Chlorophyll

by Steph Cherrywell profile

Science Fiction
2015

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Number of Ratings: 57
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- Sobol (Russia), January 5, 2018

- Squidi, December 4, 2017

- Mr. Patient (Saint Paul, Minn.), November 17, 2017

- Keiya, September 4, 2017

- Cory Roush (Ohio), June 12, 2017

- sipral, June 8, 2017

- DocDoe, May 15, 2017

- Aerobe, April 17, 2017

- IFforL2 (Chiayi, Taiwan), April 2, 2017

- Christopher Hall (London, Great Britain), November 1, 2016

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
Like Stationfall with Sentient Plants, October 21, 2016
by Audiart (Davis, CA)

Chlorophyll is a well designed game reminiscent of Stationfall (shorter, fewer balloon animals) in which the protagonist explores an abandoned space station in an attempt to restore power (Spoiler - click to show)and save your mom. There is a "food" requirement (significantly less annoying than in Stationfall) and Floyd has been replaced by a robot plant, but the eerie-wonderful feeling of wandering through an empty building doesn't fail to deliver.

However this game's true strength lies in the subtle revelation of the intricacies of the plant folk and the amusing parallels to our own world. No expository text dumps; you learn about the world room by room in the description of items, books left lying around, and the thoughts of the protagonist. The puzzles are not difficult and are mostly vehicles for delivering details about the clever parallel world of sentient mobile plantfolk.

Where Stationfall suffered greatly from "guess-the-verb" and "find this tool to put in this slot" the puzzles in Chlorophyll are a joy to perform. They are generally easy to figure out but not lacking in the pleasure of a subtle Eureka moment. The basic premise of returning power to the station is not a series of grumbling repetitive chores, but rather a series of playful experiments, especially (Spoiler - click to show)seeing how many illegal activities you can perform.

There are a few red herrings that are simply for your own amusement, (such as (Spoiler - click to show)going to the barber shop) but the plot elements are so seamlessly and naturally resting amongst the idle amusements of the mall that you cannot right away tell which are for fun and which are for the solution. As a result, it's all fun. You are encouraged to play with everything, explore, and basically, be a kid wandering through an abandoned mall.

Chlorophyll is just the right length, not long enough to draw a map (like Stationfall) but long enough to satisfy. Very well written with a great background story, and a likable protagonist, with intuitive, easy yet satisfying puzzles reminiscent of Infocom (without all the diabolical stuff.) Lots of fun, good for a beginner or someone who wants to recall the Infocom style without spending a week on a game.

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- hoopla, September 17, 2016

- Witchy W, August 6, 2016

- revereche, July 17, 2016

- mousetail (India), July 4, 2016

- Pegbiter (Malmö, Sweden), April 20, 2016

- E. W. B., March 18, 2016

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
A well-polished sci-fi game with a teenage plant protagonist, February 3, 2016
by MathBrush
Related reviews: about 2 hours

Chlorophyll felt like a commercial game to me. If Infocom had lived longer, I could see this as being one of their "Beginner" games (which were never very easy, as far as I can tell). It's well-polished, with a strong background story and lots of extra details.

It's a mid-length game set on a distant world. You play a young plant-woman with her plant-woman mother. You must explore a base while also coming to grips with your own coming adulthood and independence.

At times, I stopped playing Chlorophyll for a few weeks because the game seemed too open without much direction, and I felt overwhelmed. As I pressed through, though, I found that you were guided pretty well, and I found the last three areas enjoyable.

The only other sticking point was the long intro where you can't do very much. It made it annoying to restart. Other than that, this is one of the best 'recent' games.

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- Aryore, December 13, 2015

- besmaller (Portland, OR), October 4, 2015

- MattC, August 27, 2015

- Khalisar (Italy), July 28, 2015

- E.K., June 28, 2015

- Sam Kabo Ashwell (Seattle), May 31, 2015

These Heterogenous Tasks
ParserComp: Chlorophyll

This is writing, I should stress, which really understands the importance of rewarding the player. It’s a big deal for me if a passage of writing can make me grin – here it’s not so much a matter of razor-honed prose as it is of wittily deployed concept, with the prose itself mostly doing an understated job of letting that shine.

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