their angelical understanding

by Porpentine profile

Surreal
2013

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Reviews and Ratings

5 star:
(25)
4 star:
(25)
3 star:
(10)
2 star:
(7)
1 star:
(4)
Average Rating:
Number of Ratings: 71
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- TheBoxThinker, December 9, 2023

- ilyu, September 25, 2023

- Edo, August 24, 2023

- Bell Cyborg (Canada), July 21, 2023

- Kastel, April 14, 2023

- merrybug, March 25, 2023

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Molta forma e poca sostanza, November 1, 2022

Mah. Tutto molto simbolico e di grande atmosfera, ma manca completamente la parte degli enigmi e anche l'interattivitā č ridotta al minimo, si possono modificare solo sfumature. Comunque in mezz'ora si finisce, quindi poco male.

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- Cerfeuil (*Teleports Behind You* Nothing Personnel, Kid), October 11, 2022

- Sarah Mak (Singapore), August 31, 2022

- Nightmace, June 8, 2022

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Elliptical poem with moments of true horror, May 31, 2022
by ccpost (Greensboro, North Carolina)

I played this game shortly after howling dogs, as I was absolutely blown away by that game and wanted to play more of Porpentine's works. It's perhaps not fair to review this work in comparison to the other, though there are significant similarities and differences between the two. Both feature incredibly visceral and beautiful writing, and both integrate seemingly discrete episodes that mix the surreal and familiar into a broader whole. The main difference is that the episodes in howling dogs revolve around and return to a central location, which lends the game a certain coherence, while their angelical understanding is more meandering, without a clear sense of how one visionary scene connects to the next.

Despite the lack of a strong connecting through-line, their angelical understanding does have a driving core message that comes across powerfully even through the somewhat elliptical language and the often outright bizarre scenes. Ultimately, this is a story of the player-character grappling with abuse -- both the abuser and friends and family members who enable the abuse. The end of the game presents a simple but insidious gameplay mechanic that forces the player to grapple with how to confront this devastating situation.

While the game leading up to this final encounter does not quite cohere for me, each episode in and of itself is brilliant. Throughout, there are many examples of inventive uses of links and text manipulation to achieve different aesthetic effects. In some cases, a whole game could be built around what's essentially a one-off experiment in this game. While some of the scenes work better than others, there are several moments that rise to a level of true horror that I felt deep in my body. Perhaps the most haunting being (Spoiler - click to show)the cottage where countless hands fall to the floor. Contrasting with the surreal horror, there are the even more horrifying moments of a cleanly rendered domestic scene in which people in another room are ignoring abuse in the adjoining room.

This is definitely not a game to approach lightly, but if you're prepared to engage -- both directly and obliquely -- with themes of abuse and self-harm, their angelical understanding is a remarkable game.

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- Zape, May 25, 2022

- MoyTW, December 31, 2021

- autumnc, February 27, 2021

- Dawn Sueoka, December 28, 2020

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
A creepy quest, October 16, 2020

Porpentine reverses the archetypical character of angel in an evil one, and mixes it with creepy details (Spoiler - click to show)(the face in the bottle, the hands on the cottage) to distill anguish in player's mind.

Once this done, she unveils in a dream sequence the true meaning of the game (Spoiler - click to show)(a metaphor for a child abuse) and keeps then the emotion growing until the amazing end (Spoiler - click to show)(a bloody tile duel).

Add some brilliant uses of Twine devices, as words collapsing, and you get, indeed, another masterpiece from Porpentine.

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- Bartlebooth, February 19, 2020

- grimperfect, May 21, 2019

- cygni, October 21, 2018

- Aryore, May 30, 2018

- Divide (Wroclaw, Poland), May 20, 2018

- Stas, April 1, 2018

- maya surya, February 1, 2018

- Dominia, December 23, 2017

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
I try to cut down on fantasy, December 21, 2017

good:
coherent enouh to be in a dream
a few personalization options
text states and timed text minigame
scene addresses easy to crawl

bad:
Stylesheet wants "Averia Serif Libre" or cursive font, whereas game doesn't warn you, and when you lack the first font it displays everything in Comic Sans instead. Use Google's or embed it.
random inkhorn terms
unneeded exaggerations
loose plot
themes irrelevant to person
I broke Twine!(Spoiler - click to show) [Wow, look at that URL.] Its style at least. I didn't enter so much text on 1w (drop) as to hang my whole computer(Spoiler - click to show) again.
generic personalized resolutions

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