Number of Reviews: 2
Write a review1 of
1 people found the following review helpful:
Fascinating but confusing story about mechanical life, July 25, 2023This game was written for the Neo Twiny Jam in 500 words or less.
It has little in the way of branching or complex mechanics and so relies entirely on its capacity for storytelling and the momentum provided by links.
The links work pretty well; a series of moral dilemmas in the middle and a nicely paced denouement at the end.
The writing is evocative, reminding me of all the old sci fi anthologies my dad had from Philip Dick and Isaac Asimov. However, the writing was very 'skirting around the edges', asking people to fill in the blanks, and I just couldn't fill them in very well. There are some clear and strongly hinted/described aspects, but I didn't see how they gelled together. (Edit: Like (Spoiler - click to show)the dramatic birth moment indicates a story of extreme drama and prowess; the moral choices just seem like a run of the mill utilitarian AI; and the finale indicates unimportance. All of these can exist in a self-contradictory story with no single interpretation, but there's a consistent negative viewpoint on the AI's interactions with humans that makes it difficult to imagine wildly different interpretations.