Anolelona was written by Caleb Wilson for ShuffleComp 2024. The songs which inspired it are 'Barrett's Privateers,' by Stan Rogers, 'Slice,' by O. (and more specifically its video by Yevheniia Vynokurova), and 'Step on Me,' by the Cardigans.
Many thanks to Jason Love for testing!
Awards
6th Place, Overall Goodness; 14th Place, Best Use of Songs - ShuffleComp 2024
Ratings and Reviews
5 star:
(1)
4 star:
(3)
3 star:
(1)
2 star:
(0)
1 star:
(0)
Average Rating: based on 5 ratings Number of Reviews Written by IFDB Members: 2
I loved the worldbuilding in this Vorple game. (side note: I'm not sure why it's Vorple; I didn't notice any graphics, sound or text effects in the version I played).
You play as a kind of shepherd for lost souls in an afterlife filled with ritual and restriction. This view of the afterworld reminds of things like Spirited Away or the Royal Guards in Bleach, with a variety of ritualized systems with specialized individuals running them in order to process the deceased.
Parts of this setting are reminiscent of the author's room in Cragne Manor (one of the earliest reachable parts of the game), which is nice because I liked that as well.
This game felt overwhelming at first, but the map doesn't branch much and most objects have one well-hinted use. I had the most trouble with the cake, but was happy when I figured it out.
A couple of things felt a bit underimplemented (like some text that fires every time you approach the statue) but I didn't have any bugs or typos that negatively impacted gameplay.
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by Cerfeuil (*Teleports Behind You* Nothing Personnel, Kid)
After you die, if your coffin isn't sealed all around with pewter nails, you'll seep down through the soil. Thinner than mist, you'll drain past root, worm, and stone, through the spigot, and into Lozengy.
My transcript, with commentary, is linked. I played for more than an hour and got both endings.
Of the Shufflecomp games I played this year, this was one of my favorites. I consider it inordinately charming. The puzzles were a little difficult, though others didn't seem to have any issues with them, so I guess I'm just not great at catching details. There is also some underimplementation, but that's to be expected from a small comp game.
What I really adore about this one is the setting. It's one of those surreal fantasy settings where there are no true problems in the world. In real life you can turn on the news and hear stories about the most godawful thing possible, but Lozengy is beautiful in an alien way because it's so far removed from humanity and all its issues. It's dreamlike and bursting with endless new wonders. It's somewhere not here, somewhere so far from here that it doesn't even know where "here" is, and it doesn't need to care.
The setting also happens to be an afterlife. I say "an" and not "the" because the opening implies there are other afterlives, alternative possibilities for the soul after you die in this universe. But the afterlife part is relevant to the gameplay, which consists of doing tasks to care for this interstitial space people can find themselves in when they die. A wonderful realm where the grass is purple and the water hums and cake can be made out of thin air.
That's a digression and not really relevant to the game, except as an example of how stories about afterlives often go. Often you get parables with some kind of sly moral. This story isn't like that at all, it's more an exploration of a fantastical world that is part of a greater, all-encompassing universal order. There is a Heaven in this world, but no Hell, not even an interstitial Hell like the one in the story I described above. The one soul you guide to Choirmount was a killer in his past life, but when it's his time to join, he is welcomed with open arms. It seems that everything is forgiven. I think there's something beautiful about that, a world with no eternal punishment and no fiery gates, no torture and brimstone. Also a world without the cold annihilation of scientific atheism, not a dreamless oblivion but only eternal love for everyone... Now, maybe I'm projecting. Who knows. Anolelona does call Choirmount a "dead end", but they end up where they want in the end, so it's plausible that Choirmount simply isn't for them. At any rate, I personally wouldn't mind joining some kind of eternal blissful chorus. It feels far preferable to the real world.
I might compare this game to another game about the afterlife I've played, Provizora Parko, and Beautiful Dreamer, which I thought Provizora Parko resembled in certain small ways. An aura of surreal whimsy unites all three. But this one takes the cake (the magical infinite free cake) for me in terms of how much I would love to sink into the setting and live there forever, following the protagonist and Anolelona in their adventures through a world where you can explore eternity to your heart's content...
As the ending says: (Spoiler - click to show)"I'm coming down!" you cry. There is no answer, not yet, but there is plenty of time for that, so much time, all the time.
Also compare Joel G's ENA animations, though they're twice as surreal and come with a general feeling of threat humming along in the background, and the many whimsical children's books I read in elementary school, like The Phantom Tollbooth.
Really, it's a marvelous thing.
Oh, and I guess the main character and Anolelona are abandoning their duties by skiving off to explore the infinite realms of magic instead, but it seems like this afterlife can mostly run itself. At the least, the workload seems small enough that Aowma could probably handle it on her own. Is that wishful thinking? Maybe, but there's no evidence against it, right?
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Language: English (en) First Publication Date: January 23, 2025 Current Version: Unknown
License: Freeware Development System: Inform 7 Forgiveness Rating: Merciful