Reviewing some IFComp games, Part 7 of ???
Games reviewed (or marked DNP) so far: 27
Games DNP'd: 3
Current best-in-show: The Witch Girls, by Amy Stevens
Favorite game in this batch: Saltwrack, by Antemaion
For more context, see part 1. For all reviews, see the tag.
Saltwrack, by Antemaion
This is a medium-length Twine piece. It's post-post-apocalyptic fiction; the player character, along with two others, travels on an expedition to find the origin of the setting's specific apocalypse – or die trying.
This owes a lot to Roadside Picnic and its own descendants Stalker and Annihilation; but also to D. Vincent and Meguey Baker's Apocalypse World, and even its descendants Dream Askew and The Quiet Year. While it's definitely operating within a genre, it's very much the product of a unique lens into that genre.
This isn't a stock apocalypse, which I appreciate; the wasteland is the titular saltwrack, a frozen tundra caked over with an excess of salt.
The writing here is quite good; I did spot a couple of clunky passages and some ideas that I don't think quite land. But there's also really effective material here that operates well in the mode of this style of fiction; the saltwrack is a place of austere beauty as well as horror and privation.
I think the writing here is at its best during the expedition itself, and struggles more both when setting up the premise early on, and during the climactical moments encountering the expedition's objective. In the latter scene, it's trying to perhaps cram a bit too much concept in that singular moment. Overall I think this is a very good effort, however.
It's not totally clear to me (from one playthrough) how much the story varies, but I am given to understand that there's random variation in what you can encounter; this is a bit Oregon Trail, with a status bar that tells you how far you've come and meters your constantly-dwindling supplies.
My own playthrough was lucky enough that I did not really encounter nonstandard game overs or even some of the more horrific outcomes the game's content warning hints at. If I have major criticism of this piece is that it feels like the amount of tension and jeopardy in the story is a little too much at the mercy of randomness or whether the player takes specific choices. I still found the story satisfying, ultimately.
The Promises of Mars, by George Larkwright
Post-apocalyptic climate fiction; not actually set on Mars – I'm not actually sure what the title is referencing. Maybe the idea that terraforming a post-atmospheric collapse earth back to habitability is as fanciful as the idea of terraforming Mars?
This is a Twine, but it's mostly operating in the adventure-puzzle mode; most of the game here is about moving medium-sized dry goods around to solve basic puzzles. I generally don't enjoy Twines in this format, because I find that the link interface is ill-suited and they rarely have well-developed world models. This is no exception; it feels generally drained of dread and tension for something billed as a mystery.
The writing is fine? It's melodramatic, almost comically bleak material. There's nothing egregious here but it's still not really deployed to any particularly interesting effect. I can't really find too much fault with this, but I also can't find anything to specifically praise. The puzzles are mostly logical and well-clued, even if I found them kind of tedious. The prose is tonally consistent and reasonably well written, but it's very much operating in a genre.
More than anything I found this to be kind of at odds with itself. It's trying to be very atmospheric, high in dread, and thematic; but it's constructed mostly in the shape of a very stock adventure game. It's trying to be this bleak, realistic, unsparing look at climate collapse, but it's also built on some fairly fanciful apocalypse-bunker premises and some very generic ideas that wouldn't be out of place in something like Fallout; it doesn't really function as climate fiction because it's ultimately covered in stock signifiers of your common-or-garden-variety nuclear wasteland.
A Rock's Tale, by Shane R.
In all honesty I didn't get very far with this. This is a Twine with what seems like maybe an interesting structure, but I found the sense of humor was not landing for me at all. So, alas, playing through enough to see that structure and appreciate it wasn't happening.
Like I said when I set out to do this: In the interest of reviewing as many things as I can, I'm going to move on from games quickly if I find that their writing or ideas aren't working for me. This is a game where you play as a rock and you wait for people to appear in your vicinity; I gather you can build relationships with them, which in turn may unlock more story or enable you to solve the mystery of how you got isekai'd and reincarnated as a rock.
As a rule, things with this kind of zany premise need to be actually funny and gripping from the start, and this just... really isn't.