults) and some black, brutal jokes. It ends like a philosophical conversation about moral choices. It transitions from lightness to seriousness on a very tight rope: the first serious long conversation happens (Spoiler - click to show)with the player hanging over a crocodile pit, in a joke that reminded me of Monkey Island. Then it gets more serious. At some times it feels more like a statement than a story to me. It certainly feels like a different game, one that provokes contradictory thoughts and impressions.

But it's one of he best-written and best-designed games I remember from any recent comp! It does interesting things with the choices, like the false choices with only different wording but identical result. It manages to make the game feel less linear. The jokes land effortlessly, dialogues flow, the characters are vivid.

The first part was my favourite game in IFcomp 19. The second part will require more effort to wrap my head around it, and I will certainly play again.