honestly i was interested in uncovering the story but between the ugly graphics (normally i'd give it a pass given the small scale of the game but combined with the following...) and flickering flashlight and constant darkness, i got a huge fucking migraine and had to quit by the time the island was just a dark storm where i couldn't see shit in front of me

i learned afterward that you can charge the flashlight in outlets (??) but i'm not going back

ugh i still feel nauseous and it's been five minutes since i closed the game

I'd say this is one of the better games in the Szymanski horror/walking sim collection. I quite like the way the story is revealed by interacting with or looking at various objects; however the amount of reading on screen does quite clearly communicate that there isn't really any threat to the player, which just serves to defuse tension in what could otherwise be some pretty effectively stressful areas. And I'm pleased to report that the moon logic puzzles from Fingerbones and A Wolf in Autumn are nowhere to be seen; this does mean there isn't really any gameplay here, but I prefer it this way to it being filled with frustrating nonsense puzzles.

The writing itself is pretty flowery and quite style-over-substance, but it gets the job done. The writing along with the music and the environment itself do a pretty good job of telling a non-linear story and setting up a nice oppressive atmosphere, and it feels like quite a big step above Szymanski's other early titles (or at least the ones I've played). But it does all come across as a bit pretentious, and the quality of the narrative doesn't really match its tone. I do like how the island changes appearance as night falls, and it helps the game to build up a genuinely thick atmosphere of dread towards its end, and the final few minutes of the game are its best I would say (cheesy ending notwithstanding).

So overall I did enjoy this one. I'd say it has more merit (and more content) than a lot of Szymanski's micro-horror games, but it doesn't come close to the masterpiece that is Iron Lung. Worth a quick look if you're into this sort of thing, but definitely not a 'must play'.

Em Fingerbones, David Szymanski tentava criar uma história perturbadora através de elementos sutis apresentados enquanto você está fazendo puzzles, já em The Moon Sliver, essa separação se esvai completamente e uma unidade é, de fato, formada. A interação do jogo vai além de puzzles tradicionais, e se torna uma narrativa fragmentada, que cabe ao jogador explorar e descobrir. O jogo não chega a explorar todo o potencial dessa linguagem, e esse quebra-cabeça é um tanto simples e direto de ser resolvido, o texto apresentado não vai muito além de um mistério básico, que pode ser facilmente entendido. Ainda assim, existe uma beleza e apreensão que me manteve constantemente engajada com a experiência enquanto andava por esses cenários e aos poucos recebia novas informações sobre o passado daquela ilha. Ao final, quando a história é solucionada, o peso de tudo que se passou durante o jogo fica ainda maior, e a experiência como um todo se fecha bem, simples, porém concisa e bela.

While I appreciate what he was going for with this one in terms of themes, it fell a little bit short of the mark. Even only being ~30 minutes, it felt a little bit plodding. Having the narrative text appear on screen as you walk around was a decent idea to keep players moving, but ultimately it meant there were sections where I still had to stop walking to read, or move away to make text disappear so I could read other text. In the end, notes probably would've worked better (especially considering the story).

On top of that, there were also a couple of key moments where I felt the narrative was telling, rather than showing. It would've been a lot more effective to hear sounds, rather than read about sounds for example. Still, I didn't totally hate it - it was more on the execution than the story itself.