External Links

Download
Defaults - All Systems Application (Compressed with ZIP. Free Unzip tools are available for most systems at www.info-zip.org.)

Have you played this game?

You can rate this game, record that you've played it, or put it on your wish list after you log in.

Playlists and Wishlists

RSS Feeds

New member reviews
Updates to external links
All updates to this page

13 Minutes of Light

by Jod

Romance, Science Fiction
2014

(based on 3 ratings)
1 review

About the Story

Mars is, at best, 13 minutes of light removed from Earth. So when your girlfriend gets on the Commercial Virgin spaceflight to teach at Mars University, you realize the relationship has... a bit of a challenge. Will your penmanship be enough to keep the relationship warm?


Game Details

Tags

- View the most common tags (What's a tag?)

(Log in to add your own tags)
Tags you added are shown below with checkmarks. To remove one of your tags, simply un-check it.

Enter new tags here (use commas to separate tags):

Member Reviews

5 star:
(0)
4 star:
(1)
3 star:
(1)
2 star:
(0)
1 star:
(1)
Average Rating:
Number of Reviews: 1
Write a review


4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
An epistolary visual novel set in space, May 8, 2016
by verityvirtue (London)
Related reviews: Ludum Dare, sanguine, Ren'Py

Time to completion: 20-30 minutes

You play Jack, whose girlfriend Elizabeth has left for Mars for a position teaching anthropology. Constrained by cost, the only means of communication you have with her are the letters, and each takes three months to arrive. Three months is a long time...

The gameplay reminded me of First Draft of the Revolution, with the epistolary format and the way branching is achieved. 13 Minutes of Light introduces a wider story arc of political unrest and social inequality to contextualise the relationship, contrasting the content of the letters with snippets from a mockup of Reddit's /r/mars.

I particularly liked Elizabeth's development from anthropology graduate to (Spoiler - click to show)political leader. This game also plays on the uncertainty and tension that comes with such a restricted form of communication as letters: how do you know what the other party really means?

There are some bits which could have been improved to make 13 Minutes of Light more enjoyable, one of which was a feedback system I didn't understand. The game tells you which parts of the letter go off well, which don't and which are mysteriously relevant to the story. This felt out of place with the theme, given that we are told (repeatedly) how long letters take to be delivered - and whose point of view are these from, anyway?

13 Minutes of Light could maybe stand to be aesthetically more pleasing, but it still represents a solid example of epistolary branching IF.

Was this review helpful to you?   Yes   No   Remove vote  
More Options

 | Add a comment 

13 Minutes of Light on IFDB

Recommended Lists

13 Minutes of Light appears in the following Recommended Lists:

Mars master list by Kinetic Mouse Car
All about Mars. Does not need to take place on the surface of Mars. Games that take place under Mars' surface, orbiting Mars, on Mars' moons, or even just about traveling to Mars are included. Simply ones that add an interesting twist or...

A Doll's House by verityvirtue
Games which feature female protagonists who mature through the progress of the game.

Polls

The following polls include votes for 13 Minutes of Light:

For Your Consideration: Games from 2014 that should be nominated for the XYZZY Awards by Molly
There were a lot of great games released in the past year, and now that the XYZZYs are coming up, it seems like a very good idea to take a poll of all the games from last year people would like to see nominated. The management has asked...




This is version 2 of this page, edited by Snoother on 1 January 2015 at 10:31am. - View Update History - Edit This Page - Add a News Item - Delete This Page