Ratings and Reviews by Ruber Eaglenest
View this member's profile
Masterwork, but in Spanish, August 25, 2021This was a really impressive piece of Magical Realism at Rayuela Jam. Also, it has a mature theme, presented in a grim loop, so I understand that this is not the cup of tea of everybody, but... really, this is a masterpiece, at least in Spanish. So, it is 5 stars for me. Probably it needs some professional proof editing, but I don't think the author has in mind the importance of this piece of work to give it an editorial treatment.
So... let's dive into it:
The story presents us with a kind of groundhog day in the life of a middle-aged person who has lost the joy of living. Without a job to motivate him, divorced, a distant son, it seems that everything has conspired to turn his back on him.
The protagonist dies of starvation or loneliness, each day, and here comes the magical realism, resurrected to repeat that same day over and over again. One does not know if it is magic, a curse, or superpowers, or if what is happening is an ellipsis in the worst years of the life of a person without hope of living. The narrative and prose execution of the loop is amazing.
But what has surprised me the most has been the structure. The interactive work has an elegant implementation. I have not looked inside, but I guess it is a day of the real groundhog day (nodes that repeat in a loop) where the text varies and evolves, where going several times through the same node does not repeat the same text. This is wonderful and this is how interactive fiction based on hyperlinks should be: text and narration must always flow and evolve, even if the same nodes are repeated. The works must be aware of the flow and adapt to it.
Another example of the masterful narrative design is the prologue: a first non-interactive and linear sequence that serves as an introduction to the drama and then grants the power of agency in the hands of the reader. Very elegant.
There are some things I could improve ... I have found a couple of points where more interaction could be added, or where there are no options for my motivation as a reader/player. But those are me nit-picking.
And now is when I'm going full hyperbolic mode. I'll say more, this story, as it is implemented, could perfectly serve as an interactive story on Netflix. In other words, it is a perfect Interactive Drama that would fit the bill perfectly shot as an interactive movie.
The conclusion of the story perfectly closes the circle and the created loop, elegantly.
Delightful piece, August 9, 2021This has been delightful and fun, although a little tedious to navigate.
This is a common problem on hypertexts that tries to use model world and navigate locations. Just like in howling dogs, the feeling is: where I should go to advance the plot? What link or list of links should I press to advance the story?
This issue constantly gets in the way of the enjoyment of the story, being all the time micro-stuck.
It has the sense to leave the player agency of exploring the model world when the script is linear? Hmmm.
The execution and style are very fine, with a very beautiful choice of font and color. I had trouble with timed passages (as others players), but on the contrary: I felt they were well-timed most of the time (probably this was already fixed by the author) but, I missed one or two passages due to a very short timed fade out. I would prefer an ugly and common <--- back link instead of this commodities, that... as we have seen, could fail from time to time, or from circumstances of the reader.
Anyway, I think this is a really fine piece, so it is 4 out of 5 stars, just for *that* problem.
Return to the land of The People, July 29, 2021Excellent Interactive Science Fiction exquisitely developed and written (in Spanish).
It is hypertext (although it is not Twine). It amazes me the author's ability to satisfy the curiosity of the most, in terms of knowing and learning the textures, smells, and flavors of this new world. That is, you get a total immersion based on abundant options that allow you to deepen the experience.
I miss more interactivity in the sense that many of the protagonist's actions are automatic within the text (which is logical, and other types of players will appreciate it) but, I miss the movement of objects and actions carried out by my hand.
The story is absorbing and expands this science fiction universe developed by the author in two other games, this being the second in a trilogy.
This time, the game shows the same "People" as the first chapter "El protector" (both games are self-contained) but from the perspective of an outsider. The people are an alien tribe of sweet manners, mysterious ways who embrace and take care of the player, and it reflects quite nicely how we must learn to live in a new culture.
Highly recommended.
Estupenda mezcla entre la Guerra Civil Española y fantasía de leyenda., November 2, 2020Excelente mezcla de literatura sobre la Guerra Civil y fantasía. Recuerda a algunos cuentos clásicos,además, como las Leyendas de Bécquer.
Me ha impresionado lo bien escrito que está para haberse realizado en tan solo cuatro horas.
Como es de esperar, echo de menos algunas opciones de interacción para aumentar la expresividad como jugador. También, el punto de vista coral se me hace extraño porque no sé quién soy, ni a quién afecta la interacción que estoy realizando. Pero esto no es un problema de la obra, es más bien, que los aventureros estamos mal acostumbrados a un punto de vista fijo y cristalino (segunda persona, tú eres el protagonista), y en cuanto nos sacan a algo más complejo nos extraña un poco. Quizás se podría suavizar con otra aproximación a las opciones... no se, habría que experimentar. Pero, por otro lado, este efecto de "obra coral" la hace mucho más interesante.
Hacia el final se nota un poco la premura por terminar el relato dentro del plazo, y hay unas pocas erratas y tal, pero vamos, lo habitual en este tipo de concursos rápidos.
Espero que el autor lo mejore tras que termine la competición, porque es una muy digna obra de Ficción Interactiva. Y con una edición con mimo, revisada la literatura, con una portada de libro elaborada, sería una obra excelente tener en la comunidad y para recomendar. Sobe todo porque me parece muy original. Se ven pocas obras sobre esa temática (en este subgénero) como para encima estén mezcladas con fantasía.
¡Fantástico!
Excellent eco-environmental science fiction fable, August 13, 2020El protector is an excellent eco-environmental science fiction fable (in Spanish), of great literary quality that immerses yourself in an alien world packed with stimuli for the senses. You breeze the fragrance of the plain, the stems brush against the tips of the fingers, the deadly fire lake warms the skin.
It is an adventure built with care and detail. The author likes to indulge in actions by being generous in his responses, texts, and descriptions.
It presents a universe that is also a tribute to the greats of science fiction, but that has enough tangibility and its own personality to be one of the author's most loved works, and most missed!
But we are in luck because the author has continued the series after 15 years since the game that concerns us today was published: “El protector”, with the second part of the cycle: “Memoria”.
In terms of structure, it is an adventure with puzzles for building elements that allow you to move forward using materials found in nature to take advantage of them. It is a short game, which can be completed in half an hour to an hour, depending on how much it costs you to overcome the puzzles (although there are clues built-in, just type AYUDA). Its geographical extension is short, but with a lot of exuberance, so that it even contains several biomes: plain, grassland, moors, beach, a volcano ... It is not necessary to map and the geography is preserved in memory, but it is enough to transmit a whole new world.
The ending ... the ending visits a sci-fi commonplace, which I can't talk about as it would be a huge spoiler. This is why I can not stop recommending that you visit the world of "El protector". It's time to wake him up to protect your village and its People.
Special effort for bringing hypertext to e-readers, January 10, 2020
Virgin Space is a special effort to bring hypertext to several platforms at once, including e-readers. The format is superb, going beyond what gamebooks can achieve, all that beautifully rendered. The format is crafted with care and a nice visual design.
The story is brief. This is the length of a short tale but, personally, I liked it a lot. It even packs some puzzles!
Very recommended.
Now some notes on kindle ergonomics... There's a trend out there stating that interactive fiction didn't flourished in e-books and why. I have my own opinions: don't trust walled gardens. Old kindles are awful to navigate links, and Amazon never went to fix that.
Probably for modern, touchy e-readers this would work really fine. But if possess the good old Kindle, one has to navigate all those letters using the cursor, and then "double click" to fully proceed to the link destination. A Chorus! In the end I got accustomed to it (like we get accustomed to other elaborated interfaces, like the parser, or Killer 7 control scheme). In the end you are traversing the text to select the links, and that's just fine.
I'm eager to read more stories of this Textagames format.
Seminal modern narrative game, July 10, 2019The writer will do something is a seminal twine made by insiders of the game industry, writers Tom Bissell and Matthew S. Burns. Born, maybe from a joke, or as a testimonial of "how games are done", it has been very influential in the narrative/game writers scene.
It has some of the best words put down on a Twine (IMHO). And it provides a sneak peek in how our modern triple-A games are done. How the chaos is modeled, and how they are built from spare parts that rarely fit properly as a narrative (you know, narrative dissonance and such).
It's cleverly written with delicious words, and flavor and tricks that delight and surprise the reader. It is very funny, terrifing, at the same time. I wholeheartly recommend it.
Cruel but joyful gauntlet on twitter gamebook, June 27, 2019So, this is a gamebook done on twitter. We've seen several attempts of doing that with the limitations of the platform, but this one uses the natural way twitter manages threads and sub-threads. Hint: it works.
Better, it is not "another gamebook where the audience decides through polls", all the threads are there, implemented, for your enjoying.
The game is a very cruel gauntlet (a quite linear structure where each deviation just kills you) but very very funny.
This is a demonstration of how fallen into disuse gamebook structures are interesting. You know, the trends say that time caves and gauntles are not worth and such, but, how many time caves we are missing?
Also, killing the player a lot in gauntlets is considered bad design, but again, this game demonstrates when that is false: when it's a lot of fun! For this to work, you must do that the multiple endigns and killings are amusings, and so it is in this game.
About the cruelness rating, this games rates Cruel in the Zarfian scale because it has death threades within the sub-threads. That is, you can choose a sub-thread without knowing all options there are just deaths. Fantastic!
Click!, May 23, 2019This is the piece of IF by Liza Daly that made click! for me to understand the very nature of what her own engine, Windrift, does. Mutable stories where their output can be read like a proper paper document.
In the past, I found the works of Liza to be lacking more traditional choice based interaction and the agency of me as a reader. Thanks to The Ballroom finally I could fully understand that we are in a new paradigm here, those of "mutable stories".
This third instance for the engine shows a lot of capabilities in proving that you can have a deep agency a lot of choices to modify the story radically within the engine. So, in a sense, it is a showing of the capabilities of Windrift to provide further interaction... but what a show! The ballroom is crispy and funny and somewhat meta (something I like very much), where each interaction could radically change the universe of the story, changing from the time and place of the story, to the very nature of the characters.
It gets tangled easily, in the last phases of the game, I felt that the "winning move" was within my reach, but the multiples variables, change of times and possibilities just crowded in my head, and in the end, I was unable to achieve a proper ending. So, in a way, it is a puzzle game implemented using a very new paradigm like the stories that Windrift provides. Very impressing.
Maybe I will return to it with a walkthrough or something, but in the meanwhile, it was a hell of a time. Very recommeded.
Spanish classic fairy tale romp, April 23, 2019This is a modern classic of the Spanish scene. Created by Antonia Visieda (aka Jenesis). It is a mashup of classic fairy tales tropes reimagined as a funny lighthearted puzzler for all ages.
It is, also, one of the few works in Spanish done for a juvenile audience in mind is ideal for kids above 7. The story is just for the fun of it, with nothing like serious topics or deep meanings, and that's just great.
It has some original use of the parser, the narrator and the break of the fourth wall, with the main character or avatar as a shape-shifting entity. Those features are not heavily used in the adventure, but, there they are.
The game comes in two formats, Z Machine, and AGE system. The AGE version is a remake with graphics and maybe, sound? I dunno, anyway AGE is an obscure Spanish system optimized for MUDs and roleplaying games that requires JAVA, and even with that, it is somewhat dificult to run the game, so I would go for the vanilla, only text, Z machine version.
Canonical modern interactive fiction for the XXI century, November 6, 2018This work my JFM Lisaso is a canonical piece of what IF for the XXI century should be. Sadly for you, reader, it is in Spanish.
It is an interactive retelling of Andersen's The Little Match-Seller. Parsed based but with a framework powered by Vorple that make it looks and sounds amazing. Also, it has an advanced UI where you can play solely using hyperlinks or the classical parser, or a simplified one a-la Aaron Reed's Blue Lacuna. So it is a rare example of a hypertext story build using a world model (Inform 6 is under the wraps).
The story is the classical one, gripping and effective powered by interactivity and multimedia. A masterpiece.
Funny little piece on a trope, July 7, 2018Groover have fun with trope of blind choosing in a fork, demonstrating that even little interaction has value thank to surprising outcomes.
I would like that even the title would be an actual fork. To make re-runs more quick.
Amazing premise in an amazing custom hypertext system, August 3, 2017Disclaimer: (Spoiler - click to show)Hi, this are the reviews I did in the the IFComp 2016. I’m Ruber Eaglenest. Co-author of The skyscraper and the scar, and entry of that year. The review is posted without edition, and need some context about how I reviewed and rated the games. So, apart of my bad English I hope to be constructive. I will point to the things I don't like of the game, but I hope to be helpful. The structure I follow is this: Title, one line review, two to five word; Mobile friendliness, overall, score phrased based on IF comp guidelines. I had back ache and so that’s why I played most games in Android mobile, I looked closely at how games behave on mobile and review and vote based on that.
Mobile friendly: Completely! Very well done! It is custom system that just nails it. it is comfortable to play. It has even a link to switch between day mode and night reading mode. It autosaves. The system fills the scroll with text with no end, and when you resume the game you must go down all the way. It could benefit of separate chapters that clean the scroll. And maybe a dynamic link to the actual reading point (that is, all the way down) could be great. But I’m just nit-picking.
General: Great start for a game about spiritualism. The initial scene is really really great creating the mood, presenting the main characters and the main mechanic of interaction. I just loved it. However it is just not real interactive (insert my subjectivity on the matter here). If you drop the game in a book, it would work the same. It is a pity, because the story, the writing, the custom hypertext system, all have a LOT of potential.
There are some problems in the perspective of PC and the narrator in some scenes. Mainly in the scene of the doll. We don’t know who we are, if the doll, the girl, the player. Maybe it is on purpose but it just don’t work. The point of view should be more homogenise, but in this concrete scene it seems it is jumping from one view to another.
The writing is superb, however I find one lacking in the interpretation of the PC. At the beginning, when he just get out of the trance, he is quite cold about it
This was the first actual psychic experience of your life.
Come on! it should be as this, for example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=du_wQIga3Uc
It should "I feel my skin like crawl" to the PC, or to the reader.
I missed a LOT of interaction, I miss free exploration, free interaction, I miss agency. It is a pity. However, I take a lot of joy of what I were reading, it is just, it wasn't interactive.
Score: Recommended with reservations. And it is a pity, this could be better just adding more interactivity in EVERY scene, for example, even in dialogues with traditional branching dialogues a-la graphic adventure or modern CYOAs.
Interesting concept that doesn’t live to its premise., January 6, 2017Disclaimer: (Spoiler - click to show)Hi, this are the reviews I did in the the IFComp 2016. I’m Ruber Eaglenest. Co-author of The skyscraper and the scar, and entry of that year. The review is posted without edition, and need some context about how I reviewed and rated the games. So, apart of my bad English I hope to be constructive. I will point to the things I don't like of the game, but I hope to be helpful. The structure I follow is this: Title, one line review, two to five word; Mobile friendliness, overall, score phrased based on IF comp guidelines. I had back ache and so that’s why I played most games in Android mobile, I looked closely at how games behave on mobile and review and vote based on that.
Mobile friendly: almost, but comfortable to play.
General: Interesting premise. At first it feels another game of consulting a Database to learn a whole story from pieces and scraps. You are in a desk with a lot of previously undelivered letters of someone who seems have passed away. However, instead of having a semi random interesting interface where we could parse all letters bit by bit, the game has a traditional twine structure, and this just don’t fit the topic and theme and story. Eventually you reach the end of the tree and you find an irritating Start over link, to begin from the start. It is irritating the fifth time you find that. I think a premise like this requieres a somewhat simulation of the space (like in Her Story or 500 apocalypses), a way of pick always random letters, a way to sort them, a way to not to read the already read letters. That is a way to not repeat the same texts again and again, or the same loops again and again.
The content is mildy interesting. Yes it describes the life, the way, and the death of a beautiful girl. But it is somewhat on the nose. There’s nothing much to discover because the death is just there, almost at the beginning. And the contents are not so interesting.
Apart of the structure problems, there’s a big problem with the voice of the game. At first, it seems that it is just that, the letters, in the writing and voice of her, but later there are passages that has flashbacks, or sequences where the protagonist is me, I mean you, the player. It just don’t feel right, because there’s no homogeneity in the use of it. It feels random. Or improvised.
Score: In the end I didn’t like it very much, and the start over mechanic irritated me. Not recommended.
Really nice world building. Even with an enciclopedia inside!, January 6, 2017Disclaimer: (Spoiler - click to show)Hi, this are the reviews I did in the the IFComp 2016. I’m Ruber Eaglenest. Co-author of The skyscraper and the scar, and entry of that year. The review is posted without edition, and need some context about how I reviewed and rated the games. So, apart of my bad English I hope to be constructive. I will point to the things I don't like of the game, but I hope to be helpful. The structure I follow is this: Title, one line review, two to five word; Mobile friendliness, overall, score phrased based on IF comp guidelines. I had back ache and so that’s why I played most games in Android mobile, I looked closely at how games behave on mobile and review and vote based on that.
Mobile friendly: Not at all. Playable, but it is not ideal. It has not autosave, nor proper way to save the game. It has a bookmark system, common in some Twine 1 games, that I found it unusable, at least in mobile. I don't understand it, and I don't know how to use it. So I could not finish the game, although I tried several times.
General: I will approach this base on the common criticism that the game has received. That is: the art style and the little ponies.
At first I didn't like the art style. I feel it is too much sketchy to pass for proper game art, but then the PC reveals that he is constantly sketching while travelling in his notebook... so this just made clic. It work, because it works in context. Sadly I feel that the first sketches doesn't do justice for what the author could accomplish... because later the sketches about the encyclopedia of fauna and flora of the planet are really great (great inside the context of what I said: the PC sketching in a notebook). So, I ended loving the art style soooo much, just because of that.
The second common criticism is the graphical representations of the horses. You know, the are like fan art of My Little Pony. And I think that criticism has a point. When you read about the culture of the horses you think more in... yeah, talking powerful horses, so the revelation of the art could be striking. But this is just plain prejudice. People has a lot of prejudice against children stuff, more if it is soooo popular as My Little Pony. But I am father of two daughters, and so, I know better, and it is my obligation to let the world know that My Little Pony is good stuff. In the first place, it is great artistic design. You just could cast an eye to any galery of art of wannabees artists here and there to see that the ponies are just one of the main inspirations for them. THERE ARE JUST A HELL TONS of fan art of them. And second, My Little Pony is great storytelling. I know this because I surprise myself getting catch by the narrative of the chapters when my little daughter is watching the show. But this is common. Some children show has bad literature in it, but a LOT of children show has really great literature on them because they are run by really great professionals. Maybe you don't like those because you are not their targeted audience, but as I said, fathers know, and fathers knows better. So... My Little Pony as main inspiration for the world-building and aesthetic design of the game: WHY THE HELL NOT?
Said that, Let's continue what's really great of the game: the world-building. It is just amazing. As some reviewers said, the intro and blurb are heavily dosed on lore and world-building, but it just worked really great for me. This is supported on the encyclopedia, a literally encyclopedia comprising lore and world-building. So... this is neat feat. This is the author showing off that he has built a proper world-building for a new extraterrestrial race, and its corresponden lore. Look here! it is all in the encyclopedia! Well done, Sir. Best of it, the encyclopedia is integrated in the gameplay, with proper links that points to the proper animal or plant that the PC is seen in each location.
This leads me to some criticism of what I think the game does not do very well, or more, it lacks. Ok, the worldbuilding is there, the lore, the fauna, the flora, and such... but: you can't interact with it. You can traverse the scenery, but it is just that: scenery: I miss to interact with the animals, with the highlights of the landscape. To smell the flora, to collect some herbs. Etc. I think this game would have benefited a lot with a parser implementation, because the lacking would be evident while programming the game. But as a player, a lot of my motivations to interact with the world were not supplied or allowed by the game and implementation.
There are more great stuff in this game: for example the characterisation of the PC's companion, or her dialog and conversation system, but I've talked more of those things that stands out more, good or bad. And I could not finish the game, so I could not comment on that.
Score: Great world-building that is not enough interactive and too static. But I love all the love (sic) poured into it, even the ponies and the sketches. Good game that I recommend.
Very funny “slice of life” in the miserable life of a self-publishing writer., January 6, 2017Disclaimer: (Spoiler - click to show)Hi, this are the reviews I did in the the IFComp 2016. I’m Ruber Eaglenest. Co-author of The skyscraper and the scar, and entry of that year. The review is posted without edition, and need some context about how I reviewed and rated the games. So, apart of my bad English I hope to be constructive. I will point to the things I don't like of the game, but I hope to be helpful. The structure I follow is this: Title, one line review, two to five word; Mobile friendliness, overall, score phrased based on IF comp guidelines. I had back ache and so that’s why I played most games in Android mobile, I looked closely at how games behave on mobile and review and vote based on that.
Mobile friendly: almost, it is parser through Quixe. Quixe is great. It works. Some minor glitches with the virtual keyboard appearing and hiding itself, but playable.
Overall: This is great fun. Well developed parser game where the player takes the role of a science fiction writer thrown in a school science fair to choose the winner of the fair.
It has three main activities: try to sell enough copies of the book to pay the rent, cast an eye to the fair expositions to select the winner, and the act of going up the podium to announce the winner. And all of them are just very funny, well developed, well implemented and with crispy prose. It make me laugh.
In my first play-though I tried to maximise my sales, so I dedicated to the labour of selling books (and had a lot of fun doing it) For this part of the game, it has a very clever CYOA system by entering the number of each option to make the repetitive actions of self-book-selling. The game always have a procedural generated potential customers selected from the traits of the people who usually passed by that kind of ambiences. This works! This is the demonstration that a parser and model world game made in Inform 7 could work with a CYOA interface. But of course this was done for just this concrete activity. However I don’t understand why it doesn’t have hyperlinks, it would ease the interaction in mobile, because, you know, entering numbers is not optimal in modern smart phones (weird). And I detect another minor oddity. When the CYOA interface is on, the normal parser interface is deactivated. This means that you can’t interact with the environment when you are in the selling activity and viceversa, you can’t sell books or show them in the “normal parser way”. The selling activity soon became repetitive, because the pool of traits from the potential customers it is very limited, in my opinion, for the scope of the amount of money to be gained. But… kudos to the author because it is very funny.
When you get your nose out of your own stand and books, there’s a full wild world out there to explore and enjoy. Kids, visitors, some fathers, and even the director, a very conservative person that contrast with the ruthless jungle that is the school . Everything is crispy characterised. It seems like the author knows well the ambience or that he has documented very well for this work.
The game has the kind of agency and freedom that I like. You can approach the fair whatever you want, you can just keep selling books (or trying) all the time and pass completely of the proper Fair so when you get to the podium you can just choose one at random (so unfair, but cruel and funny thing to do), or you can try to cheat the selling stuff with a quite un-moral thing to do that I would not spoil further, or just get out and get a cigarette with the smokers, in the cold. There’s no better winning condition, just several bittersweet endings, and that is fine.
I got some problems with the layout of the fair, so I had a hard time until I found that the fair projects must be explored going further to the west (five times). But I think this is a feature of the game difficult to lay out properly. And the fair space felt very crowded and noisy, with the video of one of the expositions invading the others kids spaces. But of course that could be perfectly intended by the author.
In the end, it is the kind of work that enhances the experience when replaying it obsessively. It is a somewhat simulation of a social space, so the more you explore the more you get, it could be resources to pay the rent, or hints of the relationships of the people around the fair, and some other hidden nasty secrets.
Score: Definitively worth it. It is a 9 because I don’t pretend to put a 10 to nobody, and because the procedural generated potential customers need more variety, but this game is just awesome.
Superb fracture on Snow White., January 6, 2017Disclaimer: (Spoiler - click to show)Hi, this are the reviews I did in the the IFComp 2016. I’m Ruber Eaglenest. Co-author of The skyscraper and the scar, and entry of that year. The review is posted without edition, and need some context about how I reviewed and rated the games. So, apart of my bad English I hope to be constructive. I will point to the things I don't like of the game, but I hope to be helpful. The structure I follow is this: Title, one line review, two to five word; Mobile friendliness, overall, score phrased based on IF comp guidelines. I had back ache and so that’s why I played most games in Android mobile, I looked closely at how games behave on mobile and review and vote based on that.
Mobile friendly: not at all. The CSS has some problems yet and the frame eats the whole space in Android mobile. I think the author is working on that.
Overall: Amazing work that let me pretty excited about in my very first turns. The very concept of it. That marvellous cover. That the play is inside the mirror. The striking beautiful prose of Chandler Groover. I was imagining this as a pretty app for desktop, mobiles and tables alike where the responses of the mirror would fade-in in a pretty rendered calligraphic font as if they were emerging from the mirror as as if it was the surface of a lake of calm dark waters. I think Chandler could do that, with the help of some friends, and sell this for money. (ow! ow! imagine it, with permanent voice recognition: “Mirror, mirror, tell me about…”)
I think any game about consulting a magic mirror, or that has magic mirrors in it, is a winner. I loved the mirror in The wolf among us, and I loved this too.
After too much excitement I was a little disappointed when I learned that it is a retelling of Snow White. I would prefer that the story was about a new Queen, and not that is about THAT Queen and Princess AGAIN, that has been retold thousands of times. However I quickly left that negativity aside and just enjoyed the work. That was worth it because the ending would not be so powerful if it would be for another queen and another princess. It is a great idea and sometimes great ideas must float above the used tropes.
I hope Chandler releases a postmortem, postcomp, because I would like to know how the innards work. How it was made. The mirror is not just a simple input-output information machine. It reflects intelligence (or fakes it, but whatever it does, it works).
I’ve seen that there are has been some criticism about the lack of agency. And that the author says that it is a game that last from 15 to 40 minutes. On the contrary I think it has a too long play for the kind of work. But that is alleviated because the save system works so well. You can consult the mirror, leave it and coming back to it for more (oh! an autosave feature for quiting the game would be awesome, like in roguelikes). So, that’s fine. Respect interactivity and agency, it is the kind of work about database consultation, as in 500 apocalypses, or some works of fiction proposed by Borges and Cortazar, so in that respect Mirror and Queen is just perfect as is. It needs not to go “out of the mirror”.
However some last sentences in the very last turns suggest that maybe there is some zntvp jbeq jub jbhyq punatr gur bhgpbzrf, but maybe I'm misreading or loosing in translation. And that’s why I would like to know more about, in a postmortem.
Final fun fact. I was playing the very last turns while listening to Dark Souls III, song Prologue, and the crescendo fitted so well with the matter at hand that it was a tremendous climax. Keep in mind that when you make the commercial version, Chandler, you'll need an audio engineer who could built a dynamic soundtrack that adapts itself to the countdown of the story.
Score: Excellent. I would give it a 10 if it were not for the trope story.
Greeky pulp with heavy structure problems, January 6, 2017Disclaimer: (Spoiler - click to show)Hi, this are the reviews I did in the the IFComp 2016. I’m Ruber Eaglenest. Co-author of The skyscraper and the scar, and entry of that year. The review is posted without edition, and need some context about how I reviewed and rated the games. So, apart of my bad English I hope to be constructive. I will point to the things I don't like of the game, but I hope to be helpful. The structure I follow is this: Title, one line review, two to five word; Mobile friendliness, overall, score phrased based on IF comp guidelines. I had back ache and so that’s why I played most games in Android mobile, I looked closely at how games behave on mobile and review and vote based on that.
Mobile friendly: not optimal, but pretty playable.
Overall: I liked the prose and lore of the game. In both aspects is a heavy piece, full of names of a developed lore based on the Greek myths. But at the same time, the prose it is deep in style with punchy phrases, humor and scenes that feel very pulpy, as if someone would make a superheroes stories based on the Greek gods, heroes and titans, with superlative details.
However, in the end, I didn’t like the game at all. It has a somewhat puzzle structure where the player must find the way to pass each scene. I don’t know how to name this problem, is like reading the mind author and getting the right branch. I think some branches act like actions that set a flag to win the puzzle of each scene or what. But it just don’t work. A lot of twines that I’ve played and I’ll review has the same problem: they make loops with not enough variable text and knowledge of the actions and state of the world upon the player actions. So again, in Aether Aperion, the player repeats the same passages again and again, that repeats the same bunch of text. But in this game the problem is aggravated because they are a somewhat puzzle on them, so in the end, the player is lost in the tangle of nodes and connections, clicking links at random in the hope that some branch get you out that scene.
If this game will become in a series, this needs fixing, because this a bad way of doing puzzles in Twine. And that problem makes the story not enjoyable.
Score: Recommended with reservations. Is interesting and it is funny, as it has severe problems but maybe some people would overlook them and take some joy of it.
Somewhat funny tongue in cheek game, January 6, 2017Disclaimer: (Spoiler - click to show)Hi, this are the reviews I did in the the IFComp 2016. I’m Ruber Eaglenest. Co-author of The skyscraper and the scar, and entry of that year. The review is posted without edition, and need some context about how I reviewed and rated the games. So, apart of my bad English I hope to be constructive. I will point to the things I don't like of the game, but I hope to be helpful. The structure I follow is this: Title, one line review, two to five word; Mobile friendliness, overall, score phrased based on IF comp guidelines. I had back ache and so that’s why I played most games in Android mobile, I looked closely at how games behave on mobile and review and vote based on that.
Mobile friendly: almost there. It is playable but the view must be panned to enjoy the images.
Overall: This is a virtual tour for some places of Cleveland. It is well written in a light tone that is slightly funny. The game is a branchy “try to get the hidden winning branch” combining the resources at your disposal. In the end that’s feels somewhat to random luck, or “read the author’s mind”, but because each branch fell on the short side, you can replay easily.
My main caveat about this game is some dissonance in the loops. Just, the game doesn’t track the state of the game and adapt itself properly for a looping passage, instead it just repeats the same text again and again, and that is not narratively correct.
It is ok, but it is not of my tastes.
Score: Recommended, because maybe someone could enjoy this more than I.
Trope diversion, but a sweet one, although flawed., January 6, 2017Disclaimer: (Spoiler - click to show)Hi, this are the reviews I did in the the IFComp 2016. I’m Ruber Eaglenest. Co-author of The skyscraper and the scar, and entry of that year. The review is posted without edition, and need some context about how I reviewed and rated the games. So, apart of my bad English I hope to be constructive. I will point to the things I don't like of the game, but I hope to be helpful. The structure I follow is this: Title, one line review, two to five word; Mobile friendliness, overall, score phrased based on IF comp guidelines. I had back ache and so that’s why I played most games in Android mobile, I looked closely at how games behave on mobile and review and vote based on that.
Mobile friendly. Not too much, but playable. Save system, but no autosave.
Overall: The game grow on me. Half world modelling, half hypertext, with ellipsis and such. But in the end is not consistent enough, and has lacking for it.
The start of the game and the first chapter are more consistent, the last chapters and ending could benefit of a better structure and developing. I found some actions to be problematic against my motivations as a player. I think the game could benefit a lot from an editor or a confiable tester who could said what works and what not works in the game. And then rewrite. But for a future work. What’s done it’s done.
I like the trying to make a consistent world in twine, but the authors has done some loops, and those loops are not variable enough. Take the example when you arrive at the cottage. The scene describes you arriving, but if you enter, and go out, the scene is describe again as if you were arriving for the first time. That is a huge problem for me, it just breaks the immersion.
Some scenes are rushed and make a poor work on building the narrative of surviving day to day on the forest. For example, in day two where you must take care of feeding yourself, you go out, get some food, and when you return, the day is over and you go to sleep. Too rushed.
This repeats in later chapters, overall, all the plot feels a little rushed, I would like a more modelled implementation of the forest, more tangible and less abstract. Definitively this game would benefit of being a parser one. So I could enjoy, explore and know the environment as my home. But in the end that sensation was only in the very first chapter.
There’s a growing relationship with the wolves in the game, but again, it is rushed, there is no room for really building that relationship with the mother wolf, so it is not succeed in that either. This is not like in Princess Mononoke where all the implicit existence together is evident, or like the relationship in Dancing with wolves or just the play with the fox in A change in the weather. So in the end the game doesn’t nails the story, topic and setting.
However I liked the writing and tone. I think the author is someone to look for in the future.
Score: Recommended with reservations
Great fun, January 6, 2017Disclaimer: Hi, this are the reviews I did in the the IFComp 2016. I’m Ruber Eaglenest. Co-author of The skyscraper and the scar, and entry of that year. The review is posted without edition, and need some context about how I reviewed and rated the games. So, apart of my bad English I hope to be constructive. I will point to the things I don't like of the game, but I hope to be helpful. The structure I follow is this: Title, one line review, two to five word; Mobile friendliness, overall, score phrased based on IF comp guidelines. I had back ache and so that’s why I played most games in Android mobile, I looked closely at how games behave on mobile and review and vote based on that.
Mobile friendly: almost there, it just needs autosave, some optimisations on intelligent focus when hitting a button (that it gets you the proper section by context), and some bug fixes. The sounds breaks in android mobile. I miss a more large buttons, or an option to size them up. However it was pleasant to play and very funny.
Overall: I love the world model. I LOVE UI design. I love the style. I love the implementation. I know Robin is very proud of his landscape design for the game, but It works better for me in portrait, in mobile. It just need a further iteration in the UI to be just a perfect responsive IF system. And in landscape my eye jump too much from the left panel to the right panel, so I prefer to resize the window on desktop. Again, for me, portrait with this IF system, is perfect.
The game, as Draculaland, falls on the humor pastiche sub-genre genre (sic). I’m not very fond on detective stories, and definitively I’m not into pastiche humor pieces, but Robin is soooooo fun, he is so smart doing it, that I laugh out loud several times. Just take attention to the office of the Player Character (PC) and later read the Detective book 1001… so funny.
I like that the just plain silliness of Draculaland goes here to another level, and that it works so well. It seems as if Draculaland were the first draft of what is coming, because the pastiche silliness is there, the UI is there, both games has the same CSS visual design, but in Detectiveland it simply all makes click! together. Thanks to the improvements in multimedia, the music, the portraits, and of course the magnificent cover, everything works towards the goal, that is to have great fun with a solid modelled puzzle game.
The better of it is that the model system works. This system remembers us why modelled worlds are so funny to play, and in a world that goes towards hypertext and CYOA domination, this feels as fresh air: the old made new again.
Returning to the use of multimedia, however, the music felt repetitive. It seems the author is not comfortable yet with the silence, and the space around it. I think the game would benefit a lot from a more discrete use of the music, doing only a 2 or three times loop, and then stopping until another change in the ambience of the scenery. With that, short bursts of music, would serve as a perfect cue to the new ambience instead of fill every space with an eternal repetition.
On to the structure, it is somewhat open: you have three cases to work, but you have to choose one. The world organises itself for the case at hand. Once the player has solved the three first cases, the games gift us with a fourth case. The initial puzzles for each case are very easy and straightforward, but I found some of the final ones too difficult without learning curve or a progressive difficult curve in the middle. Probably that’s because the nature of the comp, but for a future releases of this kind of games could benefit a lot of a more expanded play time, and a smooth difficult curve.
In one of the final puzzles for one case, the solution was … almost "read the mind of the author", but I think it was very well implemented, with an exemplary design on trial and error. But as I'm not accustomed to this nowadays I made the decision to go to the police station; I had the motivation to do that, but, of course the location was not prepared for me for that concrete case finale, so I got stuck. I think for those occasions the game could benefit of a little more railroading or adding dynamic clues when the player has the motivation to look for in other places when he has failed the puzzle and failed to notice that he has to return to the problem at hand in the same place. But… this is nick picking. We don’t need perfectly round games to enjoy them, isn’t it? Because this is a game of 9. Ooops, I said that... agh, forget it.
Score: Excellent.
Showing All | Show by Page