Ratings and Reviews by Franzeska

1-2 of 2

The Warbler's Nest, by Jason McIntosh

Great writing makes up for obvious twist, December 3, 2012

I loved the atmosphere in this one, and it's all down to great writing. This isn't a long enough game for me to have a strong opinion on pace, and I found the central concept obvious almost from the first. It would have been nice to see slightly subtler foreshadowing; (Spoiler - click to show)I thought the birds were totally anvilicious in the way they were written, not just because I immediately knew what was going on with them and that they're a common analogy for changelings but because I thought the PC would as well. The character avoiding voicing her worries about her baby, even in her own head, I could swallow, but not that a thatcher would have no idea about cuckoo behavior, behavior that threatens a species we know the protagonist is familiar with and considers beneficial to her work. I was sorry there weren't more endings; I kept hoping there would be a bit more to the game.

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leaves, by ed blair

0 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

Too slight to give the atmosphere it's trying for, December 3, 2012

by Franzeska

Whether the aim is to give the game an ambiguous ending or a poignant feeling, more detail was needed. It's so short and so minimal that it makes you wonder what the point was, not which of several explanations is the real one.

(Spoiler - click to show)I definitely assumed the viewpoint character was the spirit of the dead person given their reactions to the mourner, but the game never built up the kind of eerie atmosphere or sense of magical realism that would have been needed to make that obvious but not certain. Since the game maintains a fairly banal, literal tone, I wanted to see a more literal ending.