Goat Game

This piece is set in a speculative/fantasy world and follows a young biotech researcher (and goat) who must deal with an ethical dilemma at their lab and ultimately take charge of their own future.

I immediately fell in love with this game as I started playing: the beautiful illustrations, the evocative setting and location, the sentence level writing, the flow on the page as different sections slide into view, and the descriptions that paint a picture of life in a hybrid academic/industry setting. I also think the endings, three of which I found, are very interesting and distinct, and accurately reflect the choices made.

I was surprised when the plot arrived at its conclusion after about 20 minutes, in part because on IFComp it's listed at 2 hours, but also because it's written in a way that establishes setting details, character arcs, and larger plot threads that feel like they need a longer narrative to resolve. As just one example, I wanted to know more about the two Aegis cities, which strongly hint at a military or natural disaster backstory: what did these "twin shields" need to shield people from? The piece ultimately played a bit like a prologue, which also made the big changes/leaps in some of the endings feel abrupt.

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