A unique, charming premise in a relatively smooth package that doesn't overstay its welcome. The riveting, hyper-serious stakes of the bingo metagame form a compelling dramatic core for the plot, there's a good amount of characterization packed into the short word count, and I like how materially the realities of being old/disabled are felt in the story. I can't speak for how authentic any of it is, but the vibes are certainly there.
The black-and-white visuals function as an aesthetic choice; the only real nitpick I have is that, to echo a comment on the main itch page, the art doesn't feel like it was made with the medium in mind. In addition to the final CG being covered up by the text box, I don't think you get a very good look at the mobility devices of either character – with both custom sprites having important details near the bottom, I was kind of left hoping for some kind of presentational innovation that would have helped there. Could be a case for playing around with Ren'py's speech bubble functionality, for instance. Just spitballing here, but it did feel like a limitation of the medium the game couldn't conceive a way to overcome.
I think your prose has improved from the last game of yours I read, and there are plenty of fun lines ("Nostalgia may be a drug that keeps us going, but there is also such a thing as overdose"). You do feel the language barrier, though, especially in how it affects the rhythm and the flow of the text. For example, consider this part: "I probably should have gone to the Alps. There, at least, screaming would not have been noticed by anyone with the mountains that high." There are a couple of filler words, and the structure kind of obscures the major point; I'd rewrite the latter line to something like "With mountains that high, at least nobody would have noticed me screaming." Even in the absence of objective errors, the writing doesn't always go for the most elegant grammatical structures, and ideas are sometimes reiterated on the sentence level ("Martin always feels compelled to flaunt his fortune in front of me every goddamn time he acquires a new machine" – "always" and "every [goddamn] time" convey the same thing).
Also, small detail, but the title didn't quite land for me – I get the connection to the story, but it feels too abstract in a sense and somewhat awkwardly phrased. Overall, I'd still say I had a pretty good time reading the VN; the premise is just too delightful.
P.S. though the storyline does sadly not concern the exploits of a young witch trying to solve the disappearance of her neighbor's cat in a small village in the Alps, the mountains are at least mentioned, making this one of the most adjacent works in the space?
Comments
The James Bond of Bingo.
Was definitely a step up from your previous entries. I didn’t notice nearly as many typos and the such.
I was hoping it would be more AustriaCore.
A unique, charming premise in a relatively smooth package that doesn't overstay its welcome. The riveting, hyper-serious stakes of the bingo metagame form a compelling dramatic core for the plot, there's a good amount of characterization packed into the short word count, and I like how materially the realities of being old/disabled are felt in the story. I can't speak for how authentic any of it is, but the vibes are certainly there.
The black-and-white visuals function as an aesthetic choice; the only real nitpick I have is that, to echo a comment on the main itch page, the art doesn't feel like it was made with the medium in mind. In addition to the final CG being covered up by the text box, I don't think you get a very good look at the mobility devices of either character – with both custom sprites having important details near the bottom, I was kind of left hoping for some kind of presentational innovation that would have helped there. Could be a case for playing around with Ren'py's speech bubble functionality, for instance. Just spitballing here, but it did feel like a limitation of the medium the game couldn't conceive a way to overcome.
I think your prose has improved from the last game of yours I read, and there are plenty of fun lines ("Nostalgia may be a drug that keeps us going, but there is also such a thing as overdose"). You do feel the language barrier, though, especially in how it affects the rhythm and the flow of the text. For example, consider this part: "I probably should have gone to the Alps. There, at least, screaming would not have been noticed by anyone with the mountains that high." There are a couple of filler words, and the structure kind of obscures the major point; I'd rewrite the latter line to something like "With mountains that high, at least nobody would have noticed me screaming." Even in the absence of objective errors, the writing doesn't always go for the most elegant grammatical structures, and ideas are sometimes reiterated on the sentence level ("Martin always feels compelled to flaunt his fortune in front of me every goddamn time he acquires a new machine" – "always" and "every [goddamn] time" convey the same thing).
Also, small detail, but the title didn't quite land for me – I get the connection to the story, but it feels too abstract in a sense and somewhat awkwardly phrased. Overall, I'd still say I had a pretty good time reading the VN; the premise is just too delightful.
P.S. though the storyline does sadly not concern the exploits of a young witch trying to solve the disappearance of her neighbor's cat in a small village in the Alps, the mountains are at least mentioned, making this one of the most adjacent works in the space?