Ataraxia

Adapted from a Review-A-Thon 25 Review

Style: RPG/Choice-select
Played : 7/17/25
Playtime: 2.5hrs, Day 55, plateau’d

This is a work that inflicted a very specific, very powerful Deja' Vu on me. So much so, every review approach I have tried to frame has devolved to ‘Compare to Other Work.’ Which I very much did and do not want to do. Until I went back and looked at it. It’s by the SAME AUTHOR!!! Why must you TEST MY OBJECTIVE RESOLVE SO?!?!?!

This is a, for want of better term and hopefully not coming across as too dismissive, cottage-core story. As an island’s new resident, you will spend your days eking out a living (kind of as a scavenger! at some point, all the silver chains you yeet might qualify as a crime wave), integrating into island life, exploring its mysteries and making friends. You have a daily routine of tend your garden/make a living/ and interact with four main environments/NPCs while other events continually crop up to get your attention and interest. You get so many actions a day before you must sleep and repeat. It is a very familiar, very grindy and not unpleasant gamplay style. It helps that as choice-select, it incorporates some simple but effective optimizations to minimize repetitive click friction.

The biggest strength of the work is its devotion to very specific, varied and interesting local lore. You will run the gamut from monster stalking, to treasure hunts, to naturalism, to cold case investigation, while encountering multiple local culture events of varying oddness. It all blends to a very rich picture of an island’s life, dispensed naturally enough through the act of living there. Like its spiritual doppleganger (a phrase I am DESPERATELY trying not to overuse), the depth of implementation is amazing. I went 38 game days before I started seeing intrusively repeated text (outside of dreams, which, recurring dreams are among the most easily forgiven). That’s pretty deep!

There is also an interesting twist on the ‘choose your love interest’ trope. Of the major suitor NPCs, all of them are longer in the tooth than typically showcased in these kinds of things. They all have interesting, full prior lives and are portrayed as middle aged or later. Late in life romance is an uncommon, and welcome choice to focus on, trading youthful infatuation and passion for a softer, warmer, informed-by-life sweetness. A welcome new flavor here.

There are so many nice touches and flourishes - a four-humours based “RPG Stat” model of the world. An event timetable that conveys life beyond the player and their choices. Wonderful prose throughout that sells its cottage-core setting and is fun in its own right. I can’t tell you the joy phrases like this elicit in me: “There are fish with the hearts of hanged men.” The ability to own a dog! Heck the ability TO NOT HAVE TO ENGAGE WITH A CAT! All of these made for a pleasant, immersive time. For a while.

The game is advertised as supporting 2-8 hours of gameplay! Nice swing for the bleachers here, game! Perhaps through my own choice architecture I did not get that. In fact, I seemed to have somehow steered myself into a box. Around day 38, the island’s space collapsed around me. I started getting repetitive responses to interactions. (For a moment, sit with the idea that this DIDN’T happen until gameday 38!) The missions, quests and stories kind of petered out leaving only the grind.. to no obvious purpose. In particular, my romantic interest crescendo’d to a sweet early scene of mutual interest and then… nothing? Textually, it felt like maybe I had gotten too ‘friendly’ with another NPC and the game interpreted that as disqualifying? In the moment, that was not my intention or impression. After that initial romantically charged interaction, my chosen paramour’s repeated (and ONLY repeated) text acknowledged nothing of what had passed between us. Too, I think I somehow boxed myself out narratively where one quest required depositing 4 (Spoiler - click to show)historical artifacts, of which I had secured 3. Superficially, there seemed to be no other loose threads to pursue to get the last one, even after another 17 game days. It just felt like the game petered out around me, caging off that fourth quest? Turns out, I probably needed to have more patience with unrewarded, repeated tasks.

If I resign to inevitability and compare it to its successor, there was one crucial difference. Eikas had goal focus: a specific event/climax you were building towards and able to focus on both with game play and as a narrative. Here, the much more wide open, seemingly climax-free architecture seems to encourage a wider playstyle that ultimately it does not fully service? For example, one NPC, the (Spoiler - click to show)woodsman had a humorously awkward meeting. Unlike other NPCs, who you could engage with in a variety of social situations, this NPC was a textually tougher nut to crack. Who I quickly assessed as ‘more work than worth.’ I cannot help but suspect my lack of engagement with them is what plateau’d my experience at the 2.5hr mark. (Though belated attempts to shower in gifts did not show promising daylight.)

I am intellectually curious how my choices led to this gamestate. Whether it was a choice architecture artifact or truly a narrative one. Despite the winding-down-calliope I experienced, I do recommend it. It was a very engaging two hours that only deflated and stalled in the subsequent half hour. Per my experience, though, I very much missed the climactic focus of its successor. Feels like the right lessons were learned.