Playing games with an emphasis on story.

Name: Conversations with Emma
Status: Complete
Site: https://yifatshaik.itch.io/conversations-with-emma
Pairing: gen
Description: A shame simulator for consumption habits you may or may not have.

This is a twine game in which the author (co-opting the player) has an imaginary conversation with Emma Goldman, the radical anarchist from the early 20th century. Emma asks you what's up. You explain Amazon to her, and she goes away, deeply disappointed in your subscription box addiction. There aren't really any choices in this game. In fact, you can opt out of clicking on the words in the dialog that suggest a choice entirely and click on parts of the background half the time to progress to the next scene. The only moment where it looked like I had an option (deciding whether or not Emma would want to hear you explain "subscription boxes") I clicked no only to have the game tell me that it was going to tell me anyway. That's a pet peeve for me in choice based games. If I didn't have a choice don't give me a choice, or at least hide that fact better.

The game is very short and is basically what I just described without much more to it. Considering its subject it is probably best approached in terms of its political argument, which I wasn't particularly taken with. Basically, once you admit that you order everything from Amazon and subscribe to five subscription boxes, Emma expresses disappointment and disgust over the state of the world and goes away. My two major problems with this are - I don't buy off Amazon and don't subscribe to shit, personally, and, more importantly, I don't think that such a simple thing would cause someone like Emma Goldman to just give up on the state of things and go away. The sentiment being expressed here is one grounded in a modern sort of guilt, that our effort is futile, that the corpos have won, that it's over. This seems to not take into consideration the fact that the time in which Goldman was active was also an extremely capitalistic society, one in which suppression of activists was just as if not more brutal than it is today, and there were people who still tried to make change. Nor does it take any consideration of the fact that Goldman was considered radical in her time, and that there are radicals now who are still trying hard to make change. Whether I agree with their approach or not, I thought the aw shucks, we failed and Amazon won tone of this game to not do much justice to Goldman or to modern reformers.

It's barely a five minute game so there's no harm in giving it a go. I was kind of hoping for something a little deeper though.

Name: The Night Fisherman
Status: Complete
Site: https://farfewgiants.itch.io/night-fisherman
Pairing: Gen
Description: The first scene of Inglorious Basterds. That's it, that's the game.



The Night Fisherman lasts about five minutes and is almost a direct copy of the intro scene of Inglorious Basterds. I've you've seen the movie you will know exactly what's up. There three choices, but the character you control doesn't have any of the power in the situation and while you can get a couple different endings the point here is not to get a good end. Instead of making the villain in this short a Nazi, like in the movie it copies, the game has opted to make the villain an "immigrant" hunter in the English Channel who gleefully shouts out Rule Britannia at the end of the game.

I'm not a huge fan of media that tries to say something but doesn't get much further than "X bad" The game has only got five minutes so it can't get much further than that. It also fails to hit the tension that Inglorious Basterds did with its longer, more drawn out scene. But hey, it's free and without bugs, so there's not much risk in giving it a quick run through.

Name: The Testimony of Trixie Glimmer Smith
Status: Complete
Site: https://digital-poppy.itch.io/trixie
Pairing: Gen (with F/F moments)
Description: Horror in the English countryside, with cute animals


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Name: Football Drama
Status: Complete
Site: https://open-lab-games.itch.io/football-drama
Rating: PG
Pairing: Gen, maybe M/F?
Description: A soccer management sim with some VN elements

Football Drama is combo of a Football (soccer) simulator where you have to manage stats and direct play by play in a series of games, and a choice-based dialog game where as the general manager you have to deal with players, the press, and ownership. The two sides of the game interact with each other, but the majority of my time was spent playing a weird little soccer sim simply because the games are very long and the dialog moments are extremely short.


 

 

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My main problem with this game is I can't tell if it's of any interest to someone who likes a lot of number crunching, because I couldn't determine if those numbers had any serious effect, and I can't say that it is worth it for anyone interested in any of the VN elements because they require such a long break in between. The simulated soccer game is at least mildly interesting, but a few hours in it didn't show any actual depth, so it lost me.

Name: Lieve Oma
Status: Complete
Site: https://vltmn.itch.io/lieve-oma
Rating: PG
Pairing: Gen
Description: A walking simulator through a nice forest, with a friendly grandma

This isn't a VN, but more a walking simulator. It's a very short, sweet game where you control a child as she takes a forest walk with her oma. The gameplay is entirely walking around exploring relatively small maps looking for mushrooms, which you then bring back to your grandma to declare if they're good or not. This little conceit is sort of a ploy by grandma to get her grandchild out into the fresh air, and to talk to her about some of the changes going on in her life. It's an atmospheric, heartfelt, and smooth running game with only a couple glitches that one expects from something made quickly, and as a tribute to a loving oma I think it works great. It's also a "choose your own price" game so there's really no risk in downloading it and having a little walk.



My only criticisms is that the conceit runs a little long. You end up slowly walking through about 20 maps or so. They're all a little different, with different types of trees here or a creek there but the interactivity really is just keeping the W key down most of the time. The game does a great job of simulating a walk through the forest, but it's still not an actual walk through the forest. My other source of frustration is even though the maps are relatively small and your job, kinda, is to find some mushrooms, I never found a single mushroom that wasn't right along the path. Vision is obscured by the top of the trees to simulate the search, but it appears to always be futile. So I kind of felt that the time I spent running around while oma waited for me patiently was wasted, but if I didn't look I felt like I was missing something. In the end I got 6 mushrooms and don't know if that was bad or good, but really the game play is just an excuse to get the player along for the ride, just like narratively it's an excuse to get the grandchild somewhere quiet and relaxing so they can open up a little about their frustrations.

The game at the end remarks on all of those who help to give children space to work through things in their lives and I think it did a great job of showing how adults do that. Sometimes all kids need is an ear and the assurance that someone is in their corner, believing in them, and the oma in this game does this wonderfully, without there being any sort of pat solution to the problems the grandchild is going through. There are scenes a little into the future that show that things did turn out fine, just as oma promised, and that the kid, now a little more grown up, is happier and has a wonderful relationship with her oma still. It made me both happy and super sad, because I chose to play this game on Christmas while my own grandmother, the last of my living grandparents, is 1000 miles away. Whoops! Time to send her a letter.

 

Name: Arcade Spirits
Status: Complete
Site: https://fictionfactorygames.itch.io/arcade-spirits
Rating: PG-13, light romance, light violence, some mental health talk
Pairing: options for gen and any pairing configuration
Description: Someone who loves arcades made a game about loving arcades and finding love at arcades




Arcade Spirits is a professional and polished game, which is a rarity in these reviews. Tl;dr it's a great little VN, with good writing and very nice art, a personable cast of characters, great mood-setting music, and a decent system that both helps you control the plot but also lets you make choices without feeling that you are obligated to say one thing or another to get the ending you are seeking. The length of the game is also decent. I thought it was going to be the end twice before it actually was. Retail cost of Arcade Spirits is $20. That is always going to feel a little steep for me when it comes to VNs, but this is because I am cheap, not because the game doesn't deserve it, and I think in this case the game is definitely worth that if you are a VN fan.

 

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So all in all I'd say this is a successful VN. It's nice to play something that does have some straight forward romance elements but also has an interesting Gen story, something where the characters are easy on the eyes and emotionally engaging, and all of the bells and whistles are operating as intended. The renpy engine is taken full advantage of, with some new game plus elements thrown in too, and it's clear the game was made with love.