Collision

What is this?

Collision is a game written for the Neo-Twiny Jam, with the attendant restriction of using 500 words or less. The conceit is that you wake up in an unfamiliar space, in a perilous situation, and the player must figure out what’s going on and then try to save our protagonist the crash test dummy from their inevitable fate. (Based on other reviews I figured this out more quickly than average, possibly due to my teenaged obsession with Mythbusters.)

What I Liked

The word limit is used to great effect here – all descriptions are given in two-word pairs, which contributes to an overall surreal feeling and heightens the protagonist’s lack of control. You have many actions available to you to try and get out of your predicament, most of which give you more information about your environment, but as far as I can tell every run will end in failure with the protagonist doomed (because they are a crash test dummy and can’t move). There may be a solution to the puzzle that I couldn’t find, but even without that I think this works well as a work of existential horror. It’s very atmospheric, and makes the absolute most of its word count.

What could use improvement?

If I had to make a suggestion, I’d add a toggle or slider for the timed text. It’s effective on the first few plays but after that it gets in the way of exploring all the options.