Lady of the moon

Saw a bunch of folks putting the Deltarune egg rooms into their favorite games and it looked fun to do :-)

No subscription. Just program.

On your computer. You got to use it forever and ever and never had to worry about it going away.

Because it was physically on your computer. As a program. That you actually owned. Not because you got it separately, but because it was a standard inclusion with your computer.

I'm sorry but I'll just never get over it. I remember when companies cared about their products being usable out of the box. I remember when our things belonged to us.

god. idk how to word this very well but the fact gripp made sure that everyone got at least some closure so they weren't left blaming themselves (or eachother) for everything that happened and especially for magnus's death before escaping on his whole suicide mission. him reassuring symmetry especially that she shouldn't blame herself with the timeline in mind (her being one of the additional guests he'd known the longest, zephyr taking her in from an abusive guardian etc. you could make some arguments/hcs of him being Bonus Dad to her when it was just the 4 of them in the sub but anyways) he's aware it's entirely him. he doesn't shift the blame to any others, he doesn't even completely blame magnus by the end either, despite the amount of building resentment and tension that drove him to drag him into this voyage in the first place (and later murder him)

i dont knowww it says so much to me about his character and makes his unhealthy obsession with the mermaid all the more fascinating . he was on this entire desperate search driving him insane and definitely was dragging magnus down with him, but he never meant for everyone else to get caught up in it like this. and even though he still follows through endangering everyone in the process, in his mind, this event was inevitable, he HAS to do this. he HAS to find her, speak to her. even if it's the last thing he ever knows. there was no other option. just the way it's meant to be. and in his view of limited choices, he could at least put everyone "at peace" as much as he could before metaphorically steering them straight into the sun.

I was nowhere close to suspecting the actual murderer, gripp was full of too much whimsy I never saw it coming until the model town evidence when everyone was gathered, and then I was crushed because no his ass IS missing-

My first suspect was dirk, mostly because his himbo vibe was all off, he's too smart to be a himbo but he is still trying to be one. Me and my friend both agreed this was suspicious, unfortunately we were wrong his ass is just haunted by capitalism and the abuse of Hollywood, my bad man.

My second guess was zephyr, his alibi for the murder night shows him taking something from the airlock, tadpole said the mask from the murderer was placed there and taken while she was away, so I figured he was the murderer who took it back, this was before I knew of hex roaming there at night, plus I saw the mask in the bookshelf in the dark, so up until the town reveal I thought it was him, it was my trying to figure out if he would be in the town that I realized gripps emporium was there but gripp was not.

Honestly replaying the game knowing who dun it makes it so fun, I know all the context now, I can see the inconsistency in the alibi and know why certain characters felt what without forgetting via natural progression. This also puts gripps suspicion bit into a whole different light with how almost disappointed he was that the suspicion was only about Cornelius cane, and then maybe real shock because of the connection to the wheel, because that part wasn't a lie. Do ya think he was worried we knew? Well, grimm and Sally knew. I wonder if he was expecting it to hit close to the truth, like him being the true oldest member of the crew, or that he was on the dearest selene, but instead it was just "your stick isn't canon compliant to the source material"

Oh and the captains log! The very first entry, chronological wise, says "final preparations before we take out the submarine for the first time" and it's before zephyr shows up and sets up his room. The clues were there from the very beginning!!

i liked how this case was more challenging than the last one. granted, this may have been because i attempted to play the game in one go and spent 11 hours with minimal breaks going through it, but i felt it took more thought. to me, Tangle Tower was a game where you knew the culprit but not the motive, while Mermaid Mask was a case where you knew the motive but not the culprit, and that change in thinking was very fun.

i'm really curious as to why the game was renamed from The Mermaid's Tongue to The Mermaid Mask. much like how Tangle Tower had its dramatic title drop at multiple points, The Mermaid's Tongue could have had that too. i don't think anyone ever says "the mermaid mask" in the game, ever.

i really liked this game's culprit. they have a lot of different elements that make them very pleasing to my brain and i look forward to rubbing them back and forth between my palms like a marble.

i do not currently think this game's culprit can compare to the previous game's, however. quite honestly they're in such different ballparks i don't know if i really can compare them. one's meat and potatoes and the other's a salad with a sharp dressing. i'm letting TT's culprit wine and dine me before announcing there's poison in my cup while MM's culprit is some kind of creature i'm watching slink across my bedroom floor. you understand.

the art and animation was lovely, as always. i'm unsure if some of the physicality between characters was intentionally drawing on Tangle Tower parallels or those are just part of Velvet V.'s toolbox. and it goes without saying that i want to eat Catherine Unger's concept art. i want to draw like that. the use of color especially - mwah.

Raphael Benjamin Meyer once again pulled out a fantastic soundtrack. i've yet to really let the music percolate in my mind so i can't yet say how it compares to Tangle Tower's - especially because TT has been a sountrack of choice for me for years - but off the cuff i can say i'm particularly fond of Wirman and Tadpole's themes. Moon's began to grate on me after a bit, but i think this was due to me entering the "show the culprit everything and see what happens" phase of desperation in her room.

the puzzles were nice. they felt as if they ramped up in difficulty as the game progressed, which worked well. there was one particular puzzle near the end that i wish had a little more leeway though - i spent a very long time aligning and slightly rotating pieces until it let me through.

a small touch i really liked was Sally and Grimoire saying "this is close, but not quite what i'm thinking of" or "we're gonna circle back to that" when presenting evidence that was related to the segment but not yet needed. i know Ace Attorney gets kind of memed on for having punishments for presenting the wrong evidence slightly too early, and that's something i've frequently been frustrated by playing that series, so having this game respond and go "you're on the right track, you're just a bit early" was really nice. taking lessons from where your inspiration failed and working off of it. very nice.

The Big Thing At The End - no notes. incredible work.

The Thing After The Credits - pointed at the screen and went "YEAHHJHH"

i hope to do a second playthrough after a week or so. get what i missed, fill out the achievements, look for more foreshadowing, etc. many thoughts in my brain right now. need to let them settle. i may do a more spoilerly analysis once i've done that second playthrough and taken notes through its duration.

Do you think Gripp maybe... wanted to get caught?

Idk. The compass - he put the Necklace Key in there on purpose. He even tells the team that he put it in plain sight so Sinthia (or other people) could see that he was 'working on it'.

When you do his Suspicion segment, he says he's been looking forward to this part, and is disappointed that the team has decided to grill him over his cane, of all things.

When the complete Mermaid's Tongue is placed on the table, he has a perfect opportunity to hit the lights and run before he's outed. But he waits for the team to put everything together - encourages them to keep probing, keep going. He admits motive and answers questions.

(And the compass at the end... oogh, it makes me so emotional. Something about the service sticker in particular really hit me hard. And he encourages the team to keep putting answers together so that everyone has as much closure as possible, tells Symmetry to put aside her anguish, before he goes. For all his anger and bad choices and manipulation, there is in Godrik Gripp still someone who cares about other people, the people on that submarine.)

I can't bring any other immediate evidence to mind but I do feel like he went out of his way to make his guilt more obvious. Whether he was hoping someone would bring it up and he could steer the conversation towards the location of the Mermaid's Tongue, or if he just felt guilty, or both... I dunno.

EDIT: Ty @finalvortex for reminding me that Gripp points the Necklace Fragment out when you show him the Iron Bell, that's probably the biggest point so far!

Mermaid mask spoilers under cut