2022-06-01

Name: The Müll Littoral
Status: Complete
Site: https://librarium-studios.itch.io/themulllittoral
Pairing: Gen
Description: Replicating a voyage of anxiety with aggressive mechanics

This is not really a visual novel at all. It's more of a point and click puzzler. The story is a little fantastical. An alien guy shows up at a beach to tell a woman there that the beach has cursed her. He gives her a special lens that lets her see the truth of things, and using it she sees a massive, many armed something looming in the water and decides that yes, she is cursed, so it's time to go on a pilgrimage to some people who might be able to help her out.

The gameplay is very much like a normal point and click adventure, except there is a small mechanical twist. For each scene, there are two phases. In the first phase you can click on whatever you want at your leisure, and as you do so text will appear describing the thing, which gives hints. When you initiate the next phase you can actually interact with the scene, and beating each little level requires that you click the right things, in the right order, and with the right timing, as almost all of the scenes are moments of fast emergency. Either something is attacking you, or you're falling to your death, or you're trying to escape a social situation before being spotted, etc. It's an interesting idea, though I can't figure out if I like it or not. The extremely narrow time windows in which you need to hit the right option for some of the scenarios led to situations where I just didn't click on a small element fast enough and lost, but I guess thematically the idea of a character wracked with anxiety and depression having a perspective of constant crises is sort of solid? There are a couple of scenarios that are not time gated, but instead are puzzles. I wasn't very fond of those either. One is a scene of meditation that requires you to light groups of candles in just the right amount and it got me in a very un zen mood. Another puzzle made me open up alphabet charts for braille and Morse, which I didn't mind because I like looking at alphabets, it wasn't exactly so much a brain exercise as it was a bit tedious.

There are no real choice mechanics in the game except at the very end where you're basically asked to pick between facing your problems or turning away from them, giving you a good end or a bad end respectively. There is also a "secret" end which you get by inputting passwords you get when completing the first two ends. They are nice little bonuses, but nothing major.

Artwise the game has bold and fresh concepts but again falters a little with the execution. This is a one man project so it's not surprising that the is a little rough, but it's not awful. Thematically it's pointedly about dealing with mental health, but it's also extremely short, like one hour playtime, so it was hard for me to buy into the emotional journey.

Overall this is a quick one and done sort of game. I did like visual concepts, and the mechanics were fine, but not polished.