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Review
Adapted from a Review-A-Thon 25 Review
Style: (single) Choice-select
Played : 7/15/25
Playtime: 20m, one playthrough
Fantasy hero awakens with patchy memory and vaguely defined quest - a well-trodden premise, no? This is a one-choice game that does a lot to make you forget you’ve seen this before. For one, it operates in a dreamy unreality where the challenges and tasks feel simultaneously metaphoric, mythic and immediate. It accomplishes this with its prose that I ultimately found to be successful, but not unambiguously so. Moment by moment there were phrases and passages that felt more showy than impactful. Reaching just far enough that the strain was felt. But. Those passages also accumulated over time to create a specific vibe to the thing, one that sang cleanly off its ending in a really cool way. Whether this crests from “on balance good” to “completely justifies its excesses” is a nuanced line I’m just going to leave as an exercise to the player. I found it to be AT MINIMUM the former. Which, if you are familiar with my biases on this score, is no mean feat.
A less ambiguously successful element is the NPC population and our protagonist’s journey with them. A flighty but insightful “bard,” a priestess being reclaimed by the forest, a horrific wax king (a true highlight to the work), and a pursuing demon. I found all of these NPCs to be compellingly imagined, hinting to metaphor and meaning beyond their physical presence but also oh so physically PRESENT. They showcased the fantastical creativity alive in our most beloved fantasy properties and are the overriding strength of the work.
The other major strength of the work was its plot conceits and turns. Which I’m going to endeavor not to spoil. As our amnesiac protagonist progresses, more of their situation is revealed (as is de rigueur for these kinds of things), which ends up being truly surprising. Perhaps more of it is dispensed in a final info dump than I might prefer, but honestly the twist itself is interesting enough (and resonant enough with the work’s not-quite-overwrought vibe) that that is easily forgiven. What felt metaphoric, mythic is both acknowledged and justified in a very satisfying way. The portentous (Spoiler - click to show)room of swords is an amazing image that totally sells the final twist. It is the kind of work whose immediate details sometimes ring hollow or unconvincing (not enough time to remember? emotionality asserted but not felt?) but whose final twist contextualizes those disconnects into a specific kind of mythology.
Notwithstanding all the moaning I’ve stitched into the above paragraphs, by the work’s end all those quibbles were kind of moot and immaterial. Its overriding plot engine, and the wonderful characters that populate it to that point compensate and justify all of it in a very satisfying way.
There is one quibble I have that was not so easily dismissed. The interactivity. It was billed as a one-choice work, in service of a Jam of that theme. One choice works have a unique challenge. As a percentage of the choices available to the player, a HUGE amount of weight is placed on that choice. Here, that one choice is kind of… (Spoiler - click to show)immaterial? The narrative makes quite clear what the impact of the untaken choice is, to the point there is no real need to revisit it. It is effectively a (Spoiler - click to show)no-choice narrative masquerading as something else. This is perfectly aligned with the narrative theme of the game, by the way. This artifact reinforces the tragedy of the piece. I am at a loss to envision a better one-choice this particular work might proffer. What I question is, does the one choice ADD to the narrative in a meaningful way? I’m not so sure. In compliance with the Jam’s rules, the player has no agency up to that point, so it is not really a question of playing with player initiative. It is a choice that reinforces the theme of the piece, but whose ACT OF CHOOSING doesn’t really register as meaningful, either in the moment or certainly in retrospect.
Look, Jam games have their specific rules. Sometimes these rules breed unexpected creativity and resonance. Other times, you get a really cool story, well rendered, that is not necessarily showcasing its constraints. Does that make the work lesser? Not even a little bit.
