ifcomp 2018 notes: Lux
You are a research assistant on a space mining colony that has just been attacked by aliens. You have been blinded by leaked chemicals, and you have to rely on the guidance of the station's AI to survive, and activate the emergency transmission.
So, this is a heavily mechanical and puzzly Twine game, that seems to emulate a typical parser-style game. There are rooms, navigation by cardinal directions, puzzles. It's sort of like The Axolotl Project, with a similar premise even.
As with many other adventure games, there's a lot of guess-the-item; sometimes the intuitive solution (to me) is wrong, and the player has to guess the mind of the puzzle designer. There's basically only one answer to each puzzle. The AI is pretty good at giving hints and clues, but this still gets a bit troublesome. And if I have a criticism about the interface, it's that it's a bit tedious having to select an item from the inventory each time I have to use it.
But the game is really well implemented! Everything works, as far as I can tell. Navigation feels really easy. The puzzles are interesting, if frustrating at times. The game is long, organized into 4 main levels that correspond to different sections of the space station. After entering each section there’s usually a point of no return, but I don’t think it’s possible to put the game into an unwinnable state, and I haven’t died.
[spoilers]
(by section I) Okay, the AI is getting really really sketchy. I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out to have caused the explosions all along. And that the "outworlders" who are trying to break in at the end are actually just humans who are trying to rescue us.
(after getting the first ending) The ending feels ambiguous. It could be that the AI is, surprisingly, not evil, and you're just tired from the adrenaline rush. Or the AI just killed you.
If there's any prime rule of science fiction, it's to not trust the AI.
Okay, after reading the walkthrough, I've gotten to the alternate path, and it's pretty good. I love the transition to sightedness, with illustrations even! The story outcome was sort of predictable (my suspicions were correct), but I still liked it. There was no way I would have discovered the path on my own though...
Question: is it possible to open the side table in Sasha's office? I tried placing the white king in the correct position?
I've gotten three achievements - getting back my sight, eating the cookie, and discovering the video game ... there's a lot more I haven't gotten.
