A conversation with a work of art. "47. Galatea. White Thasos marble. Non-commissioned work by the late Pygmalion of Cyprus. (The artist has since committed suicide.) Originally not an animate. The waking of this piece from its natural state remains unexplained."
Galatea is my first released foray into interactive fiction. It is a single conversation with a single character, which can end any of a number of ways depending on the player's decisions. Despite its age, I continue to get strong reactions to it in my email inbox on a fairly regular basis. Some people love it; some people find it annoying or distressing.
Galatea has what I call a multilinear plot: unlike traditional IF, it has no single path to victory. Instead there are a large number of endings, some more satisfactory than others, of which many could be considered "win" states. It takes only a few minutes of play to arrive at an ending, but considerably longer to find all of them.
The game also takes an ambitious approach to NPC (non-player character) conversation, both in terms of volume (Galatea has many hundreds of things to say) and complexity (she keeps track of the state of conversation and reacts differently according to what has already been said and done).
Most boring, most pretentious, and most railroaded piece of... fiction I've ever seen. And before someone brags about the reportedly 70 endings, defending that this is not railroaded, hint: just try to do something that would be BLATANTLY OBVIOUS (like, moving around the corner to check who is laughing, or moving around the statue to see its face you are told you can't see from where you stand) and see if the game lets you. Naaaah. You are railroaded into doing what the author feels interesting: exchanging pretentious banter with a piece of hamparte.
Confusing and very rough. I can't even say "Hi". I have to say "Hello." I can't ask what age she is, or anything of the like. All I can do is spam phrases and hope she understands.
I thought I'd give this a try for fun and ended up getting sucked in for about an hour. The ending I got was pretty satisfying, and I liked figuring out what to say to continue the conversation, it makes you think.
I gave this five stars because it's the first IF I've played that made me care about conversing with a character in a meaningful way. I always like it when story unfolds through dialogue as well. You have to ASK about or Tell about so its quite simple - listen to what she says and pick up on key words. There are nice little goals that flash up for future plays and an interesting development. I suppose what's happening in the game in many ways is what's happening in reality - your talking to a work of art. To enjoy it you need to feel empathy and be intrigued by her story. Now I shut up.
I was lost. I did not know what i was doing and just kept speaking randomly. Galatea also said random things so i need help if i were to rate this game higher. for me, i just didn't understand, but i think it COULD have been a great game. it was just very confusing for me. help!
This IF is remarkably phenomenal! I had a deep conversation with Galatea that offered me great insight on her creator and her thoughts of him. Her responses to your own flowed seamlessly with your interaction with the world and character. I think the writing for this is very well done, and I commend the creator on their philosophy and characters. I have seen several different routes and I must say, each one is golden.
This game was amazing! I've played it multiple times to see the different endings I could find, and each time I played.... I was surprised and impressed with the story...!!
Beautiful Writing style, great detail, just an overall fantastic game!! Definitely worth the time.
Fantasy
Comedy
Horror
Educational
Sci-Fi
Mystery
Puzzle
Simulation
Surreal
RPG
Slice of Life
Historical
Literature
Romance
Seasonal
