This is a game that feels like it demands a poetic and emotional review that captures what it made me feel, but the truth is I'm not super into narrative for those sorts of feelings. However, I'm not going to do a blow-by-blow breakdown like I normally do, since it does feel like a game that deserves more of an experiential reflection.
First, I must say...I am not particularly into witches. They're fine! I like them as much as any other fantasy trope or aesthetic, but there's a degree to which I find "real-world witches" kind of annoying. My own mom was one, so I think I'm allowed to feel that way without it being offensive to fellow queer people who happen to really get into "witchy vibes." I was drawn to the game on the art direction alone and hoped for something cool to come of it, but I was NOT expecting such a rapture of amazing worldbuilding. It turns out that mixing witches with sci-fi cosmic magic is MY FAVORITE? And while I might find it a bit misandrist that men can't be witches (and I also find it weird that there's an implication that a gender binary exists across the entire universe...), whatever, this was one of the coolest worlds to read through.
The characters had incredibly deep and embodied dialog, but it was their material existences in the world as it was described through them that immensely breathed life into them for me. This was taken further by the plot, wherein the protagonist impacts the lives of these characters in the most high-stakes and high-concept ways possible such that every time I played a card and picked a future for a character, at least one of the options available to me made me think "what the fuck?" or "that is so fucking awesome." Not every choice actually "changes the outcome of the player experience," but instead, every choice has so much intense dramatic weight and so much thought put into the personal and cultural implications for the character in question that it ALWAYS felt deeply meaningful to make a choice at all. This is definitely the most inspiring lesson I've taken away from a game in recent memory as it regards emotionally engaging narrative design.
I'm not sure if I'll play it a second time any time soon. I've come to realize there's something about pushing at all of the choices in games like this that kind of makes the entire experience of immersion start to fall apart for me. Maybe I'll return to it one day, I am super curious how some of the other dramatic outcomes turn out. There are some REALLY radical choices the player can make, some of the most important being at the beginning of the game before they even have the context to understand the ramifications! Some might dislike this, but I thought it added an AWESOME dramatic irony to all of my choices, informing my later decisions with a level of investment I'm not sure I've EVER experienced in a choice-based narrative game before.
Incredibly cool, might go look for the other work by this team, and excited for anything they come up with in the future.
First, I must say...I am not particularly into witches. They're fine! I like them as much as any other fantasy trope or aesthetic, but there's a degree to which I find "real-world witches" kind of annoying. My own mom was one, so I think I'm allowed to feel that way without it being offensive to fellow queer people who happen to really get into "witchy vibes." I was drawn to the game on the art direction alone and hoped for something cool to come of it, but I was NOT expecting such a rapture of amazing worldbuilding. It turns out that mixing witches with sci-fi cosmic magic is MY FAVORITE? And while I might find it a bit misandrist that men can't be witches (and I also find it weird that there's an implication that a gender binary exists across the entire universe...), whatever, this was one of the coolest worlds to read through.
The characters had incredibly deep and embodied dialog, but it was their material existences in the world as it was described through them that immensely breathed life into them for me. This was taken further by the plot, wherein the protagonist impacts the lives of these characters in the most high-stakes and high-concept ways possible such that every time I played a card and picked a future for a character, at least one of the options available to me made me think "what the fuck?" or "that is so fucking awesome." Not every choice actually "changes the outcome of the player experience," but instead, every choice has so much intense dramatic weight and so much thought put into the personal and cultural implications for the character in question that it ALWAYS felt deeply meaningful to make a choice at all. This is definitely the most inspiring lesson I've taken away from a game in recent memory as it regards emotionally engaging narrative design.
I'm not sure if I'll play it a second time any time soon. I've come to realize there's something about pushing at all of the choices in games like this that kind of makes the entire experience of immersion start to fall apart for me. Maybe I'll return to it one day, I am super curious how some of the other dramatic outcomes turn out. There are some REALLY radical choices the player can make, some of the most important being at the beginning of the game before they even have the context to understand the ramifications! Some might dislike this, but I thought it added an AWESOME dramatic irony to all of my choices, informing my later decisions with a level of investment I'm not sure I've EVER experienced in a choice-based narrative game before.
Incredibly cool, might go look for the other work by this team, and excited for anything they come up with in the future.