HOURS

Adapted from an IFCOMP22 Review

This work feels more incomplete than the ones I’ve reviewed to date. I don’t mean to sound patronizing, but it feels like the work of someone at the front end of their authorship. There are gaps kind of across the board: in concept, narrative, use of interactivity and coding. Everyone that writes has been here, where ideas are clamoring to get out, but the tools are still blunt and clumsy. Using them is the only way to hone!

Conceptually, the setting is an interesting (fuedal?) Japanese, military magic/mutant exploitation jam. Depending on choices, you get more or less of the background and all of it is loosely sketched. The looseness is not a problem per se. Sometimes you accomplish more with detailed hints that allow the reader to do some mental lifting to fill in the gaps. The danger is that if the reader lifts TOO much, and you subsequently contradict their mental image it is jarring. The trick is knowing where to proscribe and where to sketch. For me, the use of swords and historical Japanese vocabulary crashed in my head once guns were mentioned (but never employed?) Or when a prominent character’s name was revealed as (Spoiler - click to show)“Charlie.”

Narratively, the protagonist is initially presented as resisting the call, only to then acquiesce. Of course, this Campbellian Construct is deeply ingrained in popular storytelling. But it isn’t free. In particular, the Refusal is the least interesting part of the Journey and really requires some selling by the author. I mean, we WANT the adventure. The longer and less convincingly the protagonist resists, the more the reader rejects them. Conversely, if their acceptance does not organically refute this refusal, the character comes across as petulant which is not endearing either. There are other unsatisfying narrative choices, like the protagonist having exactly the tools needed in the moment, without foreshadowing or establishing shots. Again, tone could help sell this, but not here.

Interactivity is all but missing. I think there is exactly one narratively important choice the player can make, and one of the alternatives is unattractive and unsatisfying. Instead there are a series of choices presented that at best provide more backstory and at worst have no impact on the narrative at all. Now there are a lot of ways to use interactivity: to align the reader with protagonist, to give the player agency in the narrative, to provide mental and emotional puzzles to grapple with. None of these are at play here. It devolves to page turning, which effectively shines a brighter light on the Concept and Narrative.

Technically, there is a bug where one potentially impactful decision puts the game is a stuck state without resolution. (Spoiler - click to show)If you attempt to buy a slave (to save their life presumedly), you get stuck on a page with a “markup contains mistake, need usable code right of =” error. Elsewhere, a potential choice seems unimplemented and stalls until you make a different choice. With a game this small and linear, it is hard to understand how playtesting the entire decision tree was not done before release.

I honor the ambition of the effort. As a player, this is not engaging, but as a first step there is plenty to learn from and build on.


Played: 10/13/22
Playtime: 15 minutes, multiple playthroughs, 2 endings, 1 game ending bug
Artistic/Technical rankings: Mechanical/Intrusive
Would Play Again? No, experience seems complete

Artistic scale: Bouncy, Mechanical, Sparks of Joy, Engaging, Transcendent
Technical scale: Unplayable, Intrusive, Notable (Bugginess), Mostly Seamless, Seamless