10pm (review)

"10pm" is an interactive fiction launched for the 2017 interactive fiction competition.

Review below the cut break


The PC is either a pet crow, or else the crow is a metaphor for a neglected child. Dad arrives home at 10pm, after a long day, and the two converse for a bit. Dad speaks in words, but the crow/child can speak only through a communication board, dragging picto-tiles onto the main screen to craft messages or answer Dad's question. Sometimes the game takes over and creates messages for you. Dad's follow-up responses vary depending on the tiles you choose, so there was clearly some planning and programming effort that went into this piece. There is also a little bit of character development going on here between the two. And yet, for me, it felt somehow incomplete.