The Shattered Fortress

This is a relatively brief visual novel written for Ectocomp in the Grand Guignol competition.

It's a tale about a creature from Hell (a tiefling maybe?) and a paladin who dispute over an apprentice called Strider who apparently was captured by a shapeshifter (or replaced?), although this is never mentioned again.

I've struggled to review it, so I'll use my arbitrary 5-star criteria:

+Polish: The game has no bugs that I can see and looks visually well-put-together.

+Descriptiveness: There is some vivid imagery around things like snakes and eyes.

-Interactivity: You have choices, but it's not clear what effects they have, and the narrative lurches from scene to scene with little connection. I'm all for disjointed or dream like narrative, but I feel like there was no connecting thread binding this together.

-Emotional impact: Because of the 'jumpiness' of the story, it was hard to get invested. They are at a bar...then there is a fight...once the fight is done an abbess enters the same room to condemn a character...but maybe this room is in hell?

-Would I play again? Not at this time. I've played at least one other game by this author in Gruescript, which was interesting, and I would play more in the future, but this one kind of went over my head.

I'm still not sure what to make of this, as the game weaves multiple strands of story (POVs, but also past/future) together. Even through my confusion, I think I managed to piece some things at the end: a couple of peeps are trying to save someone (whose relationship is unclear), each with a different view on how to do so; they end up being hunted by religious zealots for some reason; and one of them meet the/a Devil? I think I took out of this a short take of heartbreak, betrayals, and a trip to Hell?

A certain positive: the portraits were pretty neat, I liked the coloured ones the most.