10mg: Cover Me In Leaves
Fantastic game! the music, atmosphere, writing, and art were all beautiful. It was a lovely wistful experience. I read out loud while playing. It felt good. Really captured me. I recommend it.
– Real player with 0.5 hrs in game
Read More: Best Horror Interactive Fiction Games.
Great atmosphere overall, excellent art and solid sound design, but the standout is the writing. Confident and direct, sometimes crude, but elegant and intimate. If the game were any longer the writing style would wear out its welcome, but since it’s (intentionally) short it doesn’t overstay its welcome and invites you to read it more than once to enjoy piecing it together (and also, you know, enjoy the writing).
In short: I’ve paid many times the price of this game for books that weren’t a fifth of its quality. Recommended.
– Real player with 0.4 hrs in game
KIRO
I found myself quite engaged in game, it kept me on the edge of my seat.
Control system is in part responsible for that, the other part is game aesthetics and art style which I adore.
I got myself in such a rush while playing this game, almost all throughout.
And even tho I keep messing up (i’m not really a good typer, lets leave it at that) I keep coming back to it. Its not frustrating to fail.
Have fun and good luck, be nice you prick.
– Real player with 10.4 hrs in game
Read More: Best Horror Singleplayer Games.
I really enjoyed this game. It’s quite engaging and no matter how many times I lose I will eventually come back to try to beat this game.
The graphics and sound, as well as this unique control mechanic, greatly enrich the gameplay, making it more intense and challenging.
All in all, this game is awesome and worth playing.
– Real player with 1.6 hrs in game
Last Message
First off, I loved the story, although it was pretty basic zombie stuff (with some added in details but nothing that’s new to the genre). I did enjoy the small interactions you could do on the computer (reading email, looking through files, etc), most of the gameplay is through game chat, which is okay with me (although, again, nothing new). I did like that the game does branch out from the text based play and allows you to move around. I was a bit disappointed that nothing REALLY happens while walking around, I was half hoping to come across a stray zombie or two but nothing happens beyond one part but its forewarned. I did see one typo in an email (unconcious instead of unconscious), but I didn’t really spot anything else. One of the only issues I had with the game is that the email font is really really hard to see (not the font FOR the messages but the font for the emails themselves) even using the brightest settings, I had a hard time seeing what was there (at first, I thought I only had the one email since you get a notification or whatever alerting you to an email). The game is extremely short too, even with reading all there is in-game as well as being overly cautious, it’s still about an hour.
– Real player with 1.9 hrs in game
Read More: Best Horror Action-Adventure Games.
Last Message is a worthwhile play for the free price tag and short time investment. It focuses on its storytelling through fairly realistic text chats, although I found it jarring how the scripted chats pop up one by one rather than interleaving like real chats do. It’s a narrative that parallels real life well, and I think it’s no coincidence that this game is set in the year 2020.
Technically, the game has basic and fairly crude visuals, though the 3D environment isn’t the driving force behind the story. I had a few graphical glitches with lights outside, but this was most likely due to integrated graphics and the rest of the game was fine including the frame rate. I did notice that the graphics settings seemed to be inverted, so the fanciest graphics ran the smoothest on my integrated graphics. I hope the dev can fix this.
– Real player with 1.5 hrs in game
Monsters of Little Haven
insanly catching and tough story especially the end in which
! baloo gets sliced up and it changes to the text panel were kenneth holds the corpse saying we beat the monster, that one hit really hard
it’s by far one of the best games i ever played, for everyone wondering, there isn’t any real gameplay it’s basically just a visual novel were you click from textpanel to textpanel
leisure playtime is around 1h, about ~5h to complete all endings
just noticed now that it’s free to play, so absolutly worth the time
– Real player with 17.1 hrs in game
Branching, fully voiced visual novel about a pair of kids and their troubled by monsters family.
Explores its somber, delicate themes in a smart and gentle way. To piece the plot together you’ll have to check out all the branches of the story, which took me around 3 hours and was entirely worth it.
Very solid writing, background music does a good job of building atmosphere.
Each ending has a unique music theme, and those songs are absolutely haunting.
If I really had to nitpick, English narrator’s delivery occasionally feels a bit off (he puts a lot of passion into “Thunder rumbled!” line though). Russian VO, on the other hand, is very good.
– Real player with 3.6 hrs in game
The Door Of Redemption
very poor english translation. many of the features that drew me to this arent implimented. and the syntax and command structure are counter intuitive. ive played many text adventures and this one just feels weird. i like the idea of using wasd for easy navigation but the commands for everything else just feels wrong, and isnt enjoyable for me. instead of “get box” or “look at picture” you have to type it out as ‘Get’ [enter] ‘Box] or ‘look’ [enter] ‘picture’. its an extra layer of tedium. and that coupled with the poor translation, and the use of characters that a pc anywhere out of japan wont have in the font banks, i just cant get my head around of it. having a map of the shape of the room is really what got me to buy this, but it uses messy characters, and no color variation between you, items and walls, so it just looks like nonsense.
– Real player with 0.1 hrs in game
Anchorhead
This is, hands down, not only my favorite piece of parser interactive fiction, but also my favorite Lovecraftian thing to ever exist. (Like most Lovecraft flavored things, it’s miles better than good old HP’s originals). If you’re here because whatever came out this week was… less than great at working with the source material, thematically you’ll enjoy this a lot more. The prose is gorgeous and unsettling, the puzzles tricky and sometimes spread out over multiple areas, but not illogical, and the town itself is my favorite character.
– Real player with 41.4 hrs in game
If you never really got into text adventures because you were too young back then to understand them. AND you jumped right into graphics adventures and dug those but find them a bit too easy theses days, then you should probably give this one a try! It works exceptionally well as a first text adventure experience when you have all the background knowledge of how a graphics adventure works and that a text adventure just gives you more options to interact with the environment.
Give it a few hours and it will suck you in for days and days to come where you unravel a dark tale around sensitive topics like incest and child abuse with a long history all nested in a town in New England named Anchorhead. It is so well written and illustrated that it really triggers your imagination much more than any modern game with graphics and sounds and all the other bells and whistles does.
– Real player with 40.5 hrs in game
Inkslinger
I didn’t expect much from a text game, but to my surprise, it’s one of the most enjoyable narrative games that I played in months - I would even suggest using headphones because the sound design is just so good. The trailer does not give the game justice, I think it’s very atmospheric and even haunting to some extent, it just has that foreboding feel when you play it. It only has about 40 minutes of content for one playthrough, not counting multiple endings, so it’s closer to 2 hours for completion. The way the game tells a story is very creative as you have to help people by conveying their thoughts into letters. The characters will present you with multiple words, and you have to type the most appropriate one within the context. If you want, you can screw up on purpose and get some funny responses, which may result in a different ending. In a way, the game kind of checks your vocabulary, it starts easy, but some of the characters will talk in poems and metaphors – I didn’t get it on a first try.I am not an authority on writing, English is not even my first language, but I thought the narrative was exceptionally good, and it kept me engaged the whole way.
– Real player with 5.7 hrs in game
Full article with images and proper formatting: https://thelastreturn.medium.com/inkslinger-f4bd2a7743d
Tldr;
I really had a lot of fun while playing Inkslinger. You don’t often see a game which not only has an interesting story, but also a great graphical style and unique gameplay. It is really a hidden diamond amongst indie games. Though I’m fully aware that this game will not be a good fit for the average gamer, if you don’t mind a slower paced story-driven game, definitely give it a try.
The only downside of the game is that it’s very short. For my first playthrough it took me only about 50 minutes to complete the entire game, and that was with carefully reading everything and trying out different options as answers. The game does encourage you to play through it multiple times, but it would have been nice to see the story being altered a bit depending on the choices the player makes.
– Real player with 4.7 hrs in game
The Remission of Sins
I gave this one a try here recently, and it only took about 15 minutes to get all the way through. I understand that there are voice actors involved, but for 12 dollars, it should be a bit lengthier. The voice acting was nice, and the story is intriguing, but it is really short, even compared to other visual novels that are lower on price.
– Real player with 1.2 hrs in game
The game is as simple as the description says, so I don’t need to explain much of what happens since the endings are reachable in a short time. There wasn’t much dialogues and the people’s ‘stories’ are somewhat interesting. Audios are definitely disturbing in some cases, however, the horror esthetic is only for show not really all that horrifying. Though if you ask me if it’s worth purchasing, well buy it at your own interest.
– Real player with 0.5 hrs in game
Zarya-1: Mystery on the Moon
I like it. Kinda like playing a text adventure with limited still image graphics on a C64. I would say that this is for once a game where I actually want to find all possible endings, and find the truth of what’s going on.
– Real player with 62.5 hrs in game
Excellent writing, but very primitive game design
Zarya-1 is a “Choose Your Own Adventure” story that is written like an audio drama, but presented in text with a dozen of still images thrown in. As a commander sitting on Earth, you are leading a mission to investigate a mysterious signal on the moon. You will “listen” (but actually read, since there is no voice acting) to the reports and the banter of the team members on the moon, and occasionally you can choose between 2 or 3 alternative commands or comments.
– Real player with 31.0 hrs in game
Beyond The Veil
_“This is a love poem. I wrote it with a scalpel.”
- Graffiti outside the former home of Marie Laveau, The Voodoo Queen of New Orleans._
Beyond the Veil is a text-based narrative horror game, with a focus on character-driven storytelling.
Kara, an unemployed college dropout, has no choice but to move in with her Dad when he decides to relocate to New Orleans.
Kara has no discernible skills, and no direction. It’s her exploration of this city, and the friendships she makes there, that will mold her into the woman she will become.
These choices are yours. So step up to the threshold- from here, there is no turning back.
-
Experience stories based on the rich history of New Orleans, from the spirituality of Louisiana Voodoo and the ghosts of Jackson Square, to the myths of the Casket Girl Vampires and the heinous acts of Madame LaLaurie.
-
Choose one of three companions to guide you through New Orleans: Tye, the gutter-punk musician, Al, the happy-go-lucky walking tour guide, and Esther, the creole vodouisant.
-
Choose a path that will allow you to experience up to three entirely separate horror stories, with thousands of pathways and over 18 different endings. Explore all three to unlock the fourth and final story.
-
Explore a branching narrative, where every choice you make alters both the story, and Kara’s personality. Choose how Kara responds to the world around her, from dialogue and exploration options, to ‘sliding doors’ choices that will determine how the story unfolds.
-
The choices you make will have an effect on one of Kara’s personality traits: Empathy, Jealousy, Honesty, Belief and Happiness. By making choices that increase or reduce the level of Kara’s traits, you will craft a personality for Kara which is unique to your experience.
Beyond The Veil is by the team at Sun’s Shadow Studios. This production was made possible with support from Film Victoria.
-
Written by Brian Holland.
-
Programmed by Tim Cuozzo.
-
Quality Assurance and Editing by Josh Odgers.
-
Music by Justin Cavenagh, composer on Wander, Broadside, Little Witch Story and Into Affliction.
-
Art by Lachlan Page.
-