Threnody

I've been playing through old Spring Thing games, and several of them have been really large, which makes sense; Spring Thing was originally established in part to have a release venue for games too large for IFComp. Nowadays large games often get released in IFComp and the main draw of Spring Thing seems to be its non-ranked awards system and less intense competition.

This game is big. You're investigating a mage's tower, and just 1 or 2 levels alone would be a normal-sized IFComp game. I thought it was a 5-level tower, and felt that was long, but it's actually 9 levels, and they get harder as you go. And there are 3 class choices that change how you can act!

The gameplay resembles are more cheerful (but only slightly) version of Bronze, in that you are in a castle with servants bound by enchanted objects (in this case, crystal), all of whom you can free by breaking the crystals. Many of the captives are mystical nine-tailed cats forced into new bodies and with mouths fused shut.

Many of the puzzles are fair and interesting. As time goes on, though, I found several that I found a little unfair and others that were just too hard for me. There is a lot of work put into this game but with its expansive scope it just wasn't all 'filled in'. Conversation is a notable weak point, with exotic and wild creatures who just respond "I don't know much about that" when asked about themselves and things in their vicinity. There just wasn't enough polish to put in, which makes sense, as in a game this large it would have taken months and a small army of beta testers.

I played until I had rescued about 7 or 8 of 18 servants and found around 12 treasures, then used a walkthrough. I did the Mage path, and had fun with the spells. There is a lot of good content in this game, so I do recommend people play it, but to just remember that the odds are stacked against you finishing without a walkthrough due to missing synonyms for reasonable actions.