Terra Nova - The Mystery of Zephyr's Landing

In this game, you play as an explorer searching in the ruins of a dystopian civilization. In this world, a cruel Caretaker manipulated both humans and animals, inserting cybernetic implants and controlling society.

The online play version has sound and AI-generated images. I originally played just the downloadable gblorb without the image features. While I typically don't find AI images enlightening, playing the version with graphics was useful as it gave me a quick reference point to know where I was and what the author thought was most important in a given room. It did break down at times, producing images that didn't really make sense in context.

Gameplay mostly revolves around exploration and conversation, with a few puzzles here and there. There are a ton of random deaths. I ragequit at one point because there is a timer on the surface that kills you if it's night and some kind of timer underground that kills you if you stay too long, even while wearing a disguise, so I ended up in an unwinnable state after a couple hours of play. I came here to review and saw other people mention graphics, so I tried the online version and completed it. I don't feel like the random deaths add much storywise. I also found a bug: (Spoiler - click to show)covering the solar panel doesn't give you the beetle until night has fallen I also felt that puzzle in particular was not enjoyable, as it relies purely on random coincidence; I prefer puzzles where you can see a goal and make a plan to achieve it yourself.

Storywise, it's clear a lot here was written by AI with some parts seemingly handwritten and then restructured by AI as well. Fortunately, the author seems to have a strong vision in some parts and managed to write genuinely interesting stuff, but overall this has the same problems a lot of AI-written things do:
*overly-complex descriptions of boring and mundane things (if you are so bored by an object you have AI write the description completely, why have a description at all? The player won't want to read it either)
*misunderstanding of plot arcs and appropriate emotional responses (we find the main villain just chilling in the middle of the lair with no build-up. You can just wave hi as you walk by. Wild events are described mildly: "As the cyborg drags you away, you are filled with fear and defeat." and mild events are described wildly: "Your heart pounds as the projector accepts the sleek metal device, and the display fills with text."
*the story follows mostly generic plot beats. Is there any surprise that (Spoiler - click to show)the robot overlord is evil? Or that society (Spoiler - click to show)collapsed due to a rebellion?
*The logic is often off; at the end, we discover the (Spoiler - click to show)a spaceship is seemingly prepared for us to an uncomfortable extent: air, gravity, etc. It's clear we're being welcomed here and it's uncanny. But there's randomly a door that won't let us through unless we put on a tarp to block it? It completely spoils the whole 'walk into my lair' bit.
*The walkthrough contains a lot of weird self-analysis too, explaining in a list the various forms of irony the game presents. What is the purpose of this? To tell people how to feel about the game? Would my reviews be more enjoyable if I told people "This review is well thought-out. It uses critical analysis to highlight several failures of AI writing in a thoughtful and cheerful manner, inviting the reader to ponder on the benefits of original thought and action."?

It's clear a lot of work went into the coding, which is enjoyably smooth in most parts.

Adapted from a SpringThing25 Review

Played: 4/11/25
Playtime: 1.5hr, 4 endings

There are some tropes in IF that are pretty well established. Expectations that are common enough that they exert a pull on gameplay and frame expectations while simultaneously represent a subversion opportunity to the author. Things like ‘explore everywhere,’ ‘collect all the things,’ ‘lying will be punished,’ ‘lore will become personal,’ all these represent opportunity to streamline gameplay with unspoken guidance and/or to create dramatic moments when subverted. There is one expectation I didn’t list due to its spoilery nature, one so ingrained a player may not even notice its presence. It’s going to be a challenge to dance around though, because its subversion is among the most noteworthy accomplishments of this piece.

This is a work unabashedly occupying the well-trodden ground of ‘lost sci-fi setting of historical secrets needing explored by faceless PC.’ It wears this tropey setup on its sleeve, leveraging its familiarity to smooth player expectations and gameplay. This turns out to be necessary, because it implements a timer of sorts, a looming danger that every move brings you one step closer to. It knows what it’s doing balancing tension and fair play into a very engaging scenario. If I had a quibble, it is that because I wanted to provide a transcript, I did not use the author’s interpreter of choice. This choice made guidance like ‘the timer is visible in the right corner’ an outright lie. If there was a way to access it, I never found it. Not a deal breaker by any means, but feels like a missing element of the author’s intent.

You poke around 3 small to modest sized areas, conducting your collect-use-ungate parser gameplay, all the while finding artifacts and documents that fill in historical gaps. As these things can be, the revelations are staged into a nice series of context shifts: "Yes, And.."ing itself as the lore builds and twists what it already told you. While the plot beats are not necessarily revelatory in and of themselves, you’ve probably seen most of these elements before, they do capably build on each other in satisfying ways. All the way up to the final closure.

Aaand here is where I dive into that final expectation in the most spoilery way possible. If you have not played it yet here is the takeaway: Go ahead and play it. It’s fun. Read no further.

If you HAVE played it, you full well know the expectation I am alluding to. That successful parser play means (Spoiler - click to show)‘player lives and/or triumphant when game beaten because finish = success.’ SubVERTED!!! The ending was the most noteworthy thing about the work, evoking (indirectly) two different pop culture properties for me: (Spoiler - click to show)Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series and (Spoiler - click to show)The Twilight Zone. I’ve been blurring, but that’s about to stop so if you still haven’t played, GET THE HELL OUT OF THESE PARAGRAPHS.

That second of those two resonances is the one that worked the best for me. The work is very peppily paced: between the ever present timer, the tight location space, the crisp descriptions cuing areas of interest naturally, the thing zips along with little drag. This as much as anything matches the tempo and discipline of the best of that second IP. It sells its twists through momentum, each subsequent twist just that much more impactful, culminating in a monster subversion that I really liked. I am prepared to hear that others might find that subversion a step too far, and somehow deflating, but that was not my experience of it. To the contrary, I admired it all the more for the bold (Spoiler - click to show)Serling of it.

The resonances of that FIRST property though, really the engine behind the plot twists, those I found less compelling. I find critiques of that first IP (which I will shorthand to F for the remainder of the review) more compelling than F’s canonical text. F is an interesting intellectual experiment, well suited to storytelling, but posits a technological determinism that undersells both random happenstance and human perversity. Do I need to explain the thesis of F? I’m going to assume I don’t. I find F great as a conversation starter, unconvincing as a conversation closer. So basing the twists so heavily on that premise kind of undermined it a bit for me.

Only a bit though. Because the resonances to that SECOND PROPERTY do a lot to redeem it. The pacing and sometimes shorthand allusions play directly to that tradition of ‘this is a clockwork of plot manipulation. The CLOCKWORK is the fun part, we can hand wave the individual gears.’ Agreed! Especially as it built to a rare, fun subversion of form.

Horror Icon: Jigsaw
Vibe: Just As Planned
Polish: Smooth
Gimme the Wheel! : The easiest little tweak I would make, were it my project to tweak, would be to add a timecheck in text mode. Either in the banner, or as a standalone command. Just something to focus up the ticking clock a bit.

Polish scale: Gleaming, Smooth, Textured, Rough, Distressed
Gimme the Wheel: What I would do next, if it were my project.

Save often, but be rewarded for your exploration. Stunning art and sound direction accompany you (Kai) along your journey through post-apocalyptic lands. I'll be honest at this point in the review and say that I haven't finished the game yet -- I've made it through five or six of the many, many possible endings but haven't seen everything the game has to offer. (I'll update once I do finish.) I was just incredibly impressed by the level of quality and finish that this team brought to the game. The writing is also very evocative, not to mention the worldbuilding. Stunning work!