Dead Sea

At the heart of this game is a quite compelling story. Our protagonist wakes in a strange graveyard with no memory of who they are or how they got there. They wish to go home, but with no conception of where that is they follow the only road out, enter a castle in the sea, and stumble into a tragic tale of love and desperation. They can watch as story plays out to its natural conclusion, or intervene and continue discovering the whole truth. There is an interesting magic system around capturing souls of the dead and glimpses into the wider history of the world.

It is a shame that this story is hampered by awkward design decisions. The game is structured around the player exploring the map, collecting and using items, talking to people, but the Twine implementation leaves much to be desired. For example, to leave the starting area our protagonist needs to trade a chilled Fanta for the Duke’s invitation. A convenient cart holds the three items needed for this, except for some reason you only can take one at a time, so the fetch quest becomes unnessarily trekking back and forth several times between the two locations. Later on you need to catch worms as fish bait, I ended up trekking between the worm-site and fishing-site 5 times because the fishing is luck based, consumes your worm even if you don’t catch a fish, and you can only carry one worm at a time.

That first scene establishes a curious blend of high fantasy (dukes, castles, souls of the dead) with Fanta drinks and freeze rays. I was looking forward to seeing how these disparate elements would interact, but sadly the game does not expand on the concept, and as a result the non-fantasy elements feel rather tacked on. Also, why do you need the Duke’s invitation to leave? What is he inviting people to? Why am are you even heading to the castle? These questions are never answered.

The initial confusion could be interpreted as reflecting the protagonist’s own disorientation, waking in an unfamiliar place and following the only available paths in the hope of finding answers or a way home. The later mention of fate suggests being unwillingly swept along by destiny. I’d be willing to take this interpretation if there was more introspection or a clearer sense of the protagonist’s thoughts/desires beyond an initial wish to return home, which is not mentioned again. Instead, it feels like the player is simply solving puzzles and advancing along the only route of plot progression, without understanding of what I’m doing or why.

The inventory system has designated slots for left hand, right hand, and pockets, plus a special items section. If you have an item in each hand and then pick up another, it replaces the oldest one. I found this out the hard way when I had a plot critical item in hand, then decided to arm myself with sword and salt before going on, not noticing my plot-critical item had disappeared into the ether and I’d soft-locked myself. Now I’d also been seeing statues that “reset chapter parameters”, with no explanation of what that means. I prayed at one hoping to reset to a point before losing that item, but nothing seemed to happen? I was able to back button my way out of being actually softlocked, but the experience was rather frustrating.

Once you get past this point, the story becomes more of a focus, and I found this last section a lot more enjoyable. I loved the part where you uncover backstory through poetic fragments in paintings, each fragment opening up a new door to go through. I appreciated the author’s efforts at introducing elements early on, tying them back in a satisfying way towards the conclusion. Finding the extra story for the good ending was very satisfying. I wish the game had more focus on the castle and the story there and less on the awkward beginning parts.