Wade
This user has not published any games publicly yet.
Reviews by Wade
Review for Worship the Pig
27 Jun 2013
ADRIFT veteran Heal Butcher (I don't think there are two Heal Butchers around?) gets all weird in Worship the Pig. This is a hypertext click, look and walk journey through some strange and ornate scenery. The clickable keywords make for a clean and smooth delivery of the experience, with the most commonly appearing contextual menu action being "Look At". The imagery and feel reminded me of one of the David Lynch films not grounded in reality (EG Inland Empire) or of Matthew Barney's Cremaster Cycle. There is no plot to speak of, but there are anonymous figures, a garbed pig-man and crowds who say strange things. It all feels somewhat threatening, like you might be the only sane person wandering in a world of creatures who are freakish or alien to you – though these creatures also have a slavish civility about them, and seem to be following a set of rules that you don't understand. It is unsettling to be amongst them.
In the tradition of some other games with imperative titles, "Worship The Pig" turns out to be a an action you can take one point, and in the context of this no-puzzle game, worshipping the pig is a significant decision. In terms of interactivity, the fact that you're still choosing when to move around and what to look at in general gives you a traditional IF trope to hang onto, one which, even on its own, can add a purposive feel to a game that's essentially linear and not interested in revealing a clear narrative purpose.
I found the prose a tiny bit ripe, but it's undoubtedly vivid and has been well crafted to deliver the experience it wants to deliver. And that experience is more than a little freaky.
In the tradition of some other games with imperative titles, "Worship The Pig" turns out to be a an action you can take one point, and in the context of this no-puzzle game, worshipping the pig is a significant decision. In terms of interactivity, the fact that you're still choosing when to move around and what to look at in general gives you a traditional IF trope to hang onto, one which, even on its own, can add a purposive feel to a game that's essentially linear and not interested in revealing a clear narrative purpose.
I found the prose a tiny bit ripe, but it's undoubtedly vivid and has been well crafted to deliver the experience it wants to deliver. And that experience is more than a little freaky.
Review for Pest
21 Jun 2013
A review for Questcomp 2013. WARNING - The review will have some spoilers.
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Pest has the makings of a thorough puzzler, but is hampered in its current form by a fair few technical and writing oversights. The former manifest as bugs, the latter just make the gameworld that much harder to understand, which in turn makes the puzzles harder to overcome. I laid down my adventure solving tools after what I would describe as the second major scene. I would have liked to continue, but I'd spent a lot of time on the game already, including a couple of forum interactions with the author. Summarily, I like the game's scaffolding but I don't think the building is stable yet.
An introductory sequence in which you flee from an unseen pursuer teaches the use of the various sense commands your rat protagonist can use (smell, listen, feel). The teaching works, but the rat's constant ruminations on his fate while this is going on are mostly at odds with the move to build suspense. There's too much repetition of material, or perhaps the repetition would work better if the player wasn't required to press a key to advance through every line of dialogue, which is pace-sluggening.
Pest needs to go for detail in its physical model of the world because it's about a small rat adequately positioning himself in relation to various people and objects, and interacting with them in clever mechanical ways. The scene in the stone dwelling shows the promise of this kind of thing, with different pieces of furniture at different heights which can be used to access each other, move around the room or draw the attention of its inhabitant, the broom-wielding Matlid.
What's missing from this scene is more exacting programming and prose. The physical relationships between the objects aren't adequately described, and these details are often crucial for visualising / conceptualising where things are and which courses of action may be fruitful. For instance, since the bag was on top
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Pest has the makings of a thorough puzzler, but is hampered in its current form by a fair few technical and writing oversights. The former manifest as bugs, the latter just make the gameworld that much harder to understand, which in turn makes the puzzles harder to overcome. I laid down my adventure solving tools after what I would describe as the second major scene. I would have liked to continue, but I'd spent a lot of time on the game already, including a couple of forum interactions with the author. Summarily, I like the game's scaffolding but I don't think the building is stable yet.
An introductory sequence in which you flee from an unseen pursuer teaches the use of the various sense commands your rat protagonist can use (smell, listen, feel). The teaching works, but the rat's constant ruminations on his fate while this is going on are mostly at odds with the move to build suspense. There's too much repetition of material, or perhaps the repetition would work better if the player wasn't required to press a key to advance through every line of dialogue, which is pace-sluggening.
Pest needs to go for detail in its physical model of the world because it's about a small rat adequately positioning himself in relation to various people and objects, and interacting with them in clever mechanical ways. The scene in the stone dwelling shows the promise of this kind of thing, with different pieces of furniture at different heights which can be used to access each other, move around the room or draw the attention of its inhabitant, the broom-wielding Matlid.
What's missing from this scene is more exacting programming and prose. The physical relationships between the objects aren't adequately described, and these details are often crucial for visualising / conceptualising where things are and which courses of action may be fruitful. For instance, since the bag was on top