Ataraxia

I played and quite enjoyed Lauren O'Donoghue's Eikas in last year’s IF Comp, and have been meaning to play Ataraxia ever since. I’m glad I finally did! While the structure, and in some ways the plot, is very similar to that of Eikas, it’s different enough to feel distinct. I enjoyed crafting with found materials, investigating various local mysteries, getting to know the four main NPCs, and developing a romantic relationship with one of them (Sanvi <3). The flavor details are delightful; I particularly enjoyed the sonnets and the lesbian romance novel. The setting is a highlight too—I was as intrigued by the island as naturalist Ivo (although I have a correction for his book—mushrooms are not plants!), and as eager as Jonah to learn about the force inhabiting the woods.

The gameplay loop was well designed; save for one hiccup that I’ll discuss below, it felt like there was always something to do: something interesting to investigate, someone to spend time with, something new to buy, with well-paced progression as you unlock new areas to visit, items to craft, etc. Certain actions you can repeat indefinitely, like having your significant other over or walking in the different zones of the island, and while eventually the scenes you get will repeat, I was impressed by the number of different vignettes each one presented. The relationships grew slowly over time, built over plenty of conversations and time spent with the NPCs, making them all feel really developed.

The caveat that I mentioned above is that close to the end of the game, I ended up feeling pretty stuck. I only had two items left on my to-do list, but I wasn’t sure how to accomplish them, because as far as I could tell I’d done everything there was to do. I repeated many actions many times trying to figure out which would let me progress, racking my day count up to 75 by the end. Finally, I discovered that I just had to (Spoiler - click to show)keep walking in the forest until the randomizer gave me the game-progressing event. Because I’d already done that several times and gotten repeated text, I hadn’t realized there was anything new to see there and wondered if (Spoiler - click to show)“observe the forest” on my to-do list was a bug. So this one is partly on me, but it was a bit of a momentum-killer after the steady pace I’d progressed at up to that point.

My other quibbles are about the UI and the opacity of the energy stat, but clearly the author recognized these weaknesses because they’ve been addressed in Eikas! The sidebar with certain links always accessible and the energy/action count being displayed are big improvements. In Ataraxia, it was mildly frustrating not to know how much energy an action would take or how much I had left, and I was confused about why it ran out so quickly some days (after finishing, I discovered that each day’s energy level is determined by how well you sleep).

Despite these nitpicks, I found it an impressive and charming game, and thoroughly enjoyed my time with it.