COMPLETE: The Basilisk Dialogue

The Basilisk Dialogue is a short little multiple-choice intfic thing about attempting to bargain for one's life. You are a mouse, captured by a human and dropped into a snake's cage for feeding time taken by the Gods to the lair of the almighty Basilisk. Seemingly unable to flee or fight your way out, all you can do is attempt to reason with the Basilisk. Why is your life worth sparing? Because eating you would be immoral? Because you have loved ones? After a short conversation, the Basilisk makes its verdict. I've found three endings so far (counting the bad "nope, nomf time" one) and I think that's all of them but who knows.

It's short and neat. I dig it. I'm glad it's short and lets you retry because it took me like three or four tries to not get eaten. I am no good at debating with snakes, it would seem.

I especially love the aesthetic here, wherein a situation like feeding a snake is taken from the more mundane human perspective and described in terms of Gods and Monsters from the view of its mouse protagonist. In fact, this is the exact same tone as one of the creator's other projects, the upcoming Small Saga which I already have super wishlisted because, again, I just love this presentation.

COMPLETE: Timespinner

Timespinner is a PS1-styled good old pixel graphics Metroidvania with a time travel theme. You are Lunais, a Time Messenger--a member of your extremely persecuted nomadic tribe on "if the empire ever gets us then you need to go back in time and warn the others" duty. Sure enough, the emperor himself invades and burns down your entire backstory, setting you up for a roaring rampage of revenge. Oh, and maybe to like, fix everything? But first and foremost those assholes need to pay for what they did.

Or do they? After having been tossed around in the timestream for a while and traversing through a thousand years ago as well as the present time, things start to get more complicated. Maybe the original founders of the empire a thousand years ago were rebelling for a reason. Maybe blind revenge cycles aren't the healthiest long-term solution.

But this is the ever quick-tempered and hot-blooded Lunais we're talking about. "Who do I have to kill to solve this problem" is such a core part of her personality that even though there are four endings based on your choices, all of them (even the "solve the empire's problems in the past and make them peaceful so they're not such dicks to us in the future" one) involve finding someone who's ruining everything and needs to die.

Anyway, that's the story. Gameplay and presentation-wise, this is an outstandingly well-crafted Metroidvania with two interconnected maps (past and future versions of the world,) stuff to find, bosses to beat, and sidequests to solve. Time manipulation is a mechanic both in the teleporter checkpoints and in the ability to freeze the action at any time, which allows you to do things like use enemies as platforms or get out of the way of a boss's charging rushdown attack. The graphics are gorgeous. The music is also gorgeous. Controls and gameplay are satisfying. There's a lot more story here than in your average SOTN-like Castlevania, and it's a good story that's told and presented well. There's even a good amount of LGBTQ representation, which is always awesome unless you're one of those "I liked this game before it had an agenda" types, in which case why are you following us?

Armor and accessories follow the traditional SOTN-and-beyond approach of being pieces of gear for which one finds upgrades scattered throughout the adventure. For weapons, though, they did something unique. Lunais wields Orbs, each of which have unique playing styles akin to the various weapon types in your average Castlevania (you know, equipping a short sword versus a giant heavy overhand-swinging one versus a whip versus a spear or the like) only without any of them really being a clear upgrade. Defeating an enemy with a certain Orb earns a separate type of experience for that Orb, and its strength and damage increase with levels. Each Orb is situationally useful--I personally tended to favor the Radiant Orb for swatting hard-to-hit flying things at close range, the Blood Orb for dealing with shield knights, and the Forbidden Tome (which counts as an Orb somehow, shut up) for basically everything else--but at the end of the day, the best Orb in the game is the one you favor and have used until it became deadly. There are no wrong answers and no Orb obsoletes any other; the ones you find later merely give you more options.

Simply put, this game is phenomenal. The Orb system works well for introducing variety and a sense of replay value; at this point I've seen every ending, unlocked every Achievement including the Achievement for unlocking every Achievement, and beaten every boss in the game without being hit or stopping time, but I could always go back and play through again on a New Game Plus just to see what playing with some of the other Orbs might be like. (There were quite a few that I was curious about, that I could really see being good if I'd gotten them up to speed, but I was just too married to my current setup.) And when I have hundred-percented this game twice and I'm still curious about things like that, that's how you know just how great this game is, how lasting its appeal.