The Tempest of Baraqiel

by Nathan Leigh

2025
Retro science fiction
cirqueSaw Story Engine

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Review

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
A game at odds with itself, September 19, 2025
by Tabitha (USA)
Related reviews: IFComp 2025

I really liked this one... up until the ending. I enjoyed inhabiting the main character and exploring the unique situation they (she?) found themself in, pulled from academia into the military to work on a top-secret translation assignment, with the shadow of their deceased war-hero mother constantly looming over them, influencing everyone's perceptions and expectations. But ultimately, the payoff was disappointing. In my first playthrough, after making basically zero translation progress, the outcome of the climactic moment came down to a random guess--which I got wrong, to disastrous consequences.

Fortunately I had enabled the "back" button and could easily try different choices until I got a "good" ending, but even this one felt very abrupt and perfunctory and was unsatisfying. Both endings referenced a character who I hadn't heard of before, leaving me feeling like I had missed something important. But with the "save" function broken, replaying over and over until I discovered the key path(s) felt like more trouble than it was worth (until today, when I opened the JS file and poked around a bit to get some guidance. But obviously, having to resort to that is not ideal!). This feels like a game where you need to see multiple paths to get the full picture, but it fights against itself by not making it easy to do so.

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